A better update

I had a follow-up meeting with the resource director and R's teacher on Tuesday morning. We had several communications before that, and I was feeling better about things. The resource director seems to have a much better attitude than she did before. We have set up a 504 plan for Ryan, for accommodations to help him through his school day. I learned that Catholic schools are not *legally able* to plan and implement IEP's, because by law IEP's are funded by federal monies and the government will not allow those funds to go to any Catholic school student (maybe all private schools). And they don't have the private funds to pay for special education teachers/aides, so they just can't provide that. But they *will* provide reasonable accommodations in the classroom, as covered under ADA (which is I believe where the 504 comes from).

We are planning for several things.
1) we purchased a "disc-o-sit" cushion for R's chair at school; it gives him a little bit of movement which might allow him to sit a bit longer each time.
2) I'm sending a backpack with weights in it for R to use during hallway transition times, and for him to use when he gets a little antsy in the classroom. Heavy work helps SPD kiddos to settle themselves a bit.
3) they are allowing R a few more beats to respond to requests to allow him more time to process them and respond appropriately.
4) they are breaking R's day into morning/afternoon for behavior cards. He'll have a chance in the afternoon to get his green card back if he loses it in the morning.
5) R has been seated next to three good role models, which has helped his ability to focus.

He's already doing better! He's had all green cards this week, and not through any special means. I've been pulling him out for lunch to do the brushing protocol and give him some large motor exercises to get him ready for the afternoons...and we've also taken him off of all artificial colors...so I'm not sure *why* his behavior is better, I'm just glad it is! We'll be doing an artificial color "challenge" this weekend, to see if his behavior changes when he's eaten a lot of it. He had an all-morning psycho-educational evaluation this morning, so I'm anxious to see how that turns out.