IEP meeting

Right after school ended on Monday I met with Boy One's 'school team' for our annual Individualized Education Program (or something like that.  I actually don't recall for certain what the initials IEP stand for.  My bad.).

This is the third year that we have held these meetings (two years of kindergarten and this year in first grade) and it's always his classroom teacher, the learning specialist, speech therapist, autism specialist, his classroom aid, and myself.  This year we were missing his occupational therapist, which is fine because he doesn't like her and has thus far refused to comply with holding the pencil the way she says to. 

I brought Girl and Boy One with me to the meeting in the first grade classroom and for the full hour and fifteen minutes they played educational games on the class computers and read books quietly to themselves.  The other team members commented as the meeting came to a close how impressed they were with how quiet and well behaved the kids were.  I wanted to gloat, but managed to bite my tongue.  After all, we had just talked for an hour about the behavioral issues my son has in class - gloating would have been a bit uncalled for self-serving unreasonable cheesy.

Things I remember from the meeting:

• Boy One will still throw himself on the floor if he doesn't get to choose the job he wants for the week.
• He has certainly surpassed the eight-words-per-utterance goal that the speech therapist set for him.  He tends to tell her "I don't want to go to speech today.  I'm not happy.  I want to stay in class.  I haven't finished my illustrating.  You already took me out of class once, that's enough.  I not happy about this."  He can be very vocal when the situation warrants it.
• Everyone agreed that Boy One is smart.  Too much so.  (He gets that from me.)  And stubborn, too.   (He gets that from his dad.)
• He is right on track with the other first graders with math, reading and writing (!).  So much so, that he no longer has to go to Resource Room everyday for tutoring.  This is FANTASTIC news, since he abhors being separated from his classmates (he's removed from class two to three times a day for individualized instruction - he hates that) and doing so causes most of his moods.  Woo-hoo!
• His internal clock is more accurate than the atomic clock - no one needs a watch as long as he's around.  This annoys his teachers to no end.
• He still doesn't want to participate in group discussions because he takes longer to process his answer than the other kids and feels lost when pushed to perform on the spot.  But that seems to be pretty common to people in general.
• Best news: Boy Two can ride the short bus to school with Boy One next year, even though he's not in a specialized program!  Boy Two swelled with pride upon hearing this.

I conveniently forgot just how long these meetings tend to run, and ended up leaving Boy Two at his kindergarten for a full fifty minutes after he was dismissed for the day.  Again, my bad. 

Good thing the school secretary likes me. 

Or, did.