The Brookston Family Blog

Porter had his Marin County school evaluation this morning. It lasted about an hour and a half as he played with toys and we answered questions with a child psychologist and speech therapist. The initial conclusion is that he will be eligible for special schooling of some type. They'll write up their recommendations and give us a report. After that, the next step is the IEP (Individual Education Plan) where we'll meet with them again along with the director of the program, the director of the school and our school district representative. At that meeting, we'll discuss the recommendations made in the report and, hopefully, decide on his educational goals for the coming year and how we're going to meet them. Whew, quite a lot to digest quickly but I'm glad we're on our way to getting him some help specific to his needs. Everyone we've met so far from the county seems great and overall I've got a good feeling, at least, about them. You hear horror stories about unprepared or unsatisfactory experiences with special education and it certainly feels better not to be starting out with an adversarial relationship. We're going to go observe some of the classes that Porter will be offered so we can get a better idea of how they work, which will be useful when we have the IEP, which should be in the next few weeks.