Ok I just got done going through the IEP process for the third time this year so I think I can help you some. In Iowa (don't know it is every state) my son qualified for the ESY services because he has an ASD. They do ESY services with these kids to make transition to the next grade easier. He will go to summer school and be allowed to meet his new teacher, be in her classroom etc. as well as beggining to review things learned in Kindergarten, get back into the swing of classrooms and rules and all that fun stuff. I don't know about your son but I do know that my son GREATLY needs this service. Transitioning to a new class is horrible through October even with the ESY so I can't imagine what it would be like without.
As for the para my son is in a class with approximately 20 other students. He has a para available to him during the times he is in the mainstream classroom. She isn't designated only to him but he takes priority I guess is the only way to explain it. If the regular classroom para is unavailable and Corbin is having great difficulty a special ed. room para comes to assist him. The para is also available to him during music, pe, piano and library time. As for lunch he nearly always requests to eat with his special ed teacher which is fine with me. This seems to be working well. Since Corbin has become priority and has a para available for his use he has come home with homework one time. He does not always have the same para which I feel helps him maintain independance and he is expected to try to work on his own before the para steps in to assist him. Such as they try piano with Corbin alone and if things get to much then they call the para in. Rather than just sending the para in to begin with. Same goes for the mainstream classroom, library time, pe etc. He knows she is there if he needs her and he does use the service but there are days he doesn't require his para and gets through piano, music class etc. just fine.
Seat work is done with Corbin primarily in the special ed classroom. This has helped tremendously. It is too hard for him to focus in a large classroom so he gets general instruction and takes part in calendar, reading, math lecture things like this in the mainstream room and then completes his assignments in the special ed room. Before when he was mainstreamed and basically had no para at his use if needed , he required nearly 90% of the general classroom para's attention at all times.
The key here is figuring out what will work for your child. Honestly, I wouldn't let the first grade teacher off the hook that easily either. She doesn't have your child in her classroom and while she may assume he won't succeed without a para she does not know that for sure. The general ed teacher must be required to take some of this on herself also! A lot of times they don't like to do this it is much easier for them to push a child onto a full time para and let the para deal with it. Don't let them do that to you or your child it isn't fair. All kids deserve a fair chance.
Having a para can definitely be addictive and create LESS independence. Of course, it's vital to set things up so a child does his work and completes it. I would, frankly, hate to see a para for a child who just needs it for prompting. At least, the para should be assigned to the class and not to him. He could SO easily become prompt dependent and I bet he already is since you've been sitting with him making him finishe his work. OF course, he's young. But paras can be addictive -- for the kids AND for the teachers. A better approach, IMHO, would be to get a qualified person to put together a good POSITIVE behavior plan that heavily rewards completion of tasks. However, I'd get that person to determine the REASON your son is not completing the tasks before the plan is created.
I agree with Tzoya that having a para for the reason of staying on task is not the answer to that problem. This teacher and class aid need to step up and keep him on task. IT'S THEIR JOB!!!! And it makes me so mad to hear that she is sending work home saying he was off task for as much as 10-20 mins without being redirceted. I have a feeling that if her administrators knew this, she'd be in hot water. Especially with the special ed administration, as she is about to cost the system more money and your child his access to a free and APPROPRITATE education. When really all she has to do is keep your son on task and then the work can get done. Now that she has told you he's off task all that time, your next question to her should be how are you redirecting him. If this much work is coming home undone, she better have some dang good documentation somewhere of what was tried before she sent it home.
You need to meet with the IEP team and ask that question. You need to see what he can do when he is redirected by the adults in his class rather than a one on one aide. All of the children at my school right now with one on one paras DON'T need them and it makes me so upset to see how dependent they are on that adult. They can't do ANYTHING without the lead of someone else. Not even go to the bathroom or p.e. alone. Mainly I think that is because the para feels responsible and if something were to happen when she wasn't around, she feels she'd be held liable. This comes from untrained and nontrained aides, which is common.
I just can't stress enough that your son needs to be given best practices of redirecting and positive behavioral supports for being off task before his independent, appropriate access to the general education system is taken away. I know you say he is young and might be missing critical skills because he is off task, but this is also the prime time for him to learn to become dependent on an aid. If i were you, I'd be holding the teacher's feet to the fire on this one.
