No School Today

It is a weekend. That means, it is finally a rest time.

The boy has had no therapies being administered to him. He needs a speech therapy but we can only give that to him twice in a month. It is not sufficient but we are trying. We will not survive financially since his insurance does not cover this so twice a month is what we can offer best. Besides, we do an intensive teaching on him. His hours in school are not enough for him to gain knowledge as I believe there are lots of downtime on the part of the school. I will touch more on this matter later on when I have much time.

He had OT sessions before but it was stopped as his OT person told us that what he really needs is ST.

26 Sept 08 - 30th Day SY08-09

Jeez, BS P. Y., M. C. should have a copy now of AX psychological evaluation!! Fuck them and their ant brains. Okay, AX's psychological evaluation started today. The lady psychologist was so amazed that he sat with her without problems for an hour. Although, she said he was quite a handful when he was going to her office. It turned out that they did not tell her that AX must be occupied mentally during transitions. We do that all the time. We ask him to add, subtract and multiply one after the other. It works for us very well.

Anyway, AX did well in the cognitive part of the psychological evaluation. The average cognitive level is 90 - 109. AX scored 98. I think, the number is quite very good. That means, all along we are right in insisting to fucking two schools and this new school that AX is thinking and can think. That means, they should fucking teach him.

I asked again the ESE Specialist that if we could have the Reading book be sent home every so we can read to AX. I do not know what is the beef but the school is freaking keeping books stating the school has no extra copies.

I was told by the transition assistant that AX did good in Math test today. She said that AX loves Math.

There were no assignments inside his backpack.

25 Sept 08 - 29th Day SY 08 - 09

It was great to have less school time. You know why? AX will be able to learn more when he is at home. They did not mainstream him Thursday because it was an early release day. Is there anywhere in the IEP that states no mainstreaming when there is an early release day? What the heck? I call that laziness.

I dropped to the front office his Math HWs and additional Math work I asked of him to do. You see, AX is in the x2 now in the multiplication table. I let him memorize and understand that 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 are odd numbers and 2, 4, 6, 8, 0 are even numbers. You can ask him, "What are the odd numbers? What are the even numbers?" He will tell you correctly.

After 3 days without Reading and Language HWs, they gave him today.

23 Sept 08 - 27th Day SY08-09

AX got home from school today. He has a little round mark on top of his left shoulder and a scratch-like mark (roundish ones) on his lower left arm. His GE Math teacher put a note on the SW sheet that he did not do his schoolwork/classwork. She gave HW Math for Monday and Tuesday. AX did them after he ate his lunch. He was not given Grade 2 Language or any Reading HW by his ESE teacher.

Yesterday, we were given a letter from the principal stating that the sub-teacher will be replaced permanently by a new teacher from another school. The teacher who was on maternity leave decided that she will just take care of her kids.

22 Sept 2008 - 26th day SY08 - 09

An interim IEP meeting was conducted on 22 Sept 2008, 10:15AM. The ESE Specialist, Speech Therapist, GE Teacher, ESE Teacher, Autism Coach and the parents of AX were present. It only lasted for one hour because the ESE Specialist thought that the interim IEP is only for the change of service that AX is getting. You see, his Math is with the mainstream students now together with Science and Social Studies since the 3rd week of classes. The autism coach was informed two weeks before the meeting that we want to change the goals in the academic domain of AX's IEP. It turned out that he did not mention this to the ESE Specialist. Besides, he has been telling me about the books for Reading and Language that I requested for AX for weeks. It was only given today when we reminded that principal last Friday that we are requesting for books. Instead, they loaned us books for Science and Social Studies. We were able to get hold of the High Frequency word list from Preprimer to Grade 3 from the General Ed teacher. I hope AX will be able to read more or to recognize more words soon since it will be very hard for him as he grows older. His school is still not functioning well to what we are expecting (especially in what I am expecting) for AX to have. The ESE teacher has not shown any Reading/Language schoolwork since the start of the SY. I have been asking and they are not giving.

He was not given Reading exercises today.

We took him to the physician last Saturday (20 Sept 08). We showed her the video of the bruises and we took off his shirt to show the fading bruises since it is past 2 days now when the incident took place. She issued a certification. At least, it is one good proof that something is really happening to AX while in school.

17th Day of SY 2008 - 2009

We had a parent-teacher conference at around 2:10PM. It was Tuesday, 9 Sept 2008. The autism coach, ESE sub teacher and speech therapist were present. The autism coach did most of the talking. The speech therapist was very vocal. The ESE sub teacher was just listening and she hardly shared any ideas at all.

