Summer better than others

Sorry for the delay in posting. This ruptured disc thing (yes, spinal, not a computer disk) is really kicking my butt a lot more than I would have imagined.

If you remember, we have had some issues with the summer program for Pearlsky. She is the oldest in the school district with severe disabilities, so every year that she moves on, she is the test case. When she entered high school, there was no summer program, hence they needed to send her out of district. Note that her IEP mandates a full time summer program (school-like hours) with all services.

As I have blogged, the place we sent her, really the only one close to fulfilling her needs, was less than optimal. We did look at them for a full residential program for Pearlsky’s brother at one point and they rejected him as too disabled (equal to Pearlsky, actually). We found over the last two summers, that the summer program did not work for us, either.

Pearlsky’s teacher, a wonderful woman, had advocated very strongly for an out of district placement since the change of scenery and environment would be great for her. Why should Pearlsky basically go to the same school year round? A good argument only if in fact the placement worked.

The second summer, in an attempt to make it work, we worked with the camp and got them to agree that Pearlsky could go to the pool with her aide anytime the current activity was not appropriate (about half the time). Sounds good, but the implementation … well … ungood. There was a nurse assigned to Pearlsky’s group of ten kids. If the inappropriate activity was not near the pool, she could not go and be so far from the nurse. Just one example.

There was a meeting at the district level last week about Pearlsky and the summer program. I was not told about it, but in this case that was ok (only because the outcome was good, and because of my current condition, well, I don’t get out much).

Punchline? They are modifying the district’s new summer program to be as appropriate for Pearlsky as possible. She will have all her services from her known therapists. Neither her teacher nor aide are involved, but other aides from the classroom are and they know her well. There is a search for an aide for her going on, and they say they will be very picky. She will be closer to home, with people she knows, yet doing new and different things.

There will not be as much swimming as we would like (Pearlsky’s all time favorite anything, other than driving her dad crazy) but there will be a lot of field trips and excursions. She generally loves those.

So there. I do sometimes post about things working.

(the new Poll Of The Day on the right is inspired by what I am witnessing about my own medical needs vs. Pearlsky’s)