School? Already?

We had our first meeting today with the Natick school system.  Because Morty has a diagnosis and is in Early Intervention, the Natick public school system takes over his services at age 3.  He moves out of the Department of Public Health and into the Department of Education.  Basically, preschool with therapy services will be provided to him.  He'll get an IEP and all that stuff.  The big question, however, is where will he go.

Jim & I have had some mixed feelings on this topic, as we like the idea of inclusion and the idea of Morty being part of the Natick community - a kid among his typical peers.  However, we recently visited Cotting School, a school based in Lexington that has been around for 100+ years and specializes in physical disabilities.  It was obvious at that school that Morty could do very well in that environment.  There were other kids there that were very much like Morty - struggling physically, but seeming to have similar cognitive skills.  Check out this kid, Colby on this page.  We actually met him and a few other preschool students in music class during our tour.  Colby strung together the sentance, "how are you" to us - it was adorable and amazing at the same time - I think Jim and I were both holding back tears - because we can imagine that that is possible for Morty also.  The place is very well run - they totally use technology, the facilities are completely accessible, they are very routine oriented in the preschool (a good fit with Morty), they even have an Industrial Arts (i.e. "Shop") class for the little ones.  We got the idea from them of using the step by step button for Morty to tell people in 1st person what he did over the weekend - to tell his story, as if he was talking to people.  (he *loves* doing it, by the way - a simple idea, but so fun for him).  We feel like we should use this kind of place and take advantage of it being so relatively close to us - particularly while he is so young and the benefits could be tremendous.

And so back to the Natick School visit today.  This is what is called a "90 Day Meeting" - a meeting that can be held between 90 days and 6 months from when a child turns 3.  It's sort of a chance for the school to get an idea of Morty's capabilities and needs.  We had a FULL house.  From our side, we had Wendi (OT), Nancy (PT), Kate (Speech), Marcy (Vision), Jim and I and Meghan.  From Natick there was Paul (the preschool coordinator), Amanda (Speech), and Jean (Outplacement).  The meeting went well, and actually Jean told us that she expected that Morty would be placed outside of Natick.  Morty performed well for them (surprisingly) and charmed them with all his abilities - the step by step, the iPad, his gait trainer.  Our therapists commented after the meeting how well it went and how agreeable they were to being open to outplacement.  I guess that doesn't always happen...  glad it wasn't a fight at this point!

So now we pretty much wait until after the summer, and then we start a bunch of paperwork and referrals and school visits. 

I can't believe the little dude is old enough to start talking about school!