ARD meeting (A Mom's perspective)

Student (J) is an 11 year old 5^th grader who had a stroke before he was born. He has no use of his right hand, and limited use of his right arm. His right leg is also affected. He wears braces on both his right hand and leg, every day. He wears glasses and has had 2 eye surgeries at 18mo and 7yrs. At 1.5 yrs he started having infantile spasms (a form of seizures). At 22mo, Mom & Dad spent 2 nights in the hospital with J, learning how to hold him down (Dad) and stick needles in his little thighs and push 10ccs of a gel that burned (Mom) into his system, twice a day. Seizures stopped within a week, but weaning off the drug took another 5 weeks. Were the seizures not stopped with drug options, J would have had to have a “hemispherectomy” or removal of the affected part of the brain. J did not walk until 2.5yrs and did not talk until 3.5yrs. When he was 8 years old, the doctor gave him Botox injections in his right calf and they casted his leg for 2 weeks, trying to lengthen his calf muscle so that he could walk with his heel down, instead of on his toes like he was. The Botox worked wonderfully. He was in the state funded program ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) from around 1yr to 3yrs, when they help get him into the public school system. He attended PPCD (Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities) and then a blended PreK, for 2.5 years, and then started Kindergarten at the same school. Within 2 weeks of starting Kinder, he was having major behavior issues and the teacher kept writing referrals and sending him to the office. In one incident, the newly hired Assistant Principal just sent J home for the day. Over the next few months, J was rapidly slipping through the cracks and learning absolutely nothing. His behavior at home was also becoming more and more difficult to handle. Mom & Dad met with school staff, tried to explain J to them, and even showed them J’s MRI from 6 mo of age which show 60-70% of the left hemisphere of his brain to be an empty spot. The referrals stopped, but nothing much changed. Mom felt that J was just being “tolerated”.  Mom & Dad decided to make a big change in May of that school year, and move J and his two younger brothers to another district, one with a wonderful reputation, and impressive ratings. Within 2 days, an ARD was called to discuss J in this new school. The committee met and decided 3 big things: J would attend summer school that summer, would repeat Kinder at his new school next year, and Mom & Dad would put him on medicine to deal with his “attention issues”. Over the next 5 years, with a few bumps in the road here and there, J flourished. He became quite well known at his school, the children looked after him, the teachers and staff grew to love him. He learned to read, and although behind academically, he was learning. His social skills became a focus starting in 3^rd, and everyone worked to help him with that. Things were going well, and J was thriving. Behavior at home, was still very difficult at times, squeaking, yelling, banging on things, cussing, and some things could trigger a “meltdown”, which only Mom could get him out of. The tradeoff being, he was doing well at school, so the family took the brunt at home, and decided, fair enough. ARD meetings at this school became a positive thing, and Mom and Dad always walked away feeling as if they made the best decision moving here. These teachers and administrators cared about J so much, and would go above and beyond to do what J needed to be happy and successful. They found someone to start checking on him at lunch, where they slowly noticed him talking and laughing with his friends more. Then someone would check on him at recess, because J would just wander around not talking to anyone or playing anything. A few times they convinced him to join in a basketball game with his peers. The counselor created a social skills group for several students so that they could talk and learn about how to behave with their peers or adults in certain situations. J really seemed to enjoy those.

