Once upon a time there was a little girl with Down Syndrome who spent the first nearly eight years of her life in a mental institution in Eastern Europe. That little girl is now our little girl. She has been home since November 2010, and has grown a lot bigger than she used to be. She even learned to walk.
And so the time came that school should happen for her. Because there are rules about kids attending school. On March 12th 2012, there was a meeting at the school discussing how her brother ended up coming home from school with bruises and restraint marks around his wrists. We figured that was as good a time as any to ask these poor confused people who had no idea how a child gets restraint marks at school, to set the Special Education process in motion for the little girl.
Then time passed. It passed and passed and passed. The law says that schools have 50 days to have testing COMPLETED after the request is made. Apparently this law was wasted on the folks in our town. In August, after some emails back and forth, we finally got some testing done for this girl. She even got an IEP on September 28th. Before her IEP, she had two visits from an in home teacher. Each visit lasted an hour. At her IEP we all signed papers that said she would continue to get an in home teacher for a few hours a week.
Guess what never happened?
Guess what date it is right now?
Would you believe that the school officials think that since she visited a classroom three times, they are now in compliance with her IEP? Apparently it is allright to have a chid not attend school? For weeks? For ELEVEN weeks?
Stay tuned. This is bound to become interesting.
Him: Catholic, practicing. Me: Converted to Catholicism and then the organized religion shoe stopped fitting. Me: ditched the shoes for barefoot living. Him: socks and dress shoes. Us: Suddenly Unequally Yoked. Welcome.
