As I’ve mentioned before, my son has Aspergers syndrome, a condition on the Autism Spectrum^*, and for most of the past three years has been in a private placement, the Forbush School, a part of Shepard Pratt Health System as a result.

While this has helped him quite a bit in dealing with his problems, which are almost exclusively behavioral/social and not academic^†, but he’s also very high functioning, an IQ of around 135.^‡

So while Forbush has been good for him in terms of a social experience, academically, even with the very small classes they have there, he has increasingly found the academics not sufficiently challenging.

The problem with Baltimore County Public schools has always been that we have been unable to get sufficient support, and so we lawyered up, and he got placed at Forbush.

While Baltimore County could have supplied the necessary services, for less money than the Forbush tuition, they simply wouldn’t.

So, while we were all on the same page about wanting him to go back to the mainstream public school, we were concerned that he would be placed in Behavior Learning Support (BLS) class for kids with severe behavior problems, which would have him in a situation with older kids who are behind him academically, which would be the worst of all possible worlds.

So, this Tuesday, we had a meeting to get our ducks in a row for him going to Chatsworth, an area elementary school which is set up with the most special ed resources.

It was a four hour meeting, and we went through the 25 pages in his IEP. Two goals were dropped, because the staff from Chatsworth found them redundant, and there were some minor rewrites, but basically we now have a situation where he will get the support he needs

He will start at Chatsworth on Monday, and he’s both nervous and psyched. He’s already spent about 5 half-day and 2 full-day visits to Chatsworth and sat in all the classes hew will be in, basically the Gifted and Talented (G&T) program, which is good, as he started to complain about what he calls, “Boring stuff he already knows.”

^*There is some dispute between the experts as to whether it is a mild form of Autism, or a separate condition that is on the spectrum. Me, I don’t care, I just want to make sure that he has the services he needs.
^†He has a bit of a problem writing long essays, because he can’t keep the idea in his head long enough to physically get it out onto paper. If he dictates, he’s fine though.
^‡Just today, I was explaining how X-rays work, and discussing a brief primer on wavelength and frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum. We were at the Chiropractors, and they have an X-Ray machine there, and he was curious. He picked it all up in about 30 seconds. Like I’ve said before, scary smart.