The summer before starting 5^th, Mom begins to notice signs of J starting puberty, and the behavior issues increasing. (On summer vacation, J wakes up the entire family at 7:30am, by letting the very heavy, very loud, door to outside slam, over and over and over again. Mom got up and told him to stop, but 30 min later, he was slamming again.) In this district, Elementary stops at 4^th, and the students move to Intermediate for 5^th & 6^th. This not only means switching schools, teachers, staff, administration, but also 8 periods throughout the day to switch to, and lockers in between. There is apparently no order in the hallways, the students are free to move about as they please. This very quickly begins to unnerve J, who says the “kids act like a bunch of heathens”. There is also a very big change in expectations of the students. They are “not in Elementary anymore” and it’s time to start “taking responsibility”. Mom decides to be proactive, and not knowing any of the adults at this new school, she writes two letters to send to the teachers. One, explaining J’s history, his likes and dislikes, things that “set him off”, etc. and the other explaining the J Mom gets at home, and therefore homework is an issue and organization, etc. A few of the teachers reply, mainly the Special Education teachers, of which he has 2- Math and Language Arts. Science and Social Studies are Regular Ed, but we have modifications in his IEP (Individual Education Plan). The PE teacher is concerned about the noise level in the gym and where she should place J in line, so Mom talks to J who states he would like to be up front, because then he can see when the noises (loud music, for example) are coming, by watching the teacher, and be prepared for them.

So as Mom sees J’s stress level rising, she tries to communicate as best she can with each teacher, stay on top of J’s work and organization, and figure out what she can do to minimize his stress. The biggest issues seem to be Science and Social Studies. Mom thinks that this is because they are the last two classes of his day, and they are the only ones full of Reg Ed students, (his Spec Ed classes have only 4 or 5 students) and that the work is too hard for him. Both teachers report that J is not participating in class, not “self starting” any work in class, and Social Studies is unhappy with him not turning in his work on time. J ends up with at least three 70s on homework because Soc Stud takes off 30 points for being “late”. Science reports that she asked J to sit at her computer to type his answers to a modified assignment, he left to use the restroom, and didn’t come back for a while. She had to send another student to get him. This tells Mom that things are not going well. J is shutting down, a sure sign of stress and anxiety. When Mom asks J about this when he gets home, he gets very upset and ends up crying about the situation. Mom tries to explain that he is not in trouble, but that she needs to know what is going on so that she can try to fix it. J has a very hard time communicating, but Mom finally gets out of him that the work is too hard. Mom asks to meet with Science and Soc Stud and they set up a time. Before that meeting, Sci calls Mom at home and simply asks, “What can I do to make J successful in my class?” Mom couldn’t be happier with this call, and tells Sci her thoughts on it being one of his only Reg Ed classes and that the work might be too hard. Sci tells Mom about modifications she is going to do to help J. (One big point to mention, Mom was an Elementary teacher until J was diagnosed.) So at the meeting with Sci, Soc Stud, and a CM (Content Mastery) teacher, Mom finds out that there are no goals in J’s IEP for Sci and Soc Stud, so the teachers can only modify the work, but cannot modify the actual curriculum. For example, in J’s 4^th grade Math (Spec Ed), the teacher taught him the 4^th grade TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills- the state created, state mandated curriculum which lays out each and everything to be taught in each grade level for each subject) but on a 2^nd grade level so that he could understand and therefore learn. To make these changes in his IEP, we would need an ARD. At the meeting Mom makes sure it is ok if J carries only his backpack with some lightweight folders instead of the school requested huge 3 ring zip-up binder that J has a hard time carrying. Mom also requests that J be carrying his AlphaSmart (a district supplied lightweight keyboard J uses to write out some assignments) everywhere he goes. Both are agreed. Mom then asks if it would be possible for J to leave each class 1 min early to get to his next class while the “heathens” were not “running and yelling and pushing” through the halls. Soc Stud says that they “work right up to the last minute in her class” so that wouldn’t be possible. But, J can hang back and wait for halls to clear before moving to Sci. Mom decides that this will work, but wonders how J could be both “not participating” and “working up to the last minute” at the same time….

