school placement

Transitioning from preschool to kindergarten should not be that big of a deal, or so one might think. But it seems that, at least in my school district (and we have a pretty good school district) there is a lack of communication between the preK and the 'regular' school system. For example, unknown to us each child is assessed by the school district to see if they need to attend a school that has a specific focus on helping children on the spectrum. None of this was disclosed to us and in fact the 'decision' was made with zero input from the teacher who had taught him for the past two years. She was not even in the classroom during the brief time our son was 'observed and assessed.'

Why is this important? Well, everyone we have met with recommended that our son attend on of the two schools that has an autism program. The assessment that took place without our knowledge (and without his teacher's input) however disqualified him to attend one of these schools on the basis of his PDD NOS diagnosis. In a sense the school administrators had decided he would attend his neighborhood school and receive any additional services needed there. But we were not informed of this, we were simply advised to enroll our child at one of the two specialized schools and to do so through 'school of choice.' We had no idea that there was a parallel means by which our son could have qualified for enrollment at a school that all the professionals with whom we had contact believed he should be attending.

Now it just so happens that this year is a bumper crop for new students enrolling in the district, which means that all the schools are full to the brim and beyond - and hence no room for a child trying to get into another school via 'school of choice' application. I had thought that the 'school of choice' mechanism was the only way in which students were assigned schools and so also (foolishly) assumed that my son would receive some sort of priority in getting assigned to a school that best fit his medical diagnosis - extra points, top of the list - who knows, but I thought there would be something. And there was... the invisible, parallel process of 'assessment' that was done without our knowledge or input.

Needless to say my wife and I raised a big stink. But due to the opacity of the process we only found out about this situation in early August (that is when the choice process is completed, at that point we were querying the various principals of the appropriate schools and one actually took the time to do the school district administration's job and explained this process to us. She gave us her personal cell phone and we discussed it over the weekend - true dedication!) We made a stink (in part due to the underhanded way we felt we had been treated, in part because the neighborhood school had done little to impress us that they truly understood our child's needs - they had had a reputation for bullying, no fence to prevent 'elopement' and other concerns).

Long story short, a team from the district convened to help put together then next IEP (again due very soon) and part of that process would be a complete evaluation that - who knows - might qualify our son to attend a school that had an autism program. No promises, and in fact, since the eval would take some time, our son would have to attend the neighborhood school or no school at all until the process was done. Again it seemed to us we were being railroaded, but at least we were getting some response now.

The principal of the neighborhood school (a recent import from another school district with grand designs to make the school a FranklinCovey 'leader in me' school - based on the writings of Steven Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People") was cordial but did not evince any particular understanding or interest in our son's situation. The person who would have been his kindergarten teacher showed even less interest. She did not even stay throughout the initial meeting convened by the district. We attempted to meet with her prior to the meeting (during school open-house as the suggestion of the principal) but she waved us off saying we could discuss these issues at the meeting she was going to duck out of! And I do have to say, for someone who got their start in special ed 12 years prior, I was shocked to hear her say she has never dealt with a kid on the spectrum... so we were not brimming with confidence concerning our neighborhood school.