Our fork in the road...I know which path to take now

Now for the high points of my morning. I visited our neighborhood school.

1) The principal at this school came from the special education world.

2) I also found out that the school psychologist we worked with at the time of verification is operating from that grade school. This is a huge plus because I will have a familiar face and a great resource to turn to if JP is having issues.

3) I was also pleased with the classroom we visited. It really was very comparable to the preschool he is currently doing fairly well in.

I have to admit that I am nervous about kindergarten. I hear NT families talking about how advance the curriculum is and how much their kids struggle to keep up. In the good old days all we had to do was recite our ABCs to graduate to 1st grade. Now they read in kindergarten!

I was relieved to see that the sight words they have already learned are many of the words JP already has. I keep telling myself that his precociousness with letters and reading will make it easier for him to keep up. Since he won't have to learn the academics he can focus on learning the procedures and the social skills. It would just be too overwhelming to have to catch up on all of it at once!

We also visited a "multi-cat" room. What I saw was a much smaller group of children doing the exact same curriculum but it was adapted to their needs. On the good side, both classrooms were reading the exact same book. However the discussion was dramatically different. And that is fine. That is how it needs to be. But I feel that with JP the curriculum isn't the issue but rather his ability to attend to the curriculum. No, this room is not where he needs to be.

Ultimately, I feel that if we don't try the regular ed Kindergarten I will always question if he could have done it. I truthfully believe that he can. If we give it a go and it doesn't work than we can always back up and find more resources for him. But we won't know if we don't try!

I think the school and I are already in agreement about this placement. I just need to get my ducks in a row before our meeting so that we can get all the needed supports in writing. It is my job to advocate. I guess I am just going to have to start making my list of needs and hope they don't become "demands"!