A New School... For Now

I mentioned recently that my daughter Anneliese got diagnosed with Autism. As I wrote in the other post, it was part of a process entailing my doing what I could to get her in a class that would be able to help her the most. Already a few months ago we realized that the school situation she was in wasn't working for her, and she couldn't go to that school anymore. I looked into the process of switching her to a class that would allow her to get help for her challenges, and I was told that these placements are only made before the following school year, and the only way to get a placement mid year is to have an emergency committee meeting (this committee decides eligibility and rights for special services). I was told by the woman in charge of special ed for my area that to get this emergency meeting a child needs to either have been hospitalized or the truant officer needs to be involved, so I immediately contacted the truant officer.

 

I knew that in order to get approved for services I needed to have my daughter evaluated so I paid privately to get her evaluated instead of waiting to see if I could get relevant parties to pay for it, and got her diagnosed with learning disabilities with the evaluation writing clear out that she needs special ed.

With that, I thought it would be very quick to get her into a new class in the appropriate school. Unfortunately such was not the case.

While I was waiting for the meeting re placement for my daughter I followed up her previous evaluation with an evaluation focusing on whether or not she had autism. And she got an autism evaluation. Which complicates things.

In my country there are two main types of special ed classes, 'standard' special ed, smaller classes with services, and classes for autistic kids, which get the most services.

Anneliese's evaluator said that she absolutely needs the services an autism class provides. But those are much less common than standard special ed and classes get filled up really quickly. It is pretty much impossible to join one of those classes mid year. So despite the autism evaluation the truant officer and I decided to continue with trying to get her placed into a standard special ed class, one that is in a school a few minute walk from my house. Anyhow I'd need a second autism diagnosis for my daughter  to get any services and since getting that second diagnosis was hellacious with my daughter Rose, I'm not counting on it to go smoothly with Anneliese which is even less obviously autistic than her sister. So I said I'm not going to hold off on that, she needs to be in school already.

Well, what can I say, it's 2 months later and still nothing. Not even a committee meeting. I called up every day or two to ask when we can have the meeting and the truant officer kept working at it and nothing materialized. And I realized that if we don't have the placement meeting already very soon there will be spring break and then the school year will be nearly over.

At this point I'm beyond frustrated at how long it has taken for this 'emergency' meeting to happen and I spoke to the truant officer asking what she suggested doing and she said that she suggests that she join the local school, even not in a special ed class, until she gets placed in a special ed class (and hopefully an autism one) next school year.

I'm not thrilled about this, to say the least, as my daughter really needs the help, but professionals involved decided that it's best that she at least be in school, even if temporarily, even if not getting any help for her learning disabilities... And so that's what has happened.

Change is hard for people and it's especially hard for autistic people, so I didn't want her to have to change unless it was to something that would help her, but it is what it is.

She just started and had 2 days of school already but so far so good, I guess?

And now I'm being hopeful that at our appointment next month we can get a second diagnosis for her, and that there will be room for her in the autism class in the same school where her sister, Rose, also is in an autism class.