My daughter Katie has been in her new placement in the Pleasanton School District for nearly three months. By any measurement, the transfer has been a success, thanks to the incredible Ms. Nav, Katie’s awesome aide Sharon, and the rest of the dedicated staff. Despite my initial concerns, the new program is working better than I could have imagined. Katie seems to agree. Every night when I’m putting her to bed, she asks me to wake her up early so she can go to school and see Ms. Nav.

She’s getting up earlier, to attend school for a longer day, and she wants to go—even on weekends! What parent wouldn’t love that?

Even without a swing, Katie’s negative behaviors decreased on the first day, back to where they had been in the Dublin program. At first we thought this was a brief “honeymoon period.” But for three weeks, as Katie adjusted to the new program, her behavior slowly improved. I’m sure this is due in large part to the embedded sensory program, which Katie’s previous placement did not have. Since then she has had nothing but “green light days.” By the time we’d had our 30-day meeting to officially agree to the transfer, Katie had already had two or three days with no negative behaviors whatsoever. One of the aides joked: “Your district’s ‘behavior problem’ is one of the best behaved kids in our class.”

Yes, the other boys are limited socially and verbally. But on the third day at her new school, Sharon took Katie to see where the other kids were going for general ed PE. No one expected Katie to go in. It was her first week at a new school. But Katie did. She stayed for the entire period—longer, in fact, than the other kids in her class. She followed directions, behaved beautifully, and did all of the physical activities. (This surprised Sharon but did not surprise me.) Katie loved it, and to say the adults were thrilled would be an understatement. Within a week, Katie was mainstreamed into Art, Music, and PE. The following week they added Science. She also spends lunch and two recesses with the “loud kids.” Under the watchful eye of her aide Sharon, Katie is starting to make friends.

Last month another child transferred into the class who is more verbal giving Katie a speech partner. Katie loves Ms. Jackie, the speech therapist, who rides a motorcycle and waves goodbye to Katie every day before she revs her engine and rides off down the hill. She’s pushing Katie to master complex sound blends and longer words. I don’t know if it’s due to the sleek cobalt blue motorcycle, but Katie would happily attend speech sessions every single day. The PE teacher has her counting sit ups and slapping another child’s hand as she does push ups. Brilliant Sharon told Katie if she wrote her name legibly, she could write it any way she wanted. If she left out a letter (as Katie had been doing for some time) they’d have to work on proper letter formation. Katie never left out another letter again and is now working to master her last name. She’s learning to use a computer too.

Last week I learned Katie will be singing with the other third graders in the spring musical performance. Ms. Nav wanted to know if that was okay. “Are you kidding?’ I said. “I’m thrilled.”

I’ll be there early, sitting in the front row, trying not to cry.

NOTE: For those of you who missed the earlier parts to this story (or simply want to refresh your memory), you can find them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, and Part 10. Sadly, my IEP stories are never short.

Until next time,
Cynthia Patton