Hatred of All Things... Educational - Part 2/5

     Teagan received services from a different one-on-one worker, who was nice, but just not the same.  Teagan did very well with her also, but when it came time for Kindergarten in the Exceptional Children's Program, he didn't need his one-on-one worker.  He was doing awesome in the new school, the classroom was great, the teacher and the assistant (we still love them!) were so wonderful, everything seemed perfect, my sweet baby was going to get an awesome education, he was going to grow up to be the little genius we all knew he would be.  The year went so well, that at end-of-year testing, he was academically exactly where he should be.  It went so well...
     We were called into an IEP meeting during that summer, prior to 1st grade.  We were informed that Teagan had done so well on his end-of-year testing that they were going to mainstream him into a regular education classroom, take away his IEP, all his services, and shove him into a classroom with 20 children with two full time teachers, instead of the perfect environment he was in with only 8 students and two full time teachers.  We begged and pleaded and begged again for them not to make this decision.  We knew he was not ready, he needed at least one more year to get the hang of it, even if it was another year in a mainstream Kindergarten class, which at the time they did not suggest.  They said their hands were tied, they had to make this decision based on his test scores.  Total bullshit.
     Enter the 1st grade in a mainstreamed, regular education classroom with a teacher who was too nice that Teagan literally bowled her over with his manipulative behavior and his awesome cuteness.  The assistant teacher, bless her heart, was so nice and loving, Teagan obviously was her favorite little baby, and she did everything she could to help him as much as possible.  Seven days after school started that year, the principal called me.  Her exact words were, "Teagan is struggling, and I have decided to place him back in Kindergarten."  To which I replied, "It's not happening.  We begged the IEP team not to place him in a regular education classroom, they did not listen to us, so now this is your problem, fix it." 
     So, from there, my husband and I spent the next several months fighting the principal and her team of psychologists, social workers, and school administrators who supposedly knew exactly what my son needed in order to achieve mediocre academic success.  We ended up contacting a child advocate who specialized in fighting the school for children with special needs.  She had been a school administrator and teacher for over 20 years, turn advocate, and she was wonderful.  After five months of fighting, we got Teagan back on an IEP, with "services" I wouldn't even discuss, except that wouldn't help me bitch about this school mess.  His "services" consisted of one hour a day of "resource" which was him sitting in a classroom for an hour with 10 other children, all from different grade levels and educational levels, being "taught" by a teacher who didn't do a whole lot of teaching, for the time I sat in her class.  From January to June that year, I spent half a day in Teagan's classroom monitoring him and trying to encourage him to complete his homework, since his regular education teacher and his resource teacher didn't seem to be able to do the job.