I am on the verge of obsessing about where Ryan should go to school next year. I know that is months away, but pre-school registration starts in the spring at most places. The school system also encourages parents to start early. We need to get a move on.The Meyer Center has been a wonderful place for Ryan. He has learned so much and benefited from having his therapists under the same roof as his classroom, but he has also done much better than I anticipated at Berea First Baptist Kindergarten. I know we can leave it just as it is today. I feel confident he could go to the Meyer Center and Berea First Baptist again next year, but I have had this tugging in my heart that tells me that it is time to jump into Greenville County School System. I must add that this tugging is always in flux. I ride the fence on a daily basis. Should we stay or should we go?
I keep a Things-to-Do list and for weeks I have had at the top "Call pre-school special education." I know there are several reasons that I hesitate calling them. First, it intimidates me because to be honest I don't feel informed about the process. I know bits and pieces and I can put on a good act, but it wouldn't take much for my facade to crumbling if presented with a situation that is out of my realm of knowledge. Second, I am already tired of hearing people tell me things like "We have a great pre-school special education class at our school. It would be perfect for Ryan." Okay, I am embellishing a bit, but everyone I talk to assumes that I want Ryan in a special education class. What if I want him in a pre-school class with typically developing children? What if I want inclusion?
I wish I could explain in words how hard it is to be facing school with a special needs child. We are just getting started in this process and I already feel like it is a "them against us" situation. I don't want to feel this way. I try to talk myself out of these feelings because I don't have a reason to feel this way. The school system hasn't done anything to make me feel this way. I just do. Once again I think it is mostly because as a parent I feel at a disadvantage because they have all the knowledge and I have very little. It is also hard to get the information in a format that is easy to follow. Just try reading about IDEA and you'll better understand my quandary.
Let's go back to inclusion. A few years ago I was indifferent about inclusion. I had too much other stuff to think about. Now I think about it often and I have come to realize that Ryan does not live in a self-contained world. For those of you that are not up on the disability jargon please go here to read more. He lives in the same world that I do and fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it; he's going to be expected to live up to my world's expectations. Those of us that love Ryan will always accommodate his disability. There are also wonderful, giving people in this world that will accommodate his disability, but there will be just as many that will not do their part. I want to help counteract this and I am starting to think that supporting Ryan in inclusive settings whenever possible is the way to go.
One more story before I go. A few weeks ago I spent an hour or so reading about Greenville County Special Services. I printed a list of schools with pre-school special education and typical classrooms. I recognized a director's name from a social work e-mail list that I have on my computer. The director is at Northwest Crescent Child Development Center. A few days after this I met her at a CEU program I attended in Greer. I noticed her name tag and decided to introduce myself. To make a long story short, she shared that her school has a classroom with typically developing children and special needs children. I was impressed by this and Northwest Crescent is only 3 or 4 miles from our house. I left the meeting promising to give her a call. I didn't call, but yesterday when I went to pick Ryan and Lilly up from school Lilly was still asleep. I decided to take advantage of this, so I took Ryan over to Northwest Crescent. Just my luck the director was still on Thanksgiving vacation, but the staff spoke with me briefly about the program and I left a message for the director to call me. It's a start and just the push I needed.
I might just call Greenville County School System today. Hmmm.....
Publish Post
2 comments:
Marcy, remember when we were talking about this last spring, and I told you about my aunt in New Hampshire who had a friend whose typically-developing child was in one of these combo classrooms? She had only positive things to say about it. If this is what you believe you should do, then I say go for it. Or at least pursue the idea further. You'll lose nothing through exploration.
Baby steps, right?
This is hard. I'm already stressing about it and my kid's only one-and-a-half. By the time he's Ryan's age, I'll be a basket case.
You know your kid. You'll make the right decision for him. And, if later down the road, it's not working out like you had hoped, you'll do something different. I say go for it.
Post a Comment