School Meeting

Yesterday we sat down with an entire room full of academic professionals from Mykaya's school to discuss her learning program. There was Jeremy and I, Mrs. Jahner, Mr. Olson (the principal), learning disability coordinator, autism resource specialist, speech therapist, occupational therapist, school psychologist, school counselor, school social worker, special education team leader, and a few others that I can't remember right now. How awesome is that? All of these people came together as a team for my daughter. Mykaya Noelle Schulz. I was in awe.

We discussed what has been done so far (testing, therapies, etc) and what we should add on. Something completely out of left field came up during the meeting that I had not even thought about. The school psychologist was talking about how Mykaya's level of awareness and functioning seems to change daily. Sometimes she will function completely normal and then other days she can't perform simple tasks or answer simple questions. This has always puzzled everyone that has worked with Mykaya. She brought up the possibility of diabetes as being a reason. She said maybe her blood sugar is low on her poorly functioning days and normal on her "normal" days. That is definitely something I had never thought about. Diabetes does run heavily in Jeremy's family and my paternal grandfather has it as well. So we will definitely be discussing that with her doctor.

The school will be performing several more assessments and also having us fill out (more) assessments to get a really good picture of where we're at right now. Her MAP scores (all 2nd graders were tested about a month ago) came back as follows:

Math scores at the 1 percentile

Reading scores at the 2 percentile

Spelling scores 83/80 (superior range)

The funny thing is that she reads at a very high level. She has library day on Monday and she consistently brings home chapter books that I would guess are at a 5th or 6th grade level. She enjoys reading those books and can tell me everything about them. But give her a book more at 2nd grade level and she has no comprehension of it. Can't even tell you the characters in the story. We brainstormed at the meeting that maybe she's bored at her grade level reading and chooses to not pay attention to those stories. Either way, I was shocked to see that reading score.

The math score I was prepared for. She has modified schoolwork which she receives one-on-one assistance from her teacher on. She struggles with simple addition/subtraction of numbers 0-9 and has no concept of money or telling time.  We have been working on all of these things since KINDERGARTEN. Yet, every day is a new day for her, it seems. I feel like I am on a hamster-wheel with her schoolwork. We have spent 2 hours a night on homework since she was in first grade, just trying to "teach her math". Nothing works. We've tried EVERYTHING. Luckily, Mrs. Jahner doesn't require her to turn in any homework right now. She works on math in school and that's it, until we can figure out what we're going to do. 

I am so very grateful to all of the academic experts at Northridge, who really do have Mykaya's interests at heart. They care enough to listen to our concerns, and have the appropriate people involved to get us where we need to be.

With love,

The Schulz's