Its IEP time

Ok so the Christmas time I posted about a while ago is nothing compared to IEP time. Its a time where lack of experience in the IEP team when it comes to a blind child becomes extremely apparent. The entire team minus the VI has never worked with a blind child before our Ethan and have said as much. So you can see how this is a struggle each time with coming up for goals for a child who has no impairment except for he can't see.  We've been through them with him and revised them.  I do not however think the team understand that this isn't for pre-school anymore its for the big K.

The difficulty though gets bigger this year...

This time, our cute little two year old is turning three and moving from the IFSP to an IEP. Here I do not think the team understands how different this will be. She has no sight and no light perception. Ethan at least can see light/shadows/colors which helps him to maneuver and orientate himself among other things.  Evie is also behind in where a kid her age should be in mobile, social, verbal skills. The goals we have with her from an IFSP standpoint show that no one understands what good goals should be for her.

If previous IEP interactions are a sign of how these ones will go, everything will be rushed and hurried to get done. You would think there would have been lots of conversations already about what needs to be done, goal ideas etc. As far as I know the only conversations are the ones my wife starts up with various members of the team.  I should mention that they did get the evaluation done for Evie, again it was rushed since I guess the state has pulled her file from the school for review. They knew about it for quite some time but by the time we had the meeting, we had one day to sign off on the eval. Ya, the IEPs probably wont be much different.

I hope the school district provides the training the team desperately needs.

If it wasn't for all the work my wife puts in, I can't imagine how bad it would be for my kids.

Perhaps it will go smoother then I'm thinking but I doubt it. I don't like my kids being used as an experiment on how to teach a blind child when there is so much info already available if the training was just provided.