We Have a Kindergartner!

I know I've said this before, but I can't say enough times how lucky we are to have the team we do for Ayden. I look at where he was two years ago entering the ECSE program and am just so happy with how far he has come.  It is bittersweet to have attended our final IEP with them today, our transition IEP.  Next year, Ayden will be moving to a different school, different speech therapist, and different teacher. All kinds of changes for him as he enters kindergarten.

While we don't know who his teacher is yet for either the ASD classroom or general education classroom - we are certain it will be a good fit for him.  (We should know within the next few weeks who both teachers are.)  We received most of the services we asked for without any fights and while we did have a little bit of push back on a couple of goals; in the end we did find an acceptable middle ground.  We expect a lot more from Ayden then others do, and that is where the problem occurred.  I'm pretty sure a few of the goals they had he will have reached before the summer is out.  It wasn't bad - we just knew he could do better!

Over all we are very happy with what next year looks like.  We met a good amount of the new team today and there isn't a single person that even at first impression rubs me the wrong way.  I hope it continues in this fashion as we start the school year!  It's going to be a lot for Ayden at first:  all day, new school, and lots of new experiences, but I really believe he'll settle in well.

One thing that we didn't know going in and was discussed at the IEP is our district is doing a pilot program to see if ECSE students would benefit from extended school year and they have asked Ayden to be in it.  The program is going to be setup to run 2.5 hours, 3 days per week for about 4 weeks.  It's essentially going to be very intensive speech and language therapy, all 1-on-1.  It's going to be a phenomenal opportunity for Ayden.  It fit right into our schedule for the summer too.  We are very excited, to say the least.

Over all - a very good meeting.  (I'm really glad it's another year until the next one though!)