School program cancelled for next year

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I just got the call.

The specialized program that has made middle school just tolerable for my son has been cancelled for next year.

Details are thin, but it sounds like the team of outside pros is being replaced by a single person on staff. They will be lumping together people with all varieties of behavioral issues (e.g., chronic violent outbursts) and people with developmental disorders and learning disabilities.

I guess we have to wait and see but I am going to start planning for home schooling now.

I don't really know how to handle this. I feel betrayed by the system.

Adamantium, I am very sorry.

Are they redoing the IEP?

How can one person possibly do all that? Have they found someone who is a psychologist, an occupational therapist, a speech therapist, etc. etc. etc.? Wow, what a talented person! Must have a time machine, too, to have time to be everything to everyone.

What an awful situation. Could you insist they bus him to another school, since they are no longer able to provide him a FAPE?

Is your school really small? At our middle school, that would amount to more than 50 kids per grade - way more than the state mandated max number even for a regular classroom. Plus all the skills sets that would need to be present in one teacher, as mentioned above. I'm sorry for the loss of services. As I don't live in NJ, I have no idea what other resources would be available to you.

If you can afford a pit-bull advocate, I'd find one ASAP. If the new program doesn't meet what is currently specified in his IEP, you might have a shot at getting him moved to a non-public school or a program in another district. A well connected advocate should know what else is out there.

That sounds like a really risky and lousy idea.

In zen-like fashion, any way you might use this as an occasion and opportunity to contact the other parents,

and maybe get something going, perhaps even this summer, unconnected to the school?


PS Please note, I am not a parent. But I do live my life on the Spectrum, comfortably self-diagnosed, and care about other people on the Spectrum. And yes, I well remember my school days.

I am starting to think I misunderstood the first post. Adamantium, does this mean that your son would be stuck in a class, all day with all the SPED kids all day?

I first thought you were referring to the oversight aspect which would be undertaken by a SPED generalist, and that they were having said non-specialized person half-a** all the therapies for everyone -- which sounded bad enough) I assumed your son would still be mainstreamed during the bulk of the day.

Yikes!

He is mainstreamed. He has special classes once a day and eats lunch in the program room instead of the cafeteria. He has a few other regular activities in the program. But the program is also a place he can go whenever he is overwhelmed and he has been taught to forestall meltdowns by getting out of the situation and taking refuge in a particular room in the program.

The reality is that some of the kids who have been his regular antagonists are also in the program. If they are to be lumped together in the new system it will be worse than no program at all. Supposedly, the school district has hired someone new to replace the program staff, but I do think it is ONE person. And the fact that they are informing us that one program is over without giving us any detail about the replacement does not inspire confidence.

I misunderstood your first post -- for some reason I thought he was in a special day class for high-functioning kids. Scratch my advice about looking at non-public schools and other districts.

Yeah, I knew your son was mainstreamed, that was part of why I was confused as to what you meant.

So, it sounds like the place that is supposed to be his safe place, would basically turn into the place with the antagonists. Bad.

If it were just a matter of his calming place you could maybe get it swapped out in his IEP, with another room like the library (assuming once in a calm place, he could self-calm or if they had someone there who was qualified to help him.)

However, if he has a class a day in there, that sounds very destabilizing.

I also think the fact that they are springing this at the very end of this year means that they are going to fill in the blanks during the summer, and the details won't be known until the fall. That is not giving him nearly enough time to know what is going to happen and adjust, if what they come up with is even workable.

Sorry I am not a fount of optimism. It just sounds like a very unworkable plan. I don't even understand how one person would have all the necessary knowledge. Anyone we had to deal with who was a SPED generalist, 1st grade and up, was almost as bad and sometimes worse than the people with no SPED training b/c they did not individualize their conceptions at all. Anyone worth anything had some kind of specialized experience in ASD as a necessary but not sufficient element of their background.

Yeah.. I am going to shut up now, b/c I am making this sound worse...

What were they doing in the class he attended once a day? What kind of outside specialists were they using? Were the other kids who antagonize him supported in a different class?

Is this the result of a budget issue? Have they explained why they are pulling a structure that you found effective?

Jeez is this 1991? That sounds like something they used to do before there was inclusion and my parents got me out of that program because it wasn't helping me. All it did was made me act out and be more inappropriate.

Sorry it sounds like you are about to get screwed by corner-cutting in the public school system.

God forbid the Board of Education should take a pay cut to continue funding services for the kids, right??

Sorry. OK, bitter social commentator off now.

Bug the snot out of them-- get more information. Tell them you need the information to help smooth Dear Child's transition; if that doesn't work, tell them you need the information to help you make a decision about your course of action.

And yeah-- It sounds like it's time to head to the homeschool drawing board.

Hugs and prayers-- Having to head to the homeschool drawing board always causes such an unsettling mix of apprehension, enthusiasm, and outright helpless terror in my house!! ! We've gratefully put that easel away for the time being...

I don't remember all the specifics of your situation. Looking into an online public school option might help; I know the thought that K12 is there if we get too desperate usually at least slows my pulse rate and beats back the panic attack.

Have you considered taking this as opportunity for your son to completely mainstream?