Tuesday, September 14, 2010

This is My CSE (Again)

Today was Hope's CSE (Committee for Special Education) meeting, run by the densest psychologist in the world. It started at 9 am and I left the school at 11:04. Over 2 hours. The speech, OT, and PT evals have been ordered, but weren't done yet. School has been in session for 2 1/2 days, so the teacher was unable to give the committee any idea where Hope is in terms of academics. The therapist hasn't met with her yet, so all he could do is share the questionable information we received from the first set of adoptive parents. You might be wondering how the meeting could have possibly taken 2 hours. The committee spent most of that time discussing how they were going to classify Hope- ED (emotionally disturbed) or OHI (other health impaired). Hope came with a laundry list of diagnoses, any one of which was enough to classify her. Nobody was saying she should be in a different class. I said right up front it did not matter to me how they classified her. The school psychologist and the CSE Chair (also a psychologist) spent over  an hour debating the merits of one classification over the other. Everybody else watched. I had forgotten how numbing it can be to get the school system to provide services for a new child. This meeting may be an example of what put the school district into fiscal distress... It would have been easier, cheaper and as accurate to toss a coin.

New post on other blog.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That really sucks. I send you my best wishes because I hope it gets better. Hang in there.

Integrity Singer said...

well, since it has taken since September 2005 to get Sissy ANY IEP, I think you're doing great! FYI - AB is OHI and Sissy will probably be ED but who the flip cares?!? geez

Mom 4 Kids said...

I hate those meetings!