We were supposed to hear back
from the school district in August to schedule a staffing. Since we had
not heard anything by the end of August, Wendy once again contacted CARD
to discuss possibilities for in-home services. She explained what we had
been told last year about homeschoolers not receiving services and that we
had not yet heard back from the school district concerning the
evaluations. Shortly after she finished her phone call with the CARD
representative, she received a call from a representative of the ESE
department at the school to just let us know that we should be receiving a
call to schedule the staffing sometime next week (after Labor Day). She
was also told that the school district does provide services for
homeschoolers (even though she had not mentioned this to the school
district representative). Seemed like more than a coincidence to us.On
September 11, 2002, we meet at our local elementary school for a staffing
with the Occupational Therapist and Speech & language Therapist who had
evaluated Ashton. Both recommended that Ashton receive therapy. We
discovered that Speech Therapy (ST) and Language Therapy (LT) are
considered programs while Occupational Therapy (OT) is not a program. In
order for Ashton to receive services he must be enrolled in a program at
the school since he is not a student at the school. In order for us to
receive the OT he had to be enrolled in the LT program and the OT must
correlate with the LT needs. This might explain why he was refused
services last year when he qualified for OT, but not ST. Only they never
explained that to us before.
We were then asked if we could stay for a planning session and the ST
and OT helped us write out an IEP (Independent Education Plan). We were
told that Ashton would receive 2 sessions of Language Therapy per week
(about one and a half hours per week) and 1 session of Occupational
Therapy per week (forty-five minutes). We are supposed to get a call next
week to schedule our sessions. Finally some success. And it only took us
one and a half years, three evaluations, two staffings and one planning
session. Along with countless calls to the school district, attorneys,
child advocates, the State and National Department of Education, The
Homeschool Legal Defense and Homeschool Education Foundation.
Ashton began his therapy in October. He meets twice each week for
Language Therapy and once per week for Occupational Therapy. Also, the
Special Equestrian program is planning to provide some occupational
therapy and speech therapy during the week for those involved in that
program. We hope to get Zachary started on that in January. Thanks to
everyone who has prayed.
The Speech therapist is planning to see what she can do to get Zachary
evaluated for pragmatic language and see if we can get him started on some
therapy. Thanks to all who have been praying for us during this ordeal.
While it is not over, we can at least see some light at the end.