So a week or two later, two tests come home from Sci and Soc Stud, both with 60s and needing to be corrected and returned. Mom sits down to go over them, and J doesn’t seem to know a thing. Also, an email from Soc Stud stating that the test needs to be corrected, that he is not turning in his homework on time, that she has had to “hunt him down” and that it is “hurting his grade”. She states that she wants to “keep (Mom) in the loop so that we can keep his grades where (she) knows they should be.” Mom wonders how this teacher knows where his grades should be… So Mom decides to call an ARD so they can get the proper goals and modifications in place for J to be successful. Mom also makes an appointment for J at the Psychology Department at the hospital where J sees a Neurologist every year. Hopefully they can help with his behavior. The ARD is set for a little over a week later. Mom does all of the test corrections with J, stays on top of the homework, and just tries to keep things moving along. Two days before the ARD, Soc Stud sends an email saying that J lost his workbook, and that he has an assignment in it due the next day, and 3 more next week, so he needs to send a check for $10 to replace it. So Mom sends a check.

Dad cannot make the ARD due to work, but Mom assures him that she will be fine. Mom has a written list of things to address and ideas on what she wants to say and make sure happens at the meeting. Mom is a little nervous about how it will go, considering she doesn’t really know any of the other people very well yet, but they are all there for the same cause, so things should be fine. J’s Special Ed Math teacher emails goals the day before, and tells Mom how incredibly proud she is of J. That he has been doing very well in her class, comes in with a smile and ready to learn. She is sorry that she won’t be there because she has class at that time. Mom thought schools usually got subs for that, but I guess not. Special Ed Language Arts also sends goals via email, and then calls to make sure Mom doesn’t have any questions. Both of these teachers have been able to get to know J, since they have such small classes, and they are Special Education teachers, so they know how to modify things for him. J is doing fine in both of these classes, and says that he enjoys them. Science and Social Studies are the ones that he says he does not enjoy.

 

 

At the ARD meeting there are 7 people:

Diagnostician (Diag)

Spec Ed Lang Arts (LA)

Content Mastery (CM)

Social Studies (SS)

Science (Sci)

Administrator (Admin)

Mom

 

They all sit down at a conference table and say hello. The meeting starts with Diagnostician, which is the usual protocol.

(Diag) “We are here to add goals to J’s IEP for Science and Social Studies, correct?”

(LA) “I also have some goals, and (Math) sent some too.”

(Diag) “That’s for his Annual, this is just a Review. So why don’t’ we save that for his Annual? We have to meet twice anyway.”

(LA) Looks down- “Oh.”

(Diag) “Or we could just make this his Annual? Do we want to do that?”

Looks at Mom.

(Mom) “Yes, I’d like to get as much done today as we can.”

(Diag) Writing- “Ok… So ‘Science’, what issues are you seeing?”

(Sci) “Well I have here some of the ways I have been modifying for J. Like only 5 questions at a time, and color coding them. Yesterday I sat with him and we cut out these three pieces of paper, he told me what order they went in, and I helped him glue them down to this paper. That way he got the basic information for the lesson.”

(Diag) “Ok, ‘Social Studies’? What issues have you been seeing?

(SS) “Well I have to give him constant reminders to get to work. If I don’t walk by him on a regular basis and tell him to do something, then he just won’t. I ask him to take things out, like his AlphaSmart, and he will just sit there. He also doesn’t turn in his work when I ask him to. He doesn’t seem to ‘self start’ on anything, so I constantly have to walk by him and tell him exactly what to do. He isn’t turning in his assignments. Even when I tell him to take it out and turn it in, he doesn’t. I sent home a blank card, for him to write notes on?”

(Mom) “Oh! Yes, I brought that with me, because I wasn’t sure what you wanted him to do.” Mom pulls out the card, one piece of paper with information on it, and a sticky note that reads, ‘write down notes on here. You can use it on the test.’

During this time, (Admin) hears a little girls voice at the door. She smiles to everyone and says, “Oh that’s (girl’s name)”. She then gets up, goes to say ‘Hi’ to the little girl, comes back in the room and gets a candy bucket out of a cabinet. She walks over to the girl, talks to her, lets her pick out candy, says goodbye, closes the door, puts the candy bucket back, and sits back down at the table.

(SS) “Yes, I sent him to Content Mastery to work on it, but I don’t know what he did.”

(CM) “Well I wasn’t in there at that time, so I don’t know if anyone worked with him. There was a large group in there though, so that makes it harder to do one-on-one.”

