Transition From Small Voices to ?

Here are some pictures, a few months old of Holly at her current "School" Small Voices.It is a parent participation early intervention, center based program. We attend three times a week for two hours.For the last 5 months Holly has had mostly drop-off attendance where I stay a few minutes and then once she is settled leave her at School.Prior to leaving her we were there for about 5 months, and then began working on the transition. It was a really slow process, but she was comfortable with all the teachers and had made friends.A few months back we began our transition to the public education system and over the last several months the school district has been evaluating Holly for services. I was lucky enough to have her IEP 1 month prior to her third Birthday.I was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly the IEP Process went. The evaluators were very open to listening to Holly;s current teacher's and service providers, took there input, evaluations, and comments to heart and had there eyes open when observing Holly.Ultimately a few conclusions were made. Holly is extremely bright, her Test Scores for cognitive Ability were average to above average in most areas. She also takes intervention well and had made great progress with her current providers. When taught she is like a sponge and absorbs all that is given her, thus has many above age range skills.However, this is in a testing environment and when she is observed in a group setting she presents very differently. Her skill sets appear at a 30-40 percent delay, she has a lack of focus and attention. She does not attend to activities and is easily distracted she flits from item to item, she is sensory seeking while also easily overwhelmed and deals with anxiety, she needs centering and proprioceptive and vestibular input on a reoccurring basis to maintain any type of focus, she does not pick up on social ques easily from other kids and left to her own devices does not learn new skills when they are not show. She needs a high level of continual adult intervention to be successful in a learning environment.These were the things I was afraid the evaluators would miss, as they are all so easily masked by her eagerness to please, her willingness in a testing environment to complete high level novel tasks and follow simple instructions when she has several adults attending her, including Mommy. Luckily the evaluators saw right through her and listened.To that end the school district decided to take a very proactive approach in hopes that as she got older she would excel in a mainstream environment, so as we transition we were offered both OT and Speech two times a week as well as consult hours. We were also offered PT until the end of the school year (June) to then be re-evaluated for next Fall based on how she does, in addition to consult hours. We were offered Extended School year and an Integrated Classroom.We agreed with all of the placement recommendations and services offered, but there in lies the rub. The classroom in the ideal situation has 8 Typically developing kids and 7 kids with an IEP of similar function levels to Holly. Several of her goals orient around speech, attention in a group setting and social interaction. This type of classroom would have a Special Ed Teach, a low Student to Adult Ration and be a great transition for Holly from Small Voices.However, all of the classroom as filled, as it is March and the school year ends in 3 months. Of course they are required to place her, but due to unions and whatnot, they can not add her into an already filled class. So they started a new class. This class however does not have any typically developing kids as there are none to enroll. It also right now only has 4 kids in total.The teacher is new to the district, and has most recently been teaching much older children, and while she does have 10 years of experience in Special Ed, She has only taught kindergarten and never pre-school before. When I visited the classroom she had only been there for less then a week.But there was no schedule, no routine, no structure, no aid. and the classroom having been left empty the whole school year had been pillaged by others for the last several months so it was in a state of disarray. In Addition Holly's IEP talks a lot about her need to get sensory breaks and fill those sensory needs, but the School District does not allow swings, and there was only one small terribly worn trampoline in a courtyard, with no handle and a rocking chair for her to use, but with no classroom aid, and built in structure little opportunity for her to utilize what little equipment they had. And again none of it was in the class itself.Her school day will be 5 days a week from 8:45-12:45 which is 20 hours. This is also a big change for us. Right now on a good day we get to school by 9:45 and she is only there until 11:309, so not only will our day need to start about an hour earlier, but the day will eventually last two hours longer. At this time I plan to continue with Swim and Gym on Friday's and skip school, so we will only attend 4 days a week.But 16 hours from 6 is a big change, and though I plan on taking it slow and spending lots of time with her in school for several weeks, its a long day