Our first IEP

Yesterday hubby and I kicked off a new phase of our journey with Jimmo - our first IEP. For those of you who are unfamiliar, IEP stands for Individualized Education Plan. Back in 2004 when congress passed the IDEA Act - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, it was required in the public school system that an annual IEP must be created to describe a student's special learning needs and the special education services to be provided to meet those needs. The IEP team consists of parents, the students teachers, the principal and a representative of the school system.

All of Jimmo's private therapists were amazingly helpful with providing feedback to the goals and objectives of the draft copy and after several hours of preparation, we were ready to advocate for Jimmo's needs. The team at the meeting was quite pleasant and willing to work with us. Jimmo will start this fall in the special needs preschool. Specifically in a classroom which our county refers to as PAC - Preschool Autism Classes. And just for clarification, Fragile X is not Autism, but has autism like tendencies, so he'll fit right in with these kiddos. We advocated for this classroom because of the 5 teachers to 6 student ratio and the heavy emphasis on routine. He will also receive 3 related services during his time at school - Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapy. And we'll continue to do all three privately after school as well. Overall the meeting went well. We do need to reconvene because the physical therapist was not able to make it and we had a few questions about her goals, plus we are requesting more speech and language hours. We're hoping to have this wrapped up by this coming week.

We're both very glad to have the bulk of this process behind us. Hubby and I chuckled on the way in to the meeting - 1 IEP down, 15 more to go! We couldn't be more happy with our county. Fairfax is the 13th largest school system in the nation and has an outstanding program for special education services. We're so thankful. Looking back 8 years ago when we bought a home in this county, we really had no clue how important this decision was. Certainly God had his hand on our decision.

And finally we received some great news. Originally Jimmo would attend a school down the street, that is not our "assigned" elementary school. Special needs preschools are not at every elementary school due to demand and cost. So this meant that Little Man and Princess would be at separate schools until Little Man reached Kindergarten. Well our "assigned" elementary school is starting a PAC class so now Little Man will be in the same school all the way thru 6th grade and will be with Princess as well.

OK enough acronyms and Fairfax County talk for one night - big hugs to all!
Happy Early Father's Day!