(Mom)Thinking- What? Isn’t that what Content Mastery is for?? “I just wasn’t sure how much he was supposed to write, and since we were meeting today, I thought I would just bring it with me.”

(SS) “Well there were actually three pages stapled together that he could use. But the test is today.”

(Mom) “He told me it was tomorrow.”

(SS) Sounding irritated- “No, it’s today.”

(Mom) Feeling irritated- “Well he must have just gotten mixed up, because he’s not a liar, he just can’t lie. But there’s nothing on this card, so maybe the work is on his AlphaSmart.”

(SS) “Right. Well the test is today.” She goes on to talk more about how she has to constantly remind him to do things, and sometimes he still doesn’t.

(Mom) Really wondering why this teacher won’t cut him some slack- “He has always been like that. That has been a big part of his goals the past few years, we’ve talked about it at every ARD, and we have all tried to work on that with him. If he doesn’t have someone nudging him along, he struggles with getting things going on his own. Especially in a bigger classroom like that. The problems I see are that I think the work is too hard for him. He is in a bigger classroom, it is the end of the day, and the work is just too hard. I don’t know,  if he maybe had an aide or something?”

(Diag) (interrupting) “Well the problem there is, one day he is going to have a job. Our goal is to get him there. If we always give him someone one-on-one, then he will never get there. No one is going to go to work with him and nudge him along one-on-one so that he can stay employed. Do you know what I mean? That is the ultimate goal. ”

(Mom) Wait, What?? A job? He’s in 5^th grade! Why would I be concerned with how he will keep a job one day??

So Mom decides to drop that for now, and talk about her big concerns right now.

 (Mom) “Well my biggest issue with J right now is his stress level. He was ok the first 6 weeks, although the noise level and changing of classes, and trying to keep track of everything has him pretty frazzled. He has started doing this thing, this behavior. He thinks there is constantly “urine” (his word) on his hand. (All faces in room show surprise or concern.) If he touches something, there is now urine on that item. The urine stays on the item permanently. Like his fan in his room he uses to sleep, every night he turns it on, and has to immediately wash his hand, because there is now urine on it again. At home, he washes his hand every few minutes.  He will not hold my hand, because he will “get urine” on my hand. Like I said, he compulsively washes his hand, and every time he gets a new towel out of my kitchen drawer, because the last one he used now has urine on it. So my kitchen towels stack up all over my counter. There are mornings that I hear him, as early as 6:30am, closing doors to his bathroom and turning on the bathtub to wash his feet, because he went outside and got bird poop or urine on them. Now this has me concerned and I’m pretty sure it’s his stress level and anxiety causing this behavior. I have made an appointment at (name of hospital) for their Psychology Department. I was told that they work with patients on stressors in school.”

(Diag) “Well, we could get a Psych Consult? She would come out and observe J and decide whether we need a Psych Eval?”

(Mom) “I guess we could do that. Although he probably won’t tell them much.”

(Diag) “Well she would also be talking to you.” (In what Mom feels to be a condescending voice.)

(Mom) “Um, ok. That sounds good.”

(Diag) “You would also sign releases so that the district can communicate with the hospital and vice versa.”

(Mom) “Ok.” (Mom glances at her list.) I just feel like his anxiety is through the roof. He’s just got so much going on with all of the changes. The reason I called this was to get the goals for Science and Social Studies, because I just feel like it’s too hard. His 4^th grade Math teacher taught him the 4^th grade concepts on a 2^nd grade level, because there are just some abstract concepts that he just cannot understand. He doesn’t understand sarcasm, or lying, because why would you say something that wasn’t true? Or say something happened a certain way, when it didn’t?”

(Diag) “I looked up his test scores. I have them right here. I pulled them expecting one thing, but I was surprised.”

She then proceeds to read aloud different tests and the scores he received. Mom is unsure of what tests those are, or what the scores even mean, but by the reaction of others in the room, Mom assumes he did ok on those tests. As she goes down her list, Mom is thinking, those tests have nothing to do with the issues I’m talking about.

