Sunday, July 1, 2012

Kindergarten

         After many meetings, and a lot of prayer, we were able to enroll Jack into a collaborative Kindergarten program in the Green Bay school district.  Only one school in the district runs this program, but they referred to it as their 'cadillac' program.  It's designed so that two kindergarten classrooms are connected by a third room in between.  The classrooms are staffed by kindergarten teachers and special-ed aides, and the middle room is staffed by a full-time early childhood teacher.  They are regular education classrooms, but each room has 5-6 kids similar to Jack, who can get the attention they need but still be able to learn at the appropriate age level.  I.AM.SUPER.SUPER.SUPER.EXCITED!!!  This sounds perfect for Jack!  They even agreed to start him at 2 1/2 hours for the first six weeks, and then slowly increase his hours over the school year -and the additional time is completely dependent on how he is handling everything.  There is something very settling about this for me, too.  It has been an entire year that Tony and I have been wondering and waiting to see how school was going to play out for Jack.  On one hand, he doesn't need to be stuck back in a special-ed classroom.  He wouldn't thrive that way.  On the flip-side, he struggles in classroom size settings on his own.  I had never heard of this program, but as soon as it was mentioned to me I knew it was a good fit for Jack.  It sounds very discreet to me, which I think is important.  What I mean is: the aides in the classrooms help all of the kids, and the middle room is functional for both classrooms.  Basically, the kindergarten classrooms are self-contained; they have everything they need in this three room system.  There will be no calling Jack out of class, he will not have an aide with him, and he won't have to feel different in any way -but he will still get the extra attention he needs!  I really believe this is a gift from God to Jack, and to the rest of our family as well.  He has worked so hard, and changed so much in the last year, and I'm so excited for him!!






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