A Long Awaited Answer

Have you ever been in a position where you couldn't plan ahead due to another's plans? That is what we have been going through for over two months now. We have been holding off on planning our vacation because of school issues.

School ended on June 12th and most families had already long ago made their summer plans. Not us and it isn't because I'm not a planner but because so many school issues were still left unresolved. I began the "bugging" process on June 13th (the first day with no student distractions.) "When will summer school be and for how long?" along with "When will our FAPT meeting be?"

The answer to the first question was "we don't know, you should get a letter sometime in the next week or so" and the next was "Sometime in August." I already knew David would receive ESY (extended school year from July 7th into late August, but knew we could reschedule the hours the teacher was to be with him.

Our summer school letter arrived about a week later saying I would need to go on the 23rd of June to sign David up for summer school and it would be two weeks long either the first two weeks of July or the last two weeks. They would tell me once I enrolled him.

Then the next day I received a phone call from the school that stated David would receive home bound summer school and didn't think I should need to enroll him on the 23rd. These were very conflicting messages so I contacted the head of special education...again...and asked him.

I finally got my answers about summer school on June 23rd. No I wouldn't have to enroll him and it would begin on July 1st, for four days a week the entire month of July. However, it wasn't until June 30th that I finally got a return call from the home bound program confirming and scheduling a time for them to come. There went June and July, the school year begins August 25th so we have a three window.

But there is still the FAPT meeting that has to be done in one of those weeks. If you aren't familiar with FAPT it's a different funding source that the school works with. "The Family Assessment and Planning Team" (FAPT) develops service plans for eligible youth and families and reviews cases funded by the Comprehensive Services Act to determine progress, prepare transition plans, and adjust services as needed."

The FAPT works differently from IEP in many ways but three very important differences specifically affect us. First, that they have a set budget for the year (no money, no services—even for a dire need). In special education if the need is there they must provide the service. The second difference is that without a parent there the meeting doesn't take place. And third, they only meet one day a week since they have many agencies that must be present at the meeting (social services, school personnel, court services). I have attended meetings where ten different agencies were represented.

Our need for the FAPT meeting was to fund the cost of David's one-on-one that needs to begin on the first day of school. We began asking for a FAPT date from the school in May. On June 13th I went to the school to request the date in person. There were two more calls to the school requesting the date.

On June 30th I contacted the school official and explained that we needed to know the date in order to schedule our vacation. I was told the paperwork was being completed and we should know "soon." July 9th I sent an e-mail again requesting the date. I received a response on the 14th saying "I'll check on it." I also contacted the individual at the school offices and was told she would check.

So, this past Monday I sent an e-mail to the school official and the head of special education and explained the history of trying to get this date. I then went on to explain that since I have tried to arrange our schedule to meet their needs and am receiving no information in return it was now their turn to work around my schedule. I gave them until Tuesday to give me a date or I would schedule our vacation and they would work around us. I received a phone call on Wednesday (hmm) with apologies all around. Since we have already been to FAPT many times and have well documented our need for the one-on-one there is no need for a meeting.

So I will be very busy finalizing our plans for vacation—Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. My husband's boss has been great about allowing him the time off on such short notice (since they are usually required to give three months notice). We will be looking for a rabbit sitter for Roger to check on him during the week. I have found a great deal at a great family hotel, a week for $460.00 (including taxes). The hotel has free wifi services so we can post pictures during our trip, so that we can share our trip with you. We won't be going as far as we have in past years (thank you gas prices).