Oh Ye of Little Faith

So I arrive a few minutes early, to be intercepted by Joey's case manager, the beautiful and very talented Mrs. Huff. We chat about the bus situation and the fourth grade word wall that Joey is working on, the social skills lessons he is having, the sensory shift he seems to be experiencing, and of course, the math issue. At least somebody is looking out for Joey. She notes that now the child who needs one-on-one ABA is all set up with his own therapist (Mrs. Huff supervises the program, but they have someone new to actually implement it), she has more time to check on her other students and actually see how they are doing.

We get into the meeting. We talk a lot about Joey. How he uses language and communicates. How he expresses anxiety. The boredom issue. The classmate issue. What folks are working on. Some things were said and asked that were good. Some things that were said I still find a little concerning. We didn't talk about pulling him for math, which I thought somewhat odd, since I thought part of the point of the meeting was to broach the subject of pulling him for math. I make sure to note that boredom is the Enemy. Joey must be engaged to be functional. If you let him drift off, let him descend into the frustration of boredom, we have Trouble.

We leave the meeting, we are walking down the hall, and Mrs. Huff, the beautiful and talented, turns to me and says, "I want you to come see this classroom, I think this will be a good fit for Joey for math. I've been talking to the teacher already..."

You go, Mrs. Huff. You absolutely, positively rock.

I saw the room. I met the teacher. She has a couple of aides in there, but not a special ed one, so Joey's shared aide- and sometimes Mrs. Huff herself- will go in there to support him. So as soon as the paperwork goes through, he will be pulled from Mrs. A for math. This will also alter his recess, so he'll go to recess with his new classfriends, so he'll have that much time away from both her and the classmate. Once we get him settled into the new routine, I hope he starts feeling better (and I hope this isn't just stressing him out some more). Let's get him back on track, and having fun at school again!