for her. She is not yet Potty Trained and she is a very picky eater and she will have a lot less structure then she is used to in Small Voices. It will be very different.I have so many changes to think about. bedtime for example, if we plan on getting up earlier she needs to be asleep before 10:30, but Daddy doesn't get home from work until 7:00 so that is a lot less time she gets to spend with him. Also Naps, right now she takes them most days around 3:00-5:00 but that is way too late for a bedtime of lets say 8:00pm. So the question is whether we decided to skip naps all together.Perhaps at 1:00 when she gets home from school she will be ready to nap right away and then we can do afternoon play dates, maybe that's what we should do until the Fall, and then when it starts getting dark earlier at like 5 skip naps and go to bed early. It is really hard to tell and know what will be best until we are in the middle of it so I will have to play it by ear, but not having a plan makes it very hard on me and makes me nervous.Also back to her school day. I talked with another Special Ed Preschool teacher, the one I know through friends and other parents, the one I know has been doing preschool for 20 years and is so very highly recommended and she basically told me, Holly is a big girl now. and unlike a toddler program (small voices) most pre-school programs do not have as much structure. At Small Voices they had structured transitions and activities every 20 minutes or so with clear clean up time and transition times between each.While there are some structured opportunities like circle time and lunch the first hour of the day is open play. She did tell me that sometimes there are facilitated activities with adults to help out with-in that hour to help kids move from one activity to another, but that time is structured much less. This particular teach will ring a bell after each section of time for clean up and transition and there is a posted schedule. So I am hoping that once Holly's teacher gets her feet on the ground and settled she will also institute some of these things.My sister tells me that it will be a time for Holly to learn to cope and be more independent and I have to let go a little bit, but it is hard, as I have seen how much she strives in a more structured environment when she knows what to expect next and can follow a routine. While her classroom at this point is not ideal We technically agree with the placement of an integrated room and other then finding a private preschool and having them fund that or staying in small voices which is only 6 hours a week, we don;t have many options.I plan to make the best of it though, the thought being that it is a temporary placement and the teacher is new and excited so i am sure after a month of getting things together it will be a lot more flexible, I also plan on spending a lot of time helping out in the classroom so hopefully that will make a difference, and honestly I can buy a rocker from ikea for 10$ and a Sit and Spin from Target for 25$ so if I need to get these things for her class I will.I visited on a second day, a Monday morning and surprisingly things were much calmer. There were four kids on this day, one a little girl who is 5 and going to Kindergarten in the fall. She was very verbal and tried to play with Holly, there was also a substitute aid there which seemed to make a difference.I think part of the problem with going to school somewhere else would be to balance that out with her getting all of her services, in addition none of the private pre-schools have openings, wait lists at some are a year and at others they might only have an opening of 10 kids with 500 applicants and it is a lottery, plus most only take kids in September. The ones that I could likely get her into would be home based and more like daycare which i don;t need, and aren't much better. So I have dedicated myself into making the Public School better. I have already attended a parent governance council meeting and become involved with the various parent groups in the districtI also think my reputation proceeds me, so I will be active, involved, and I am not afraid to make waves when needed. I feel like it will be a year of many changes, I am not sure if we are completely ready for them all, but we will certainly be jumping in head first.To tell you the truth, while I am even a little scared of regression over the 5 week summer break as a stay at home mom who doesn;t need to worry about child care for that time, I am kinda even looking forward to the break. Early morning playdates, long afternoons at the parkFrequent visits to the beach and the pool, I think that we will have so much fun over the summer break that I will be sad and miss Holly in september when she has to start school back up again.She is growing up really fast. in exactly 2 weeks she will be 3 years old, a pre-schooler. She has changed so much in even the last month, she talks so much now, every day she does new things. She tells me thank you and I love you, she has little rituals and mischevious schemes. I adore her and being her mom and watching her grow up is a blessing.

Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4dUcGFAmK8
Its another day at School Holly and Citali are swinging on the platform swing.