This entry is really a trailer, or preview, of a much longer entry to come soon.

For a while now, Dar’s team has been preparing for Dar’s “triennial” evaluation IEP, something that the district does every three years to confirm Dar’s eligibility and to reassess and re-evaluate current procedures and goals.

Some of this has involved unusual work for me in completing evaluations and such. The district contacts me when it needs my help, but in this case was less communicative when it came to presenting wifey and I with a date for the physical meeting.

Or I should say, Dar’s team had a long email thread during which they finally found a date and time they could all meet, which turned out to be February 11 between about 2:30 and 4:00. This was presented to us as almost a fait accompli; if we had said no to it, we would have maybe met for ten minutes just to assure compliance, with another meeting to be determined later.

That’s not very different from what did happen. Wife and I both had pre-existing plans that day. We moved a few things around, and I was able to meet from 2:30 to 3:30 where, among other things, we planned for a much, much longer meeting early in March.

We hadn’t done it like this before, and certainly not for a triennial. I think budget cuts and lawsuits are taking a toll on the BUSD. I believe that several persons on Dar’s current team don’t work full-time, much less full-time at one school, and so they may not even check emails every weekday (I have good reason to think this). So what happens? Dar suffers.

We met, and the spokesperson for Dar’s speech therapist team said that he has regressed in three years.

That’s not what you want to hear. Not at all.

I’m going to keep most of my powder dry on this blog and with the district until that early-March meeting, but let’s just say…things are not unicorns and rainbows over here. And it’s been that way for years and years, despite many persons’ best efforts. They say we move on (or move forward) from grief and stasis. They don’t know Dar.

So I went to unicorns and rainbows when I took off from writing a blog post last week and instead flew to Orlando for family time and R time at the theme parks. No irrational Dar screaming for most of six days. Ahhhhhh. (My poor wife had a little help, thank the maker.)

Oh, I could have brought Dar to Orlando. I mean, we brought him to Disneyland 18 months ago. He’s great for skipping lines. (Because he really does freak out in line, Disney is happy to accommodate him.) He’s not so great at actually enjoying the parks. So this time around, no line skipping. It was all very peaceful anyway.

Back at home, freakouts and freakouts. Way beyond what 99% of 10-year-olds would even think to do.

This is just a trailer. A sneak preview. More to come.