Update: The meeting went very well! A little emotional. The current school social worker has been with Daegan for 5 years, since Kindergarten. She spent many many hours with him when he was in Kindergarten and 1st grade modeling behavior for him to learn how to interact with other kids, and then had weekly sessions with him since then. She is such a sweetheart. She had tears running down her cheeks saying how much she's going to miss Daegan and how the school won't feel the same without him. She still has the note he wrote to her in 1st grade, "I love you, Mrs. Hoon." Hearing her speak about him brought me to tears too! The special ed teacher had great things to say too. He's made a lot of progress with his writing and reading, two areas he has struggled with. He's reading at a mid-4th grade level--so not where he should be but much better than he was. And he's started to pick age-appropriate books on his own. He used to pick books way too easy for him. His teacher said how much he has grown out of his shell since the beginning of 3rd grade (has the same teacher for 1st-2nd and then another teacher for 3rd-4th), and how he's showing his sense of humor and personality much more. The principal had really nice things to say about him too.

He's going to continue to get services next year, not too many changes from this past school year. He'll have extra time for the mastery tests (CMTs), minimum of 25 sessions with the social worker (for the year), 4 hours a week with the special ed teacher. Next year they're going to have some study hall time in their school week, so luckily a lot of the special ed sessions can be during those times rather than take him out of class, or even in-class. He'll also have modified homework assignments, depending on how he's doing with it. This was a big relief for me. I'm most worried about how he'll handle the increase in homework for next year. They will all be given homework notebooks that they'll be responsible for writing their assignments in. I did talk to another mom who has a 5th grader now and she said that they do try ease all the students into the homework increase, but most everyone has it under control by Christmas break or so.

Once we know who his teacher will be for next year, I'm going to bring him over to the school again so he can visit his classroom. He has such anxiety about the unknown. The 4th graders did a tour of the new school in May and then we had a game night outside last week, so that has helped some. Then hopefully we can visit a few times over the summer to help ease his anxiety.

It's great to hear that your son graduated and is able to do well! It makes me feel better.