Finally...it should happpen tomorrow...

Well, hopefully the day is almost here! After 3 scheduled PPT meetings, all cancelled due to the winter weather, I should finally get Andrew's PPT meeting in...his first "official" PPT meeting. Back in December when he had his meeting, a mere 10 days before he was scheduled to start preschool, Andrew's Birth-to-Three PT and I sat in front of the team from school and was told that Andrew's evaluation (that his PT did), did not qualify him for the special education preschool program. They told me...HE ISN'T DELAYED ENOUGH! We were in shock to learn that his Down syndrome diagnosis wasn't enough to qualify him for preschool. His diagnosis doesn't come into effect until kindergarten. Uh, okay. Maybe I should have done some research on that, but I didn't. I thought his diagnosis would qualify him and that his evaluation would show the school how well his is doing and about the potential he had. Duh...

So, anyway. The school took him 2 mornings a week with an hour of speech therapy (since he is definitely delayed in that area). His preschool teacher was going to evaluate him over the following 6 weeks against the preschool standards in Connecticut. After the 6 weeks, the school would determine his placement. And my thoughts were, "What? You're going to wait for him to get more delayed before you help him?" That seems a little backwards to me!

The day before his first planned PPT meeting, scheduled for February 3rd, I met with his teacher outside the school when I was picking up Andrew. She gave me a copy of her evaluation and said that he definitely qualified for the preschool program and we would determine his services the next morning at his PPT meeting. A great plan, but Mother Nature decided to intervene with snow, and as a result, school was delayed and our 8am meeting cancelled. Twice more, school was delayed or cancelled, therefore cancelling our early morning meetings.

Finally, unless some other freak weather pattern develops, I should finally get Andrew's PPT meeting tomorrow morning. His teacher alluded to adding another day for him, so hopefully, Andrew will be attending school for 3 sessions and continuing speech therapy. I can already tell that his therapy sessions are helping. His sounds have come such a long way since he started school. I am so excited for Andrew to continue his steady progression.

Also, I will finally get to address some of my concerns and my goals for Andrew for the remainder of the school year....his need for physical therapy and my hope that his teacher might think he is ready for potty training among other thoughts I had carefully typed into my iPhone notes, as I do with everything these days.

Wish me luck that tomorrow's meeting not only happens, but goes well. I'm guessing it has to be A LOT better than his first meeting.

Kim :)