charcola

My child is an alternate curriculum student receiving inclusion support in a jr. high in California. Alternate curriculum students normally have 2 options: either be in a general ed. full time with 3-5hrs/week of inclusion support OR be in a autism alternate class (the only alternate curriculum class offered in SDC in CA). However, we were able to request to be in our own blended program (SLD class (mild to moderate SDC) for 4 core academic subjects + gen ed for electives & PE) the 1st year in jr. high to take advantage of smaller/slower SLD class for easier academics. However, at a recent IEP, the school offered us an 'autism alternate class' instead of SLD and asked us to move to a different school for the following reasons: 1) SLD is a core curriculum class and generally does not accept 'alternate curriculum' student whose academic level is a lot lower than their 'core' students. 2) due to low academic level, my child needs more modification but SLD teacher seems to be burned out doing so, and inclusion support teacher who is supposed to provide these modifications is not allowed to support us in SDC as she is also a special ed teacher and it would be considered a 'double-dipping' (having 2 special ed teachers in 1 class), so this puts a lot of pressure/burden on SLD teacher. 3) My child has missed many classes this year and had some elopement/yelling behaviors outside of classroom due to anxiety and clashing with 1:1 aide; school says this is disruptive and causes safety concerns 4) Because of such low academics, and even lower functional living skills, the child should focus on living skills moreso than academics in autism alternate class, not in SLD, to prep transition into adulthood. (my take)..while much of these are understandable, I still feel current placement is the best placement for my child as full time gen ed. will be too overwhelming for her, and yet, autism alternate class lacks appropriate social opportunities / good peer models / and has too many behaviors that my child would often imitate on or get distracted on. Academics is not our priority, but social interaction and having peer models to look up to in a typical class environment are our priorities, and we've taken steps to help reduce my child's anxiety (through med, change of 1:1 aide, front-loading of class material, etc) and already saw an improvement in her behavior so I feel we should be given another chance to do better, especially now that my child is better warmed up to the school during this 1st year in jr. high... rather than being sent away to a new school/program. IEP just finished & I was given a copy to sign on with this offer we don't agree to. I'm not sure how to go about this issue.. and was wondering if PWN would help us in this case in anyway. Any thoughts or advice would truly be appreciated.