Call an IEP meeting and address your concerns about so much work coming home and him staying off task for so long. Have accommodations put into the IEP so that he is able to only do some of the work. If he can do the first half it correctly, he isn't missing anything by not doing the second half. It's not the quantity of work we are looking for, it's the quality. Teacher's just need to know if a child can do a skill or not, not know that they can do it 50 times. Ask specifically to know what the teacher and class aid are doing during all that time that he is off task. The fact that "you wish" you could make them accommodate is not acceptable, nor is it acceptable for the teacher to say she has 20 other students and can't take that much time to redirect your son. IT'S HER JOB!!!! And only you can fight her to make her do it. I promise you the administrators would rather make her do her job instead of spend money to get an aid. And your son is going to benefit so much more from her doing her job.
Bring all of his incomplete assignments with you to the IEP. Visual evidence helps tremendously when you are trying to get a point across. Any school work that you have that helps prove your case should be presented to the team. Talk to his teacher, as well, and see where he/she stands on the issue. When I was asking for a 1:1 aide, everyone on the team was already in agreement that it would be beneficial for my son, so the IEP was just a formality, and the request was immediately forwarded to the district for approval. It always helps to get as many ducks lined up in a row as possible.I recently requested that my son have a para in his 1st grade classroom next year due to his inability to work independently. He comes home at least 3 days a week with incomplete assignments that say either he wouldn't or couldn't complete them. The norm at his school is for all 1st grade classes to have a part time para and about 25 kids. I don't see my son being successful without more individual attention. In order to make this change the committee must meet so what I need is some advice on what arguments I should use to persuade the team to provide him with a para.
Thanks
Linda
gotta love school politics.
LOL iamslh- your son's teacher is experienced enough to know the only way to get things done.
As a general comment on this thread, most kids who work in the mainstream with an aide become quite dependent on the aide. I have seen this in kids as young as second grade. The child learns to completely IGNORE the teacher, knowing that the aide will work with him and help him 1:1 when the teacher is done talking.
While more experienced aides have some skills for trying to prevent this, if the child is in the mainstream full time, this dependence is quite a natural response to having the helper available. It is one of the reasons some parents choose a smaller program or classroom.
I am bringing this up because I think it is important for parents to be aware of all of the possible responses the school might have when they request an aide, and just for general information. Parents have a difficult job making decisions about placements and educational services, I can't offer any advice on these decisions for someone else.
Keepmemoriessal: You stated that your son is at least 6 months behind his peers academically. My observations and opinions on that is there are children with no delays at all that might be that far behind their grade level peers. Being 6 months behind in academics in not a huge deal, that's why a learning disability is not showing up. There is not a big enough gap between what he should be doing and what he is doing, academically. I would request that he get more one on one or small group time that focuses intensively on whatever those weaknesses are academically before I put a full time aide with him, especially for the reasons Karolysgirl mentioned. If you had said a year or a year and six months, that would be another issue.
Let me give you this example. In a class of 30 5th graders, there might be 7 that read below grade level. But out of those 7, only 3 or 4 read so much below their peers that it effects their academics in the regular classroom. That's not to say that the other 3 or 4 that don't struggle, they do, but not as much. And their weaknesses are easily accommodated for, instead of making it a special ed problem.
In my honest personal and professional opinion, the more one on one services we give to kids, the further we remove them from the mainstream. You want to do anything and everything possible so that the regular ed and special ed teacher or doing all that they can do to help him succeed before you give him one on one help that he is going to come to rely on for a long, long time. Sometimes, it easier to ask for the aide so he can get help than it is to make the regular ed teacher do her job. Being behind your peers by 6 months academcially is not something she should be seeing out of your son only, there are others in the class, too, I assure you. She should be using best practices and giving him strategies to bridge that gap since it's not that big.
Now, you stated that 6 months delay about academics only and that is all I am addressing. I am sure there are other concerns that I am not taking into account.
