First Grader In The House! First Week Of School

Sweet Pea, all dressed in her navy blue pants and white collared polo is over shadowed by her enormous new pink and orange polka dotted backpack with matching lunch bag. The lunch bag contained a thermos filled with Indian chana masala and rice, champagne grapes, pretzles/banana/chocolate chip trail mix, and water. Before leaving the house I quickly grabbed some glitter decorated orange colored construction paper from our craft box and scribbled “We love you so much! Mama, Daddy and Cordie” and stuffed it in her lunchbox. I hoped some kind adult or older kid would read her the note during lunch.

We arrived early to find parking in the little residential neighborhood filled with cute homes and cottage gardens. Sweet Pea isn’t nervous at all and surprisingly I’m not either as we (me, daddy, baby sister, nana, and sweet pea) approach the entry way of her new school. Excited yes, nervous no.

Preparation - Seneca Center and Montessori Orientation

In the weeks leading up to Sweet Pea’s first week of first grade I was busy chatting with the third-party provider that was going to be delivering sweet pea’s OT, ST and Adaptive PE services. Going to a charter school that was approved by our local county meant that they would contract out special ed services to a third-party organization called Seneca Center. The director of the organization is a curly haired woman with kind eyes. I met with her and the charter school’s director of instruction earlier this summer to discuss sweet pea and her IEP service plan. I was expecting them to bring the mounds of paperwork in sweet pea’s file and instead it was a lot less formal and humanizing experience. The curly haired lady with kind eyes had come prepared having read sweet pea’s IEP but without the intimidating mountain of paperwork present, we were able to connect as people. I was grateful for the experience.

In addition to the meeting and a few email exchanges with Seneca, sweet pea was able to attend a 5 day Montessori summer orientation 2 weeks before the beginning of the school year. This was an invaluable experience for both of us. I was able to briefly get acquainted with sweet pea’s new teachers and sweet pea was able to ease into a new routine at her new school. By the third day of summer orientation, sweet pea turned to me spontaneously during breakfast and said “I like my new school.” My heart did 3 back flips and I ran from our kitchen to the table to give her a high five. Yay! Needless to say, the rest of the orientation went smoothly.

Monkey Bars and Hand Strength

When I came to pick her up each day sweet pea, her baby sister and I would spend sometime playing on the school play structure. It gave us an opportunity to meet other families. Sweet pea especially liked trying to master hanging from the monkey bars. Her little arms aren’t quiet long enough to swing from bar to bar but I hold her as she makes her attempts. The play structure also has one monkey bar that’s low to the ground for her to hang independently and this intrigues her too. For kids like sweet pea with hypotonic hands, hanging from the bar helps to improve hand strength – a total bonus for writing. Love, love, love the play structure and sweet pea feels comfortable navigating her way down the slide among a lot of other kids much bigger than herself. Last year she used to hang out in a little protected plastic bubble content to watch her classmates run and play. This year she’s more adventurous – she runs, climbs, and slides.

Formal IEP Meeting Request

When transitioning to a new school in a different district, the new school has 30 days to present a new IEP service plan. Services are supposed to continue as closely as possible to the IEP service plan from the former school but in our case, the match isn’t perfect. Sweet pea is going from a special day class to an inclusion setting so her classroom environment alone is a huge change in services. We knew that of course by switching schools but the other add-on services such as ST, OT, and Adaptive PE is a big question mark.

I wanted sweet pea’s first day of school to be unfettered with my special ed questions so I waited until the end of the day to send an email to her service provider and teachers requesting an IEP. ;-) Sweet pea’s daddy was able to print out our formal request so that I could bring it to school on the second day. In the letter, we asked to see the offer of services 5 days prior to the IEP, we asked that the teachers, resource specialist, SLP, OT, adaptive PE, assistive tech and principal attend, and we offered a few times that would work for us to meet. In preparation for the IEP meeting, I also asked for the following:

1. Schedule a time to observe sweet pea in the classroom setting during “work period” and PE.
2. Tour the music and design studios to check for accessibility issues.
3. Review sample lessons for academic subjects as well as music, design, and PE. This information is helpful in determining what type of accommodations and modifications need to be made (if any) so that sweet pea can access the learning environment.
4. Meet with the classroom teachers and resource specialist to discuss sweet pea’s strengths, weaknesses, strategies for learning, ask and answer any questions.
5. Exchange contact info and schedule a brief introductory phone call with SLP, OT, and Adaptive PE

Once I delivered our formal request, the new school has 30 days to meet with us.

Since the request, I’ve met with the part-time resource specialist which will also be our case manager. She and I chatted for an hour and a half. During the conversation she shared with me her observations of sweet pea in the classroom (all good) and that sweet pea has already met with the OT. For the time being, OT will push in instead of pull out for the weekly 30 min session with sweet pea. I’m cool with that as long as sweet pea stays engaged. Pushing in also allows the OT, who is new to Montessori, to observe and learn about this “untraditional” setting.

Overall, the wheels are starting to crank and in the meantime, sweet pea especially likes lunch, library corner and the secret sitting spot, art, and making new friends (two boys named J and H). She’s also given two enthusiastic thumbs up for her new teachers which is a huge relief.

Hope Blooms Here