Team….

I've been to my fair share of school teams over the last two years. Funny enough, I didn't even really know what they were until Ben needed one in third grade. For a little while, I had three kids with them, now I'm down to two since private schools don't do written educational accommodations.

Some people find teams stressful and combative… honestly, I really don't. My kids are pretty squared away and have wonderful supports all around from school personnel who are very familiar with us at this point. I have always felt like we were working together to help my kids. So usually it's a pretty nice discussion and check-in on how the boys are doing academically. I usually enjoy them because it's an opportunity for extra facetime with teachers that you otherwise don't get.  The only one I ever found really stressful was the one I had to go to at a different school to make sure Jonathan kept his Infants and Toddlers services. But all the ones at our elementary school are actually really pleasant, for the most part.

For those who don't know, a team is where you sit around a conference room table, generally with your child's current teacher(s), the assistant principal, the guidance counselor (in most cases), the school psychologist (in most cases), and any other ancillary staff who are involved or should be involved with your child's learning… OT, speech pathologists, special educators….

Yesterday, I had back-to-back teams for Simon and Jonathan. Simon's was simple and straight-forward. He has had an IEP (individualized Educational Plan) in place since last year, so this was just to sign-off on some updates to that. They decreased his special educator time, which is where he gets pulled from the classroom for extra help.  Some people would fight this just to fight it, but we were okay with it since he is doing very well this year and doesn't need it… our chief concern was keeping the plan in place should he need it down the road. There had been some talk a month ago about bumping him down to a 504-Plan, which is no special educator time and only accommodations for learning differences like ADHD -- usually preferential seating, extra time on tests, permission to type assignments… that sort of thing.  We are happy they allowed us to keep the IEP for now because these are more easily enforced. 504-Plans are a bit of a crap-shoot and depend on how much time and effort a teacher wants to put in.

After Simon's, I had Jonathan's, which was also really just an IEP-update, but slightly more complicated. His special educator wanted to up her time working with him at his preschool since we had dropped his county group a little while back.  However, she and I had talked and she wanted to use some of the team time to try to lay the groundwork for adding speech services for pragmatic (conversational) speech before the end of the school year in an effort to allow him to keep his IEP next year in kindergarten.  Otherwise, he will lose it because, long story short, kids whose IEPs are strictly for social reasons, as Jonathan's is, can't keep them once they turn 5. This likely won't be doable, and he'll end up with a 504-Plan, which is what I'm expecting and we're okay with… but it doesn't hurt to try.

His team consisted of the guidance counselor, his special educator, the speech pathologist, the OT, and a kindergarten teacher. The kindergarten teachers are randomly assigned to Pre-K teams and, thinking ahead, I requested the one who knows us. That move worked out well…. we ended up having a very productive and helpful discussion about whether even sending him next year is the right decision.

This particular kindergarten teacher leans toward a pretty solid "no" in general for boys with later birthdays….I've talked with her several times since last year as we've weighed our decision….but by the end of the team, everyone, including her, had decided sending him would be the right move, securing him the services he would need (more than if we held him back), plus his test scores show he is more than ready academically.  The only issue I see is his writing, which is still age appropriate, but the OT said she will be able to keep an eye on and continue to work with him if I send him, but won't be able to if I don't.

OY.  Who knew this would be such a hard decision? It's really nice to have a room full of people to bounce all the pros and cons off of though and help decide what's best.

We go back to in May to lay out kindergarten plans and either rewrite his IEP (unlikely) or transition to a 504. (very likely)

I never realized what a full-time job the school part of having kids could/would be!