School

I know that the 2013/2014 school year is over and this is well past due, but it is important for me to share our first experience with enrolling Lukasz in a regular school.  As always, Lukasz surprises and awes me.  Why must moms worry?  And why must we always be faced with the inaccuracies of our anxieties? And why must fathers always be right when they tell us to "just relax and wait and see"?  It's infuriating when they say it and even more so when they turn out to be right.

Frog missing right eye, gift from Padraig's teachers at
OKC Zoo Nature Explorer's Pre-K

Anxieties

Since my last post, we embarked on one of the biggest and most frightening steps (for me).  Lukasz started attending "real" school. Once he turned three, he officially aged out of the SoonerStart early childhood intervention program and needed to start receiving his speech therapy, etc., through the school system.  This step has been a source of anxiety for me since before Lukasz came home. I imagined a daily gauntlet of emotional torture that I would be responsible for dropping him off to every morning.  I worked myself up into nausea on more than one occasion worrying about this.

The best possibility would be the Oklahoma School for the Deaf's extension pre-k at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond (where we attended the Toddler/Parent Group every Friday) but they would not have a spot for us until the 2014/2015 school year.  My next hope was that that perhaps I would be able to get Lukasz into our home neighborhood school where he is known and loved by students and staff alike. He'd have the added back-up of a gang of Kane kids to love and defend him; surrounding him as they walked down the halls, a group not to be messed with. We work very hard to instill the idea that "Kanes cannot be in any group or associate with any individuals that will not accept every other Kane".

Unfortunately, I learned that in Oklahoma City, deaf/hard of hearing children all attend a deaf education program housed within a regular elementary school.  Separate classrooms with speech therapy in groups, not individual as with the SoonerStart program.  I have issues with this program and it's implications for adequate education in the post-pre-K years but that is for another post.  

We learned that he could either attend this Deaf/HH program with a whole day of education in total communication, growing his language for hours with a half hour of group speech therapy once a week or get nothing but a half hour of group speech therapy once a week at his home school until he is old enough to attend regular pre-K and then if he can't hear and speak well enough he would go into a special education program. Of course, he would not be able to hear or speak well enough because he is hard of hearing (even medically qualified as deaf) and would not have had the intensive total communication (ASL with spoken word) for two years that he would get at the other program.  Issues with whether this "choice" complies with the IDEA are for another time.

In any event, there was not much choice. We wanted the best possibility for him so we chose the Deaf/HH program. 

Monroe Elementary School

Gregarious as always, Lukasz completely defied my worries.  He won every heart he met on the first day.  Before classes started, all the children would be sitting in a line against the wall along the hall by their classroom. Lukasz' class was at the far end of the hall. By the second day when I took him to school, he ran down the hall to shouts of "Hi, Lukasz!" and waves.  He ran as fast as he could, so excited to get to class, throwing waves randomly from side to side at the kids in the hall.  

At pick up, I pulled up to see the teaching assistant waiting with him on her lap and surrounded by 5-15 older, non-deaf/hh students talking to him.  When it was time for him to go, they all had to have hugs.

At pick-up. They see me coming.

And they have to get hugs good-bye.

I know it may be different as he gets older, but I am so happy that all those teachers and students loved Lukasz from the first minute and never made me or him feel like it was out of pity. If we are right, it maybe that Lukasz' personality wins people over and beyond his different appearance. And the added benefit beyond the positive experience?  He came home every afternoon signing things I had to look up and guess at and his speech was following along, too. Whether by speech or signing, his communication took off exponentially.

This Year

Lukasz will be attending the OSD extension pre-K at OCU this year.  And it works out really well for our family as we unexpectedly moved to Edmond in July due to an offer on our house without it going on the market.  So, I will not be driving kids to schools in different cities.

The changes and experiences of moving to an new neighborhood with Lukasz and our gaggle of five are for another post when I get another 30 minutes to type in peace. Not to mention our soon to be started adventure of building a house on our heavily wooded 6 acre plot of heaven.