Shane's Eligibility

Shane's eligibility meeting was today. Last Friday was the data review.

It lasted all of three minutes.

The eligibility team members introduced themselves, they started to read the criteria, and then they said "we don't see any evidence of a developmental delay. Your son is not eligible for services at this time."

I said "I understand. Thank you very much," and that was it.

Not a very exciting story to tell, but a piece to the puzzle that will be Shane's life (and my parenting 'career').

What's more ironic is I forgot about the meeting entirely! I do this for a living!



This morning, the big SOL test was cancelled 10 minutes before it was scheduled to begin. The announcement went something like this:

"Staff, we are having technical difficulties outside of our school that we cannot resolve. Today's SOL will have to be rescheduled. Students will need to go to the class no one thought they were teaching today after the bell rings! We will be following a NORMAL schedule after that so the classes you planned a 20 minute after-testing activity for will now by 50 minutes. Sorry!"

....

Okay, so it didn't go exactly like that. It was a big curve-ball, though. I'm a good scrambler, so I feel like I came out on top, but there are plenty of teachers who were hopping mad (though most understood it wasn't something anyone could control).

This did have an effect on Shane's IEP.

SOL testing was supposed to be done today. The testing rooms were going to be disassembled and the room phones were going to be plugged back in.

No printers or phones were allowed to be plugged in for testing.

My room is used for testing.

I plugged the phone near the end of the day for a parent phone call, but I unplugged it right afterwards. The building is so high-strung right now, I didn't want the phone going off on my account!

The eligibility team called and my phone did not ring.

The phone was working as intended. It was my brain that had the malfunction.

These are the "Keep Mike Humble" moments that end up being funny stories. Admittedly, this story is probably funniest to my fellow special educators, but I figured I'd append it to Shane's speech tales.

My son has made a ton of progress. Carrie and I are praying it continues!