IEP Meeting Update

This morning we had Honeybunches' annual IEP meeting.  In attendance were the new Occupational Therapist, new Speech Pathologist, school Counselor, new IEP Chairperson, Old Special Education Director, Principal and his Special Education teacher.  His new outside counselor was not able to make it, but that's fine with me since there were so many other new people.  This meeting was bitter-sweet.  I got so much positive feedback about Honeybunches and how wonderful he's doing which was great!  It was, however, this Special Education Director's last IEP meeting.  He retires at the end of this week.  Having worked with him since before Honeybunches began Kindergarten, I'm going to really miss him.  He always did an excellent job advocating for what Honeybunches needs.  He's been a real blessing to so many children in this district.  On a good note, after the meeting I sent him an email thanking him.  He emailed me back with his email address and other contact information telling me if I ever need him to advocate for Honeybunches in the future he will (Which in the past he told me he'd do free of charge).  Again, I don't think there can be any better advocate than a retired Special Education Director.  IDK if I'll need him, but it is good to know the option is there.  Here are the highlights from the meeting:

IEP Eligibility changed to Autism Spectrum Disorder.  It was listed as "Intellectual Disability" which the new IEP Chairperson questioned because for that the IQ has to be 70 or below and his when last checked a couple years ago was 73.  It was also listed as "Emotional Disability", but where the recent eval done a few months ago said "Autism" as his primary disability and "Bipolar" as his secondary, we thought as a team that the Autism eligibility would be most beneficial.  In Massachusetts, for children who have Autism there are special regulations in place. He also questioned his PDD-NOS diagnosis because of the DSM-5, but I pointed out that the most recent eval stated "Autism Spectrum Disorder". I already know about the new Technical Advisory regarding "DSM-5 Changes and Impact on Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders" but thankfully didn't have to mention it.

Here were the reports:

Special Ed Teacher in the new ILC room:

• Making lots of progress socially, academically, behaviorally and with skills
• Honeybunches seems to be enjoying the class 
• The star chart and incentive system has been working well.  He's "Buying into it", counting up his stars. 
• He's wanting to engage with others
• Always asks good questions, inquisitive, curious
• Motivated
• Strong work ethic + once starts something likes to finish it.

School Counselor:

• When Honeybunches had a 1:1 he often chose not to participate, but has been making great gains without a 1:1 and is doing less isolating.  He's participating more now in class activities this year. 
• She's noticed his confidence increased (Very proud of himself, especially about riding the bus without an aide which is something he bragged to the counselor about).
• Amazed with his growth
• Wants to continue working with Honeybunches to build friendships and social skills with his peers
• New goals will be to work on verbalizing his feelings, to build on the social aspect and to work on calming techniques.  Her hope is that he can use more words to verbalize things before he gets upset. 

Speech (New pathologist):

• He met his objectives from last year with support. 
• Had a good 1st session
• Plans to work with counselor on his social skills and language
• She hopes to "Fade the cues to assess Honeybunches performance" (Such as with the previous speech pathologist, they were doing this pass the ball thing where they'd pass it and whomever had it would talk, every 1-5 minutes, but she hopes to increase the time and see if he could increase his language skills by having less cues). 
• Transition to include writing and thinking, delayed gratification.

 Occupational Therapist (New therapist):

• She seen him this year with 1 observation and 1 pull out. 
• Seems to have maintained skills (As they were noted last year)
• Met all objectives, but wants to continue services. 
• Mentioned that this is a "Potential transition year to identify specific needs". 
• Working towards paragraph level work
• She talked about sensory diets: how they should be pro-active instead of reactive (In the past in this district PT did sensory stuff, so it's great she is full of knowledge about that and other stuff. She actually impressed me and has a lot of new ideas she is bringing to the district.)

Physical Therapy:

• Skills not appropriate for his age level, but before speaking with Honeybunches she was considering changing to a "Consult" as she's been working with him since Kindergarten.  However, after speaking with Honeybunches and asking what he would want to work on he said "Getting stronger" and "Working with other students".  This year she wants to work with him as a group with 2-3 other students so we're changing his 1x30 individual to 1x30 group (1x30 = One time a week for 30 minutes). 
• No regression of motor skills over the Summer
• Agreed that Honeybunches presentation has been positive, displaying increased confidence and increased social skills. 

Special Education Director (Who did some housekeeping tasks on his IEP so things would be more clarified before he retires):

• Leave "1:1 will be reinstated for specific subjects as the team deems necessary" in his new IEP. 
• Changed the wording about his Ipad to make that more clear. He had it say "Will be provided with an Ipad for the duration of involvement of special education services" as he thought that was more beneficial than "For the duration of his IEP". 
• He cleared things up regarding who is to program Honeybunches Ipad and upload the applications to it.  They clarified that the teacher, IEP chairperson, old teacher and the "Tech guy" will consult. 
• Clarified that summer tutoring be added to his new IEP for next summer (2 hours per day, 4 days a week for 4 weeks). 
• Took "Scribe" out of his IEP for paragraph writing work so we can work more on his handwriting (Which OT said they will make a new goal about). 
• Made sure his Safety Plan and BIP are up-to-date.  His Safety Plan is, as I had them re-do it in June due to his wandering and being left outside along.  As for the BIP, they said the whole class he's in has it's own BIP (Level system, stars and other things that the special ed teacher and counselor said they'd get me information about). 

Services to be provided:
(All continued from last year)

1. Speech 2x30
2. OT 1x30
3. PT 1x30 (Group)
4. Counseling 1x30
5. Behavioral Management 5x270 (Which brought us to an interesting discussion regarding them figuring out just how long his behavioral management should be which turned out to be for the whole school day minus his pull outs, but his previous IEP had it as 5x190). 
6. Reading 5x60
7. Math 5x60 (Which made for another good discussion, because the teacher said they do Math and Reading each for 60-90 minutes per day, but the new IEP Chairperson said that's not technical enough... so they decided to put it at the minimum, but more is always okay). 

Vision Statement:
"The team envisions Honeybunches continuing to develop the academic, social and behavioral skills he will need to function productively across all settings.  The team would like to see Elijah develop self advocacy skills.

Here are his Educational Assessments his new ILC special education teacher did:

 Although this meeting was held six weeks early (Due to the special education director retiring), I agreed to have the dates on his IEP remain 10/28/13-10/28/14 so the district will have more adequate time next year to do his 3 year evaluations.  That will give them almost two months, instead of just over two weeks.

I went in there with a list of reasons why he still needed OT, in case they tried to cut it. Thankfully, I didn't need to go into that debate, but I'm glad I was over-prepared instead of under.