New School for Dacotah

When Covid hit, the schools shut down, kids were sent home, and despite losing several months of the school year, kids were automatically transferred to the following grade. When I asked to hold Dacotah back, I was told it wasn't an option. He would have to go onto first grade, although developmentally he was no where near ready. His separation anxiety still wrecked havoc at drop off, he screamed and cried not wanting to go to school. So being a widowed mom I decided to work from home and homeschool him the best I could. 

August 2021-January 2022, we reviewed things he should have learned in Kindergarten. There were good days but honestly the bad outweighed them. He hated to sit still for more than five minutes. We had therapy 4 days a week 45 minutes away from 3:30-5:30 to help him build social skills, and behavior skills, we still had angry meltdowns, but we stayed patient. Every day we would pass a small primary school on our way to therapy that's 15 minutes from our house. In December 2022, Dacotah said, "I go to that school, peas mom". I reminded him that it was a big school with a lot of noise, a lot of kids, and that maybe some day we would try public school again. He was persistent over that month "I go, its not loud, I want to play on big playground with kids". 

So I talked it over with his therapist, talked it over with Dacotah about the expectations, and we agreed to give it a trial run. So in January when the kids went back from Christmas break, we went to the school and talked to the receptionist. I explained that Dacotah had an IEP from his previous school, his diagnoses, and she said "Can you bring him back next week and someone will be here to talk to you?" I thought to myself "Okay, this is going to be....Great! (sarcasm)". I was in for the surprise of my life: 

We show up that day, Dacotah is all smiles and we walk into the office. We are sent to the Principals office and inside was OT, Speech, the life skills teacher, and we were welcomed to have a seat. While I was discussing how we were doing in homeschool, Dacotah kept getting louder "I want to go now, can I go to my class now, peas". I don't remember who took him, but he was so excited. I explained his diagnoses, his behavior issues, his toiletry needs, his eating habits etc. No one looked at me as though I had three heads. Instead they all took notes and said let's meet back up in two weeks to get him a new IEP set up, that'll give us time to evaluate where he is currently and let us get to know him better. 

I left the school that day without a sense of dread. I was nervous true, but I was hopeful since it was Dacotah's idea. 

Fast Forward: we had his IEP meeting, he acclimated the best he could at the time, and we adapted as needed so he was able to be successful. We continued therapy four days a week, until around mid March of 2022 because it made the days INCREDIBLY LONG for Dacotah. That too was a hard decision because every single one of his therapist have played a major role in his life. Somewhere deep down, I knew this was the best choice, and so we withdrew with the option to return if needed.