(Diag)- Glancing towards (LA)- “You see? I just wonder if he’s foolin’. See this?” Showing (LA) more scores.

(Mom) – extremely irritated by the ’foolin’ comment-  Doesn’t anyone else in here understand him? Am I really the only one here for his voice to be heard? Is no one else going to speak on his behalf? Or is this meeting all about what he is NOT doing and how he could be playing games, or pulling one over on me?   “But aren’t those test done in a quiet environment and one-on-one?”

(Diag) “Well…”

(Mom)” My number one priority with J is his happiness. Keeping his stress level and anxiety down.  I have been (voice cracking) through so much with that boy in his life, and I want him to be happy. Of course his academics are important to me, but if his anxiety gets out of control, then his whole little world will come crashing down around him. I am concerned with his academics, but we just don’t know what the future holds for him, or what he will be able to accomplish, so I just want to make sure he is happy.“

Room goes quiet for a few seconds. Mom doesn’t remember exactly what all was said, things seemed to go blurry. While the committee continues to discuss the new goals for Science, Social Studies (which are exactly the same for both, but do include the teachers accepting ‘verbal’ answers, so Mom likes that. They read aloud and nod in agreement.

(SS) “If he tells me a verbal answer, can I then have him write it?”

(Mom) “That might work, because if he gives you an answer, and you tell him it’s correct, that would give him the confidence, and he probably wouldn’t mind writing it.”

All agree. Mom glances over her long list in front of her. Did I cover everything? Am I getting everything done for him to be successful?

An adult’s face appears in the window in the door. (Admin) looks at the person and mouths very loudly and sternly, “I’m in an ARD!” The person mouths, “I know!” (Admin) rolls her eyes, gets up and goes to the door. Mom can’t hear exactly what is being said, but realizes that it is very distracting. She does hear (Admin) say a few times, “I don’t know! I don’t know!” She then closes door again, and walks back to sit down at the table.

Science signs the ARD paperwork and stands to leave.
(Sci) “I have a class.”

(SS) “I do too.”

(Admin) “Ok.”

Mom glances at list again. Wait, they’re leaving? Are we done? Did we cover everything? Did I get all my points across to everyone? Do they now understand him better, so that he will feel less stress? Mom starts frantically crossing things off her list, trying to see what she hasn’t said yet. (Sci) and (SS) say thank you and good-bye. Mom realizes that the meeting is over. So she puts her stuff away, and they all sign and say their pleasantries. (Diag) makes sure to make the point to Mom one more time that one day J will need to hold down a job. Mom says good-bye and thank you and leaves. Feeling many emotions, relief? Confusion? Hope? Frustration? She calls Dad to tell him how it went.

(Mom) “I think it went well.”

 

Over the next few days, Mom talks to several people in J’s life. As she tells the story over again, she starts to really feel frustrated. Why were they talking about J holding down a job? What does that have to do with 5^th grade? Why is SS so hard on him? Does she truly not understand everything he has been through? Or everything he goes through on a daily basis? Does she even care? What else can I do? Who can I call? How do I get at least one more voice in that room for J? Not, Dad, although Dad needs to be there next time. But someone, who knows J and can make sure we are doing everything we can. Mom really starts to think about all of her options. She makes a call to the head of Special Programs for the district, but is told they will call back after the break happening the next week. Mom knows she needs the ‘teacher scoop’. She needs to find out what the teachers think about the school, what the teachers think about each other, that kind of thing. There is something missing here, and Mom needs to find that out.

 A few days later, Mom runs into someone that has more of an ‘inside scoop’.  At one point in this conversation, Mom gets to the bottom of SS. This is Social Studies’ VERY first year of teaching. Now we’re onto something. Mom being a teacher herself, this is something she can relate to. This is something she can work with. Not sure why J ended up in a first year teacher’s classroom at such a transitional time for him, but nevertheless, this explains a lot.