They can do whatever they want

The school district can. Apparently. They can relocate your school to the moon, and it's not a "placement" change that violates the IEP. It's just a change of "location." Location and placement are not the same thing. So I've been told by the WA State Special Education Ombudsman (that word is just weird, always thought so.) It is also okay for the school to announce that your entire school (lock, stock, and barrel) is closing via a brief, vague mention in a newsletter stuffed inside your child's backpack: school is closing, you will receive your child's new school location sometime in August. That's it. No mailing, no details. I did, however, know about the school closing already. But many parents did not. Like the many who don't speak English (the newsletter was in English only), and the ones who didn't see the note in the backpack. On the last day I asked another parent from AKA's class if she had heard about the school closing, and that her kid would be relocated to a to-be-determined elementary school in the Fall. She had not heard any of this. So it appears their secret mission to pull this off is working nicely. (Most kids are bussed in, so contacting parents one by one to join our campaign to stop the closure wasn't possible.) Despite the hell that I (and other parents, paraeducators, concerned citizens) tried to raise. They will be breaking up the entire school roster into 3 groups, and relocating them to rooms inside 3 different elementary schools. So, it won't be like an early childhood center located at one district elementary school like some districts have. There will be no early childhood center at all. These 3-5 year old special needs preschoolers will have to share facilities and operations with elementary school-age kids. No more tiny potties. No more tiny tables and chairs. No more age appropriate playground equipment. No more diaper changing tables (many are not potty trained, hence their dev. delays). The district claims this is better, in order to be "least restrictive," which is the federal law. Unfortunately the federal law does not account for age in its demand that special ed services be inclusive. Preschool is too young for inclusion! Duh! That's why it's called PRE-school! Even typically developing preschoolers are not mixed with school-age kids in elementary kids, because public education does not begin at preschool....because they aren't old enough to attend elementary school yet!!! Just seems obvious to me.

It's the lack of planning that outrages me, and the secrecy. My injustice sensors are on full alert over this. We're talking about blind, Downs, autistic, developmentally delayed, etc. very young children who have no voice, in a poor, underfunded district with the majority of non-English speakers, low income, etc families. So of course, politicians (the school board) sees this group as the easiest to take from.

Now they know autism is not mental retardation

I saw an interesting explanation for the dramatic increase in autism diagnoses--it was that other diagnoses, like mental retardation, were mistakenly attributed to autistics. I can see how could have happened, back before expanding knowledge and research about autism. My daughter comes across as "slow" and maybe mentally handicapped at first glance, because of her wild behavior, poor social skills, and delayed expressive/receptive language. However, cognitively, she is advanced. She's got the whole pre-math checklist for Kindergarten in 2012 nailed already. She's known the alphabet since she was 2 and now beginning to try to read. She's crazy observant and brilliant with problem solving. But she can't do a back and forth conversation, and shows both joy and frustration by shrieks and screams and flails and all sorts of nonverbal extreme behavior. I can see how she would be mistaken for "slow" and then once she's labeled that way, there goes her chance for progress.

That's one thing that bugs me about her special ed preschool program. It's not designed for autism. They don't acknowledge anyone's medical diagnosis. Everyone is there because of one or more areas of the evaluation where they fell short of the benchmark. In our case it was speech and sensory/social. And that's what they are working on, and the academic curriculum seems to only be designed for those who tested below cognitive standards.

For instance, the speech therapist was showing off to me one day what my daughter can do. She held up a picture of a dinosaur and asked her what color it is.

"Green," my daughter said automatically--because she has known the dozen or so basic colors since she was 2! Besides barnyard animal sounds, colors were the first words she could really say with any coherence. So, the speech therapist was excited she knew the color green, at age 3 1/2...and it makes me wonder what else they are "teaching" her that she has already known forever, when she could be moving on to other things.

However, it's a great way for her to get private speech and OT; group speech and OT; and, classroom time, all at the same time, under the same roof. And for free. So, not really complaining here. Just concerned she's getting what she needs, as usual.

Advocating, advocating, and more advocating.