So, um, IEP meeting...

It was interesting. Everyone was on the same page but the principal. She kept trying to blame this all on "lack of educational opportunity", and basically putting this off on the fact that we homeschooled last year. Then she said that the lack of educational opportunity also had to do with us moving. I said, "So you won't accept diagnosis on any military kid then? Because this is what their education history all looks like." I couldn't believe it. She was trying to blame me and Thak for the way Erin is, when she has been diagnosed TWICE now with multiple learning disabilities. Anyone who's ever met Erin knows she's obviously got learning disabilities. I FINALLY got them to schedule her speech evaluation, though. Everyone but the principal was all for it. Mr. M and the special ed teacher both backed me up on that one big time, so it wasn't a problem getting that pushed through. It had been before because the principal blamed Erin's speech on the fact that we homeschooled last year.

I just didn't know how scrutinized we'd be. It's not our fault that she is this way, and we do know our kid. Anyone who's ever met her knows that she's always been delayed. She's always had really strange speech, and anyone who's ever taught her knows that she doesn't learn like other kids due to very well defined holes in her ability to process information. The principal asked Mr. M if Erin had improved at all during the course of the year so far, and of course he said yes, because it's true, but I don't think that negates the fact that she has these learning disabilities. It means that Mr. M is a good teacher, and he has a lot of time to work with each of his students, and that Erin is smart and can learn some things, but Mr. M also said that there are certain things that just plain do not happen when it comes to Erin. He mentioned that she has no awareness of phonics, and that she has a lack of ability to comprehend things short-term (read her a story about kids playing baseball, ask her what it's about, and she's just as likely to tell you something about a pet store). I think it if were up to him, the psychologist, and the special ed teacher, we'd have had our official staffing today, because until the principal put a stop to it, the psychologist was filling out the papers for it.

Basically, the reason the principal did this was because apparently, if we give her the LD designation now, it follows her, and that can be negative when she gets to middle school or high school, and can affect the type of diploma she graduates with. If she carries this designation through high school, she may end up taking modified versions of standardized tests, which would give her a "minimal" diploma, which means that she would not be able to get into certain colleges and universities without remediating certain classes. Erin is still receiving the same help now that she would be receiving with that designation, so at this point, it doesn't make a difference. I also learned that there is no holding back grades due to only standardized test scores. If a student fails their standardized tests, they may still not get held back if other factors seem like they are conducive to passing them to the next grade. Also, the benchmarks for this are no longer 3rd grade, but 5th and 8th. We have a long time. I get that.

Thak and I are still processing this information, though. On one hand, we don't know what level Erin is going to find later in life. Who knows... she may end up doing great and being in honors classes in high school. She would not be the first learning disabled kid to do that, and certainly not the last. But what if she doesn't? What if it would have benefited her more to give her this designation, and let her graduate with SOMETHING? I appreciate the principal's attempt to safeguard Erin's eventual Ivy League eligibility, but I just don't know how pertinent that is to the reality of the situation. It's hard to say at this point, what approach will benefit her more.

I had hoped to have great things come out of this meeting. We didn't. It was frustrating because again, it seemed like this was put off as our fault. I can't tell you how many times over the years people have said, "If you worked harder with her, she'd know this." or "My kid watches this TV show and knows all that. Why doesn't Erin?" or "It's because you homeschooled her." or "It's because of her daddy's deployments, and moving around." We're always blamed for this in one way or another, and we didn't do it.

Nobody in this world dreams of the day that they can have a learning disabled kid, so why do people make it so much harder when we do? We just want what's best for her. Right now she IS getting the education that's best for her. She has an awesome teacher, and an awesome special ed teacher, and she's soon to be getting speech therapy, too. We are very thankful for all of them, especially Mr. M, who spends more hours on this than anybody else, and has somehow managed to get Erin to learn on a level that nobody ever has before. My concern is not for right now. It's for later. What happens if she moves on without this designation, and she just fails time and time again because nobody has to accommodate her? That is straight up shit as far as I'm concerned.

Even so, it's not written in stone. I fought hard, and got an acceptable compromise. We'll meet again in a couple months, at which point we'll see if she's come around completely and is working on grade level (and everyone who knows Erin knows there's no way in hell that's going to happen) or we'll give her the LD designation along with the SI designation. (SI is Speech Impaired. She doesn't have it formally yet, but that's what she's tentatively listed as now.)

What a day.