school meeting

today's meeting with the the school district did not go well. i'm going to back track a little bit here just so everyone can understand better what is happening. owen has been receiving services (physical therapy, occupational therapy, vision teacher and at one time speech therapy) since the day he came home from the hospital. from birth to age 3 it is paid for thru a state service called missouri first steps. and once they turn 3 they go into their city's school district services. for the first 2 years the therapist came to our house. when owen turned 2 he started going to Children's Center for the Visually Impaired ( CCVI ) as a pre-school to focus harder on his visual impairment. this was paid for my mo. first steps. every year around his b-day we have a meeting with all the therapist, case workers, teachers, social workers and so on to review his progress and go over his goals for the next year. for the last 2 years he has been in the independence school district they have let us keep him at CCVI because they don't have a visual specialist for pre-school. what this mean is that for the last 2 years independence school district has paid for owen to go CCVI which is in KC and this last year they have transported him there as well. so now that owen will be 5 in june he is kindergarten eligible. today at hsi meeting the independence school district says he has to go to kindergarten in independence next year to continue getting services from them. even though mo. law says he can wait one more year to start kindergarten. which is what we want him to do because of his size and his upcoming transplant. when he has his transplant he will be out for about 4-5mos. : 4-6weeks recovery in hospital, 2 months no outside contact, 1-2 months gradually rebuilding strength and outside contact. so we want him to stay at CCVI where he is comfortable, we know the environment, trust everyone, and less people to spread germs about. but the school district wants us to just put him into a new environment with 450+ kids/teachers all 2 feet or more taller than him, that i don't know or trust just as we are about to go thru one of the most difficult and life changing experiences. it just not fair!!!! they said if we decide for him not to go to kindergarten we can home school him or pay ourselves for him to go to CCVI. :-( everyone from CCVI also thinks it's best for him to stay there so i'm just hoping we can work something out. nick and i have 10 days to make our decision.

on a good note, tonight we got everything packed for wednesday :-)