They showed the books that AX will be using for Reading, Science, Social Studies. I do not think, I saw something for Language and Arts. They told us that AX is using a transition book because he is behind in Reading.

more to come as I am trying to remember the things that happened that day.

25th Day of SY 2008 - 2009

It was not easy to bear another problem with the new school of AX. I am very upset that he has bruises.

The meeting took place at 1:30PM. The principal, assistant principal and ESE specialist were present. His father was the main speaker. The meeting was over in like 10 - 15 minutes. I did not like that his father did not expound on what happened to him. We had a fight over this matter. I asked the principal to issue an incident or accident report but she said that his tantrum does not warrant as such. Can you imagine that? The student with disability had bruises and two staffs (autism coach and speech therapist) saw these with their very own eyes and then no report will be issued? I told his father that we will issue our own report to the principal on Monday when we have our interim IEP. This incident needs to be documented.

24th Day of SY 2008 - 2009

I arrived at 1:50PM to pick up AX. The autism coach approached and told me that AX had a behavior issue in the morning. He said the he will talk to me once the speech therapist is around. The bell rang. Axell and I arrived to the car and then we waited for the speech therapist and autism coach to arrive. Once the two were around, I removed the shirt of AX. He has bruises all over his body. Sure enough, the autism coach told me that AX had a tantrum and all sorts of stuffs. However, the bruises on his body told me otherwise. It was not cool to see AX with his body bruised all over. He has marks on his lower back, upper arms, underarms and back right shoulder. I was displeased but did not show it. I was trying to be calm. I told them that he is not supposed to be held on his body and upper arms as these are easily bruised. If he is acting up, try holding him on the lower arm.

We arrived to the house at 2:57PM. I tried calling his father 3x but there was no answer. I called up the school. I talked to principal and told her that AX has bruises. She told me that she was told by the autism coach that AX had a behavior problem in the morning but she was not told of bruises. I asked for a meeting the next day, Friday (19 Sept 2008).

After the short talk to the principal over the phone, I called his father. As usual, he was displeased that I did not tell him first. I reminded him that there was no answer when I called him up three times.

I took a video of AX without his shirt. I took photos as well.

21st day of SY 2008 - 2009

Today, I was told by Ms. Aguinaldo that AX had a hard time transitioning. In fact, he failed to attend one of his specials because he was having a bad hair day. This stemmed most likely from the fact that he was so agitated to finish watching The Little Mermaid. AX and AL are now fanatics of The Little Mermaid.

He had a little scratch near his left breast when he removed his school shirt.

I was told that he got 100% correct in the first spelling test since the start of the SY. He also did well in the Social Studies' scheduled test today.

When I dropped him to school this morning, he has 3 insect bites on his forehead. He kept scratching them while he we were on our way to school. I did not know that he was bitten until we parked the car.

18th day of SY 2008 - 2009

There was an open house from 6:30PM to 8:00PM. We saw met some parents when we were listening to Mr. Hunter inside the classroom of Ms. Aguinaldo. Actually, we arrived late at around 7:00PM.

I asked about the books of Reading/Language and Arts for transitioning, Grade 1 and 2. I was told that the books are limited so I might be only getting the transitioning Reading book.

More to come...

13th Day of SY 2008 - 2009

We reached the school area at around 7:49AM. It is really not that good to have a long drive in just going to school. I still consider it a long drive despite 7 miles away from the house. Accidents can happen especially if you are pressed for time.

He was dressed in yellow shirt and blue pants. He was a bit teary-eyed when we left because we told him that he broke his eyeglasses yesterday so he has nothing to wear today. He did 2-digit subtraction with regrouping for his homework.

12th Day of SY 2008 - 2009

We arrived at 7:44AM. It was cool as usual. Monday was Labor Day so there was no class. AX wore his pair of eyeglasses and he has been using this since the second week of January 2008. His father called me up on the phone before lunchtime and said that AX broke his glasses. It was his first time to go mainstreaming as well. According to Mr. H, he was a bit off when he was mainstreamed so there was some sort of odd behavior. This is most likely due to new surroundings and his classmates are kids in mainstream. This explained why his pair of eyeglasses broke. Besides, he has some "lines" again on his lower right arm most likely due to the adults holding him very tight and he was struggling.