It's funny how Caleb's speech therapist collection has sure grown the past 4 years. We began with Miss Catherine, who has since become Mrs. Catherine and still our favorite. He was able to see Miss Catherine for 2 years at Clay County and where we saw the most improvement. While he was seeing her his second year, he began school district therapy with Mrs. Angela too. We really liked her too, but the relationship ended when we move from Kearney. Once in our Coves home, Caleb saw Mrs. Angela (another therapists with the same name) at the early education center and Miss Jessica at Children's Mercy. Because of schedule conflicts, we switched therapists half way through the school year at the early education center and started seeing Mrs. Diane. She reminded us more of Miss Catherine and we really liked her alot for those 5 months we saw her. Well, when Caleb started Kindergarten this past fall, he began speech at his new elementary school. We were very impressed with Mrs. Michelle from the beginning. She gave us an extra day of speech and was very good at sending homework and working with some needs at home too. We will miss her very much next year. This summer, Caleb has been receiving speech again at Children's Mercy, but this time with Mrs. Stacey. She is really fun and Caleb has enjoyed his sessions every Monday with her. We have not yet set an end date with her, but know because of his significant improvement, it will be coming before the end of the year.
So that brings us to our news we received today, seven therapists later. Because of some new district policies in MO, all private schooled children needing Special Education services starting next fall, will need to get them through the school district that the private school is in. The main reason behind this new policy change is because of transportation. By law, they have to offer buses to and from the public school for the services and the buses could not drive outside of the school district they were in. Our school, FCA, is located in the North Kansas City school district (not Park Hill where we have been going) so we will now need to receive speech through them, even though we will drive Caleb to speech and not use their bus. Our school district was trying to decide if we would qualify as a home schooled family because Caleb will be home on Tues and Thurs and those are the speech days we are requesting, but we found out today that we will not be able to continue with Park Hill School District because he is registered at a private school.
So we have been talking to NKC Special Ed this past week in preparation. We are hoping that his IEP can just transfer over and we will not need to re-evaluate him this next school year. We will still pay our taxes and vote in this school district, but will be driving the 30 minutes to the next school district for his Spec Ed stuff. We just love government! We are still praying they are able to work with us on our Tues/Thur need so he will not miss FCA school time for speech therapy. I will keep you posted on what we hear back next week. Please be praying for the therapist he will get to work with and his continuous improvement. We are praying another new therapist in another new building will not delay what we are seeing and less frustration for Caleb. Be praying that while FCA is looking for a new building for the 2012-13 school year, they consider NKC school district buildings. We may need to transfer all of this again the next year if FCA is in another district! Caleb will have a lot of new changes this August. He is getting more and more excited about FCA and being with his brother and sister for school. We signed him up for flag football today too, which will be his first sport activity. He can't wait for that!
So that brings us to our news we received today, seven therapists later. Because of some new district policies in MO, all private schooled children needing Special Education services starting next fall, will need to get them through the school district that the private school is in. The main reason behind this new policy change is because of transportation. By law, they have to offer buses to and from the public school for the services and the buses could not drive outside of the school district they were in. Our school, FCA, is located in the North Kansas City school district (not Park Hill where we have been going) so we will now need to receive speech through them, even though we will drive Caleb to speech and not use their bus. Our school district was trying to decide if we would qualify as a home schooled family because Caleb will be home on Tues and Thurs and those are the speech days we are requesting, but we found out today that we will not be able to continue with Park Hill School District because he is registered at a private school.
So we have been talking to NKC Special Ed this past week in preparation. We are hoping that his IEP can just transfer over and we will not need to re-evaluate him this next school year. We will still pay our taxes and vote in this school district, but will be driving the 30 minutes to the next school district for his Spec Ed stuff. We just love government! We are still praying they are able to work with us on our Tues/Thur need so he will not miss FCA school time for speech therapy. I will keep you posted on what we hear back next week. Please be praying for the therapist he will get to work with and his continuous improvement. We are praying another new therapist in another new building will not delay what we are seeing and less frustration for Caleb. Be praying that while FCA is looking for a new building for the 2012-13 school year, they consider NKC school district buildings. We may need to transfer all of this again the next year if FCA is in another district! Caleb will have a lot of new changes this August. He is getting more and more excited about FCA and being with his brother and sister for school. We signed him up for flag football today too, which will be his first sport activity. He can't wait for that!
Comments
Thanks for the update! You are so sweet to say I was your/Caleb's favorite SLP. I love you guys too!! So, so glad to hear Caleb is doing so well - I knew he would!! Crazy all the changes - thanks for explaining it all. I had heard through a friend who is an SLP with the NKC district this change was coming but it was nice to get your run-down of the situation. I will pray for you guys & hope it all works out b/c I want Caleb to keep moving forward too - he's worked SOO hard & deserves the best! I read about your FCA decision on here awhile back...I think that will be a great choice. Caleb is a smart kid & his speech is only going to improve! Miss you guys!
We love updating you about Caleb. You TRULY are our favorite SLP. We still hope one day to have you again when our finances are in order and we are not paying $10,000/year for our children's education :) He has really improved, like you said he would this past year in K and we can't wait for you to hear him. We need to go out to dinner or lunch again soon. We miss you very much.