This morning, we finally got everyone together to make some decisions regarding Ryan's full transition to school at H.J. Lassaline. It's been a LONG process.
At today's meeting we had the school board's special education coordinator (SEC) for our family of schools; the school principal; the school's learning support services teacher (LSST); Ryan's classroom teacher; Ryan's senior therapist (ST) from Summit Centre; and me (Mom).
Two people were new to me. I think the school has a new LSST this year because I don't remember meeting her before or seeing her in one of my meetings for the boys. But the other new face was quite the surprise to me. Apparently, Ryan got a new classroom teacher about 3 weeks ago, and nobody bothered to tell me! I know changes frequently happen with staffing in the first month of school, but geez . . . It would've been nice to know Ryan had a new teacher (Mrs. B) and to have gotten a chance to meet her before the transition meeting. Any-who . . .
The big news is, we have an official start date for full-time kindergarten: Monday, November 2. That means Ryan's last day at Summit Centre will be Friday, October 30. Coincidentally, Summit Centre will be having their Halloween party that afternoon. Ryan's last few hours there will be spent doing festive activities with his therapists and classmates. What a fun way to end his time at Summit!
Goodness, it's going to be bitter-sweet.
I was a little worried they weren't going to settle on a date because his ST was hesitating, but the school was really pushing to get an answer. They actually wanted him October 26, but his ST wanted a little more time to come up with some strategies for the school. When we all agreed on November 2, and his ST pointed out it was about 2 weeks away, I suddenly got a bit emotional. It didn't help that we had been reminiscing a few minutes before about how he's been there almost 3 years and how he was "such a little guy" when we started there for Unity. And then the ST had to say, "His team will be so sad when they find out he only has 2 weeks left . . ." Well, that about did me in. I was fighting tears and the principal could tell I was about to lose it; she smiled so kindly and kept reassuring me, "He's ready. I know, it's a big change, but he's ready." I explained that I was fine; it was just overwhelming finally having a target date. It made it finally feel real.
The Plan
The plan is to have Ryan go straight to full day, every day at school starting November 2. If we have major issues with transition, we might shorten his days a bit and work him back up, but we're not anticipating any problems. This is why we took over a year to transition him. He started JK in late September last year, doing 2 days a week, and that has continued until now.
The SEC said he will have the school board's Autism team in to see Ryan and work with his teachers as soon as possible after he starts full time. Ryan's plan will be built on a basis of structured learning with some flexibility built in. The focus will be on socialization with an emphasis on transition times, as well, because he has a hard time dealing with those. At this point he does not have a formal IEP (Individualized Education Plan) because a) most kindergartners in our board don't get one due to b) the fact that socialization is the major goal for all of them anyways and c) they don't feel Ryan needs a safety or behaviour plan at this point.
I was a bit concerned about this, but the SEC reassured me Ryan will definitely have an IEP for next year (grade 1). In fact, they will probably take a lot of what they're doing at the end of this year and formalize it in June as part of next year's IEP. Either way, he will get his formal IEP early in grade 1. They have to do it within the first month or so of school.
In terms of Summit Centre's involvement going forward, that got started today. After our transition meeting, they invited Ryan's ST to come to the classroom to observe Ryan and answer some of his educational assistants' (EAs) questions. At the end of the day, his EA told me their meeting with his ST "was very helpful" and "gave us a good idea of some useful activities and direction for Ryan's program." The EA was pleased to discover that "everyone is on the same page." Our ST is also going to come in with some strategies for them after Ryan starts full time. Daddy and I have agreed that we will pay to retain her services on a consultation basis for the three months after he is discharged from Summit Centre since we now know the school is quite willing to work with Summit and grateful for their expertise on Ryan's autism. They are going to try and work it so that Ryan's ST can work with the school board's autism specialists, too, to make Ryan's transition as smooth as possible.
The Teacher's Comments
The classroom teacher gave us a bit of a report on how he's been doing in the classroom. She's only been with him for about 6 days, since she's new and he's only there two days a week, but she had some good information for us.
- He uses his noise-cancelling headphones frequently to deal with the noise level in the classroom. Apparently, they have an "extremely busy" class, but he's been handling it well.
- They use a system of realistic pictures (not representations) they carry with them, on a ring, to help Ryan transition from one activity/place to the next during school.
- He has a quiet area in the classroom for him to go and relax when he gets overwhelmed. They carried this over from last year; it works well. It also appears that he is not getting upset as frequently or as loudly as he did last year.
- He will sit with the others at circle time. His spot is a bit larger than the others, to give him more personal space, and he does well.
- He will sit on the potty for them, but almost never goes pee at school. [No worries there; it's the same at home and Summit. It's all about increasing his comfort level and making it more routine.]
- Other students do come and work with Ryan.
- Ryan's interaction with peers still needs heavy direction. Kids regularly approach him, but they need the staff's assistance to continue the interaction and make it flow smoothly. [ST suggested Ryan may be more interested in physical forms of play with peers: tag, row-row your boat, patty cake. The problem is that Ryan is missing gym days right now--it's on the days he's at Summit--so he's not getting those opportunities for structured, physical play with the others. That will be remedied when he starts full time.]
***
So, there it is. When I said this transition has been a LONG process, I wasn't exaggerating. I looked back on the blog, and my first conversations with Ryan's ST about transitioning to kindergarten took place at the end of November 2013. The next step was him starting school (junior kindergarten) two days a week on September 22, 2014. Finally, he'll be starting senior kindergarten full time on November 2, 2015. That's almost 2 years of planning that it's taken us to get through this transition. Wow.
I'm ready for the next stage to begin. I look forward to Ryan being included in the class picture this year. I look forward to seeing more pictures of Ryan doing activities with his classmates on his class's private Instagram account. I look forward to Ryan being able to join in more field trips and celebrate more special school days with his brother, sister, and peers.
But I'm sad, too. I'm sad that we will miss out on all the special events at Summit Centre: like today, when the firefighters came to visit the kids and let them explore the firetruck. Or like Ryan's last day there: the annual Halloween party just for our little ones, with people who understand that some of them can't say "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you," and some of them aren't comfortable in costumes, and some of them won't eat candy, so they give them non-food treats. Summit has been our safety net, our tribe, our home, for almost 3 years.
Bitter-sweet. :')
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| The first picture of Ryan on his class's Instagram account. Taken this afternoon. Doing an apple-tasting activity with a friend and their EAs. Ryan tried all 4 kinds of apple. :) He looks like he's analyzing the flavours. ;) |
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