Denied Again!

Kitty got out of the hospital today, just in time for her IEP meeting (the hospital was willing to keep her another day, but we were concerned the school district would say we couldn't have the IEP meeting because she was technically enrolled in another school district while in the hospital).

The professional advocate was there, and she'd assured me the school had made so many mistakes we were golden. She was wrong.

Highlights:

• The Assistant Principal, Mr. AP, (the one who made the comment at a previous ARD about Kitty being just as likely to commit suicide as being hit by lightening inside the school), made another non-PC comment that had our normally cool advocate almost yelling at him. At the beginning of the meeting he decided to cut to the chase and told us that they'd had a staffing and Kitty was not going to be allowed to go to the special school, and if we didn't like it we could go through due process (or something like that. Honestly I don't know why is was so upsetting to the Advocate, except he's not allowed to tell us to go through due process.). The Advocate almost walked out, but we figured we had to at least listen to what they were proposing since we're apparently stuck with it for now.


• Kitty excused herself after about 15 minutes of the meeting because the arguing was stressing her out.


• Despite all evidence, the school is maintaining that there is no proof Kitty's problems are related to what happens at school. One of their arguments was that Kitty tended to go to the hospital on weekends.


• Another argument was that Kitty doesn't want to go to the special school.


• They completely discounted the fact that Kitty's grades have dropped from As and Bs to Cs (after all she's still passing), and that she's missed almost 38% of the school days since school started (and that's not counting testing, IEP meetings, and other stuff that takes her out of class).

Their proposal:

• Censor the books and movies she watches.


• Anytime she gets overwhelmed she'll go to the Crisis Counselor (I'm still trying to decide if we're going to allow this. Kitty has 2 experienced therapists already).


• Instead of going back to class, she'll move to an "alternate location" where a special education teacher/ aide will "continue her instruction."

This will last for 14 school days, then we'll "reassess." If she misses more school between now and her Annual IEP meeting then this "trial period" will have to continue after the meeting, and the information can't be used for placement decisions.

We're waiting to hear from TEA mediation. Next step is due process.

In the meantime we're still on hold for RTC and everything, and it's making Kitty nuts.

She still hates the idea of the special school (had convinced her to "try it," but she changed her mind again), and she's mad at me for wanting her to go. She had a small meltdown on the way home, but we got her mostly calmed down again (she decided to ignore it).