[QUOTE=keepmemoriesali]What are some reasons your son was given an aide?[/QUOTE]
Connor was unable to complete assignments independently, especially writing assignments. He couldn't (and still can't) stay organized, and he needed someone to break down the work into managable portions, and make sure he understood the assignment. There was already an aide in the class (this was 3rd grade) assigned to another child, but she was spending the majority of her time helping Connor, so it was a no-brainer for everyone how much he needed and would benefit from an aide. That particular school was a nightmare, and I wound up filing Due Process, and settling in mediation over a myriad of non-compliance issues. That being said, the one good thing they did was proactively initiate and support the services of a 1:1 aide for my son. He is now in the 7th grade, fully mainstreamed and still has and benefits from his aide
The issue is not the aide/no aide thing. It's HOW does the school propose to support him in completing his assignments. I HAVE to agree with Wray that a one-on-one is the fastest way to make a child DEPENDENT as opposed to independent (as me how I know). What you REALLY want to know is how the school proposes to address the issue of missed classwork. It may be that he needs an accommodation that says he finishes only half his work (certain kids work well but work at too slow a pace due to processing issues to complete as many items as NT kids can. And, franky, 10 multiplication problems per session will teach him as much as 25). Or it could be that he needs to have his work broken up for him...that seeing ALL that work at once on a page is overwhelming. Or perhaps he's being distracted. Does he sit near a window and ends up getting distracted by what's outside, for example? A positive behavior intervention plan could work very well here, rewarding him for his pace of work. I'd get a Functional Behavioral Assessment done to find out WHY his work is not being completed. Having a one-on-one aide will teach him NOTHING good. It will only teach him that someone else will manage his time and be in charge of his world. Even at this tender age, kids need to learn that THEY are responsible. Also, a lot of the benefits of being included will fall away if he gets a one-on-one. Of course, your concerns are totally valid. Do you have standardized testing on your son for his academic abilities? Grades are meaningless. Get them to translate his abilities into percentiles. If his percentiles are below the 25th percentile, he is NOT at grade level, not matter what his grades say. In that case, the school has to hustle to get him caught up because NCLB and IDEA 2004 state that ALL children will reach the goals for NT kids their own age. Obviously, this won't happen with some kids, but the school are not left off the hook. They MUST try to bring EVERY child up to grade level, EVERY year. This is a huge change from the pre-NCLB law and gives much more power to parents to demand that their child meet all the grade level standards. The trick is to get VALID, standardized testing on your child to prove where he lands, achievement wise. Do NOT depend on the word of the teacher or anyone else. "show me the standardized scores" is, in the spec. ed. world, the equivalent of "show me the money."
So, keep all the unfinished classwork sent home between now and the 12th. Present it at the meeting and ask "What are we going to do about this?" Let them make some proposals and then make some counter proposals. I would avoid the one-on-one if there is ANY other possible solution. I've also found that the main classroom teachers tend to ignore kids with one-on-ones and then the child ends up being educated by the aide, who is most certainly NOT a "highly qualified teacher." My son has always had a one-on-one, so I KNOW all the drawbacks.
A note on "highly qualified": In special education, the teacher must have the special education degree as well as certification in all academic areas he/she teaches in order to be highly qualified.
The reverse is NOT true. A mainstream teacher needs only the certification for academics. If he/she has a kid who gets special education services in the class, he/she needs NO additional certification.
I guess my concern and the reason I would like him to have an aide is that he doesn't work well independently. He doesn't work at all independently most days. He often comes home with work that isn't done with a note stating how long he was given to complete it. Anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. I asked his teacher if he was working hard the whole time and just couldn't do it or if he was dropping his pencil, getting up or displaying other off task behavior and she stated that he was off task. In his kindergarten class there are two teachers and it just seems to me that if he is able to sit for 20 minutes and not work with two teachers it would be much worse next year with only 1 teacher and more kids. I was making him complete the assignments at home because I wanted to know if he could do the work and also to show the teachers that he's not stupid he just needs help to stay focused. It seems that there are pros and cons on both sides of this but in the early years there are so many skills to learn I'm concerned that he will miss key stuff because of his lack of focus. I wish his teachers understood how to modify his work so that it's not so overwhelming or frustrating.
I also would like some advice on extended school year. In my state it's for children who have shown regression during a break or are at a critical point in instruction. Has anyone been successful in securing this for their child?
ESY in every state is for kids who show documented regressions of skills that have already been learned
AND
for kids with significant functional needs such as speaking, toileting, feeding or safety.
If they are at a developmental stage where they should be doing these things and are not they qualify for ESY. If you would like, I could find you some written information on this, but it is on my desktop at work and would have to wait until Monday.
As for independent work, I have not met any kids with ASD who are good at it. It is the basis for the development of the TEACCH program. So, if in the mainstream, at least a para will help get the work done.