School News

Zoe's School for the Fall

We've now completed the process for enrolling Zoe in school for the fall. It is hard to believe she will be starting full time Kindergarten this year! After finding out that the Integrated Therapy Program (at Bloorview, the local pediatric rehab hospital) would not accept her, we were feeling very anxious about Zoe's placement. But we are quite excited about the school Zoe will go to.

The process here is that we have to officially enroll Zoe in the local school, they have to recognize that they can not meet Zoe's needs, and then we have to have an IRPC meeting (Identification, Placement, and Review Committee). At this meeting they identify Zoe as having "exceptionalities" and therefore qualifying for special needs assistance/programing. The hilarious thing is after the meeting Zoe came out having a "physical disability" on the paperwork and that was it. Since we know that speech delay and communication disorder are other diagnoses we found it very interesting that they only focused on the physical. I guess they have their reasons because certain schools accept certain disability labels. So we had to just sit back, sign the paper, and hope they had a good school in mind. After waiting a few months, we finally heard back from them and they recommended the school that we actually wanted as our first choice. We were worried they would try to send Zoe somewhere with less support and we would have to fight with them but in the end it all worked out nicely. Wow- imagine that for a change!

To Include or Not Include

Ideally, both Gavin and I feel strongly about Zoe attending an inclusive setting but still getting all the support she would need. Unfortunately, we know there is simply not enough money in the public system to give Zoe everything she needs without sending her to a special program. Our attitude is, as long as Zoe is getting what she needs- that is what is important. And Gavin pointed out that being with the children with different levels of needs is an inclusive setting since Zoe will learn from some of her peers and be a role model for others.

It is such a huge relief for us to know that Zoe will be getting what support she needs in order to thrive and learn. We know Zoe is capable of so much and it was great to have a meeting with staff who agreed!

Sunny View Public School

We went to check the school out earlier this week and are so excited about everything we saw. It literally had everything I could dream of wanting in a school for Zoe. They have such a great staff ratio-classes are usually 5-6 students with one teacher and two aides. Equipment lined the hallways, including "non-essential" equipment like adapted bikes and trikes! They have two swimming pools (the smaller one is a warm pool for students who can not be in the cooler pool), a regular gym, a physio gym, an art room, a "Snoozelen" sensory room, a fully accessible outdoor play area and a great atrium where the kids all meet up in the mornings and afternoons. The atrