Today has literally been a stressful and emotional day for me. Heck the whole week has been pretty blah. Emma had 3 days of trying out full day preschool! I hadn't heard anything the 1st day she went so in my mind all was going well. Well, I was half right. I got a fun phone call today from Emma's half day teacher. It was a speaker call with a couple other teachers. They told me she had her ups and downs. I come to find out that she was being forced to use the stairs everytime they had to go upstairs instead of using the elevator. Last week her PT and I had agreed that during this trial she would only use the stairs once per day and the elevator the rest of the time. Then I find out that "oh, the elevator has been broke all week." "Um what???" Well no wonder my daughter wasn't fully cooperative. She was exhausted from using the steps so much in one day. She can do these steps but to do them a bunch in one day was a lot for her. That's why we had agreed only once a day. Then they tell me she was being bossy with another student asking them to get her something because she didn't want to get up and get it. Again, that was because she was exhausted.
So after all that was said, they came to a decision that Emma wasn't ready for a full day class with 20 students. They decided she would be better in a 6 and 6 class which is a class with 6 "regular" students and 6 students with disabilities. Well for her to have this type of program, guess what? She has to switch schools. I'm like great, we had enough troubles deciding on this school for her. So we have a decision to make before her next IEP meeting on April 11th. We were given 2 school choices. One has the same school hours as the school she is in. The other has a later start time of 830 and goes until 3. Well I think I'm going to go with the one where the hours are the same.
Why do I wanna keep her on the same school hours? Well, that's another story. My older daughter goes to another school where the time is 9:10-3:30. I called today and found out since we live too far from the school, she is not eligible for transportation. I thought that was dumb as fuck. Kayla will be going into 4th grade next year. I've grown to love her school and the teachers and the principal and vice principal. Everyone is great so I don't want to switch schools for her. Emma will have transportation no matter what because of her disability.
All day I was back and forth with my emotions. I was mad, sad, you name it. I'm mad because I wasn't given a phone call to inform me that the elevator was broken all week. I'm not the only parent at the school with a child with a disability. There are kids there in wheel chairs. What did those kids do this whole week? were those parents notified of the non working elevator? If so, why wasn't I given the same courtesy. I wouldn't have minded doing the full day another week. Then I was upset knowing I have to go through the whole pick a new school and get to know new people thing. I almost feel like Emma wasn't given a fair chance to show that she could handle things. She was robbed of that all because o the fucking elevator. Yes, I am blaming that one thing for this whole evaluation. It will be brought up at her IEP meeting in April. I feel like they just want to pass her along to someone else because maybe they decided they couldn't handle her. Maybe this is a good thing though. I didn't care much for that schools nurse. I mean what nurse needs a parent to come in and show her how to catheterize a child. Um, you should know how to do that. Yes i understand all kids are different but come on. That took time out of my day. I'm busy enough as it is.
Being a parent to a special needs child is tough at times. There are times where I just don't think I can do it, but I do. I know things will get back to some kind of normal at some point. I just hope we don't have to do the whole switch schools again after she does this 6 and 6 program because then I will be questioning this schooling system and pulling Emma from it and doing the home school thing.
I'm going to take these next couple of weeks and write out a bunch of questions for the meeting and just go from there. I'm sure I'll end up getting pissed off again at the meeting but we'll see.
Thanks for listening to a mom vent. It's been a long day with questioning my angels future.
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