Going to School!

Sophia and Anastasia have started preschool! This program is the first time they have attempted to due something like this in this district. The program was designed to insert children with special needs into 2 exiting typical preschool classes that have been in place since August for the benefit of inclusion (a special education teacher was being inserted into each class as well). The girls' class had 4 children with special needs assigned to it, including them. The program did a staggered start with 2 starting on Tuesday, then 2 on Wednesday and all 4 to attend on Today (Thursday). Yesterday was Sophia and Anastasia's first day and they enjoyed going, but changes were needed. The class they were assigned to was not a good fit after all. There were some behavior issues in that classes that were monopolizing the teacher's time and causing major disruptions. The academics were above the girls' current level since they are basically starting all over since whatever they did know prior would have been in Russian. With those things in mind, we were concerned that the academics would not benefit then and they would only gain the social input... which was less than desirable. A parent (and friend of mine) expressed her concerns on Tuesday after her child had attended and I expressed my concerns yesterday after observing the class for an hour. The special education teacher seemed to have already reached the conclusion that changed were needed. They were working towards a solution when I left yesterday. When I picked the girls up, the center/district had already made the decision to pull all of them from that class and place the special education teacher in her own classroom with our children and begin to pull typical children to that room during the 3 mornings they attend class (the regular preschool program is 5 days/all day). This will give them the ability to select the 'appropriate' typical children to include. I dropped them off this morning in their new class and it was a much calmer environment that will be working on material that will be geared towards their IEP goals. Now the class will have both special education teachers and all 8 students with special needs (3 year class and 4 year class) together with additional children being inserted at a more productive ratio. The other class had 21 typical children on role w/ 1 preschool teacher and was having 1 special ed teacher and 4 students with special needs inserted. I am very glad that the teachers, director and supervisor of the program recognized that environment was not going to be beneficial to my girls or any of the others children with special needs that were being 'included' in that class. I was also impressed with the speed in which they revamped their plans in order to help the program be successful.