Whatever It Is, It's Working!

Two nights ago, Wexford Elementary held their spring open house. This is the school Sean is now a first grader at. Before I go any further though about the night, I feel like I should give you some background as how we got to here in the first place...

We just brought our family to Wexford in October. For nearly five years before that we owned a cute little house on a corner lot in Brentwood. It was a tiny little house, but it had a great fenced-in backyard, you could walk to everything, and it had what we thought it was a great school district. In all honesty Brentwood Borough School District is a very good school district....unless you have a child with special needs.

We had no complaints at all sending Braden to Elroy Elementary in Brentwood for kindergarten, first, and second grade. Then two things happened before the next school year began, when Braden was sent to enter third grade and Sean was set to enter kindergarten.

First, the family of Braden's best friend suddenly pulled him out of Elroy and put him in a charter school in a neighboring school district. The child was prone to seizures and had learning disabilities as a result, but the mother seemed very hesitant to say anything bad about Elroy when every other child on the street was still going there. You could tell though, she had a lot to say on the subject if she would allow herself to. And every administrator in Brentwood may have turned to dust if she would have let loose!

The second thing that happened was a mid-summer call I received from the principal of Elroy Elementary. I had made the district aware that we knew there were issues with Sean's behavior, and at the time we at least had a diagnosis of ADHD, so I figured I should get the process on any IEP or special education plans moving early. No such luck.

The principal told me straight out that Brentwood Borough School District does not provide any special education services to children with ADHD. They are just a part of the regular curriculum. I thought it was strange, but figured there was nothing I could do.

Fast forward to the actual school year. Phone calls and e-mails started coming home from the principal, Sean's teacher, even the school social worker. His behavior was disruptive, he was a nightmare to deal with in the classroom, he was getting school demerits. But even then, no help or solutions were offered. Not long after that I found out Sean was getting bullied by the other kids in class...IN KINDERGARTEN! The school didn't tell me though, I found out because Sean was so upset in class he started making himself throw up every day just so he could come home. That's when I forced the wraparound care into his classroom.

The first BSC and TSS didn't succeed in keeping Sean in line at school, but at least they kept the bullies away. When I switched to Alliance Health Wraparound though, got the Asperger's diagnosis, and brought more experienced people into the classroom, the problems suddenly stopped. Elroy was suddenly dealing with a Sean who cooperated during class and excelled academically. Things went pretty smoothly for the rest of the school year...well, except for that one instance where Sean had one bad day, had a meltdown, and the school threatened to call the cops on him. Yes, you read that correctly, they wanted to call the police on a kindergarten child having a tantrum!

I thought for sure with the Asperger's diagnosis, and the improvement the school saw when good help was in place, that Brentwood would give us an IEP for sure the next school year. After all, it's state law that special education be provided to children on the Autism spectrum, right?

Yeah, that didn't happen.

We had a meeting over the summer with the district, the principal of the school, and Sean's counselors. Long story short, school officials told us that since Sean didn't meet the district's criteria of special education, that they could circumvent the state law and not give Sean any help. We were also told they did not want a BSC or TSS in the school to help Sean, and that they would not provide an aide either. Their acutal words to BJ and I were that they wanted to "let him go by himself, and if we feel he gets bad enough in class, then we might do something about it." We reported back to the agencies in charge of Sean's care. They already knew our house was on the market in case we didn't get the district to help us, and they told us to get Sean out of that school as soon as possible. The next day, I registered both Braden and Sean for the 2010-11 school year in Pine Richland School District.

We found a place to rent and moved here October 1st, which means for the first five weeks of the school year, Braden and Sean were driven to school and back every day, a total of 4 hours in the car Monday-Friday. Many of Emma's naps were cut short, my car was filled with snacks, and my gasoline expenses were outrageous, but after what I heard this past Wednesday evening, it was all worth it...

The second Sean set foot in the district, the special education and psych teams were on the case evaluating him. He not only had an IEP by the end of September, but a behavioral plan and occupational therapy plan in place as well. He was also put on a "sensory diet," meaning they figured out what times in the day Sean gets agitated and what kinds of things set him off, and they made him take breaks, pulled him out of class, and did whatever they had to do to keep him calm and happy the entire school day. His classmates rallied around him, and now he proudly tells us that all 24 kids are his best friends.

Back to present day! Sean happily took me from room to room at Wexford Elementary, where he is now a happy first grader. We met his music teacher, his art teacher, his computer teacher, said hello to his homeroom teacher, who I am now on a friendly first-name basis with, and the paraprofessional in charge of Sean the most during the day. Every last one pulled me aside to tell me how much Sean has improved since the beginning of the school year, how intelligent he is, and what a joy he is to have in the school. They truly adore Sean, and were so happy he was thriving in every aspect of school.

I never used to be much of a cryer, but I find myself with tears in my eyes a lot lately. Between all of our fundraising efforts to help Sean get Sophia, and the awesome progress Sean has made in school, I'm a happy mess. Not sure what exactly in our many facets of efforts is helping Sean the most, but whatever it is, it's working!!!