Reply to What to do next? Elopement and aggression with first grader

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP: Have you met with your school's principal? I would start there to see what s/he knows about the situation, what s/he recommends, etc. Even if you end up going the lawyer route, it would be helpful to get a better sense of what your school is willing to do/what they recommend. Your school's principal will have a sense of how unusual the CHAMPS call was for your school's social worker/psychologist and doesn't have some of the negative incentives that DCPS has re: cost avoidance.[/quote]

Thank you for this - I haven't met with her yet. I did talk to her briefly as on one occasion a few weeks ago, and she suggested that he come home in the afternoons and effectively homeschool then (or virtual school). Neither my husband nor I love this idea because we both work. But we should probably talk to her again. I would love for someone in the school to be direct with me about what they think we should do.[/quote]

This is not ok for the principal to suggest--the school system is responsible for providing an education (FAPE).[/quote]
Stop being so rigid and technical. 
Especially at this young age you need to look at what can help the child - not what rights he has and what he "deserves."
I actually think this is a good suggestion because if he can get through a few hours of school successfully you can increase the mainstreamed time.
You could also do this with the social worker of course by having him spend half the day with her formally and the other half in regular school. But personally I might want to take my child out of school for a half day if he was suffering like this.

OP, I know you work but this is a huge crisis. It is very rare to have a child with behaviors as severe as your child. The worst I have seen personally is children having severe meltdowns but they would be far between like at most 2-3 times a whole semester and the child would be cooperative most of the time and not elope. I have known children who elope of course but it's not usually the same child as the child who has the meltdowns or the aggressive kid. Having all these is a lot and I think the principal sounds great because she seems willing to work with you. Most principals and staff would just want him gone so he can be someone else's problem. They are likely also dealing with other parents in the school with pitchforks demanding your child be removed.[/quote]

you’ve never seen more than a kid melting down 2-3 times a semester? Ok, I don’t think you’ve seen much. My DS’s pattern is to go through days/weeks of dysregulation and improve once supports and a strong behavioral plan are in place. “Pick your kid up at lunch” is not a plan. [/quote]

Except that in some situations, pick your kid up at lunch or drop them off late or have them attend for a few hours in the middle of the day is a plan. For some kids it leads to full attendance. Nothing should be off the table when a child can’t successfully go to school. [/quote]

Sorry, that is not a plan unless it actually is a plan - designed by the IEP team including the support of knowledgeable behavioral therapists as part of a BIP. It’s certainly not a plan if the principal is suggesting it off the cuff. [/quote]

You so desperately want to be right and negative. Thing is though, nothing is a plan until the team says it is but during periods of crisis, lots of things are tried and explored in the course of developing the plan - including partial days. [/quote]

I fully agree with this poster and wish the negative, argumentative poster would go away. When a child is in crisis you need to be creative and let all your notions about FAPE and IDEA and all that come second to getting your child stabilized. So the mom has to take a few weeks off to try to figure out what's going on? Is that fair? Is that legal? Who cares really if it helps the child at this point? Damage that is done at this age can have lasting effects forever. Her main focus should be on her child's emotional health.[/quote]

NP that just joined this thread, and getting chills being reminded of the crisis we went through with DS in K.  I agree with the above poster that sometimes it's not about what their rights are or that they're supposed to be in school for 8 hours a day because that's what kids do.  If a kid is having this level of crisis, it's not because they're trying to be a little shit. It's because they - the 6 year old kid - is in crisis and something about that environment, right now, is a really bad fit.  Imagine the emotional trauma a kid is going through if they're frequently eloping with aggression. Why force them to stay in that environment when they need help to feel safe again?

In our case, DS had a dramatic overnight change in behaviors and we went through 2 months of school crisis with near daily emergency calls from school to come get him, multiday suspensions, resource officer having to be brought into the classroom, and really scary stuff.  DH and I both worked from home and I ended up taking two weeks off spending them full time in school trying to figure out what the heck was triggering issues and generally trying to settle him back into the classroom.  After two months we got a PANDAS diagnosis and started immediate treatment, but we decided to pull him out for the last 2.5 months of school that year while we did a whole house reset.  We got a nanny for 6 hours a day i think, and let him veg at the tv the rest of the time.  By the time summer came, he was probably 90% back to normal. But those 2 months of school trauma left years long trauma for him that we're still working through.

I say in a time of crisis, do what works for being mental stability to you and your family. That may not be full time school.  [/quote]

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