About a month ago I had a meeting with a bunch of people involved in Gage’s education. It was his annual IEP review. The meeting was long, came with 7 people, Julian on speaker phone and was about a week and a half after a meeting went bad with one of them. I was still feeling sad about the bad meeting because I hadn’t actually gone into the meeting with any agenda with this person that I like and respect and thought I was there at the request of this person to provide suggestions on working (behaviorally) with Gage based on a series of email communication about Gage. I won’t go into specifics, but I left, upset and unsettled for a long time (still really) about what had transpired.

Back to this review meeting…at the meeting we discussed how Gage was behind in a lot of areas but we all agreed that the underlying problem was reading. Because he is behind in reading he is struggling in many areas, including math (written problems). At the time I addressed concerns about Gage being removed for more special ed time because he needs the time in the classroom with his classmates (still working on that socialization) and he and his teacher have found a grove. His behavior is “controlled” as they say and we all agree this is a good thing. She keeps him in check. So we discussed upping special ed time (one-on-one) in the classroom during a time that other students are working on reading. During this meeting that lasted more than an hour and a half I repeated at least three times that as I understood it we all wanted him to have extra special ed time, in the classroom, “Right? Is that what we are saying?” and everyone agreed. The person in charge of the IEP (special ed…or “Interrelated” person) tried to talk it through to figure out how to get someone to the classroom to work with him during this specific time of the day to no avail. They mentioned maybe getting a 5th grader to come assist him and while that sounded appealing (peer-to-peer) I didn’t think this was a good solution for trying to get Gage up to speed at this time. We decided to reconvene when they could look at how to make it happen in the classroom. I felt as good as one can hearing (for the thousandth time) how far your child is behind in school with the agreement to come together a week later to sign off on what could be worked out.

A week later when I checked back they told me they wanted to pull Gage out of the classroom instead and get him to the special ed room for more time. I was surprised because that wasn’t what I had clarified and everyone agreed on during the big meeting day. One teacher said she felt put on the spot to answer that way, which confuses me still, because it was a brainstorming meeting I thought. Everyone was participating, offering their input about him and the issues and I didn’t feel like it was confrontational at all. I stayed in check with my comments, feelings, and as Gage’s mom, sincerely tried not to take everything so personal…on his behalf. In fact, I felt, as I do always with Gage’s school, that they have his best interests at heart.

So, they presented three new programs (computer, self-directed somewhat – I know, I did kind of laugh at that given Gage’s behavior challenges – then testing, scoring and charting for visual progress) that they assured me they would monitor Gage and make adjustments. But they felt strongly that this is the way to go for Gage. I pushed for making sure we have a way to measure his progress and also have a cut off date to do a serious evaluation of his progress so we can modify the approach if needed. That will happen before winter break. I’m comfortable with this at this time.

The truth is?

I trust them. They are a group of talented, caring, smart educators and the truth is they know more about Gage’s educational progress as compared to where he was at the beginning of the year. They know more about educating my developmentally behind, kidney-challenged, spirited boy than I do.

The truth is also…

That I am tired of going around and around about it in my head. If I am truly honest with myself, even if I believed that he should have help in the classroom instead of being pulled out more, I can’t say I would have fought for it on that day. I am feeling very vulnerable about what I say and how I say it right now so maybe my agreeing to this plan is a little bit of trust and a little bit of tired.

And that is hard to admit to myself, because I try to do whatever I can to make sure Gage is getting what he needs educationally. I try to stick to the best advice I ever got about what to think about education and the kids….to remember that Their Right is Reasonable Access to Education. Repeat. Remember. Repeat.

It’s just so hard. Hard to watch my boy struggle. Hard to navigate this world of education and educators. Hard to place trust in other people, knowing that they don’t know him and love him like I do. They don’t believe in him like I do. That they might not see the special something in the eyes of the wild boy that I do. Hard to realize sometimes that Gage was dealt a crappy hand of challenges all-around and he will always struggle in some way to live a “normal” life…and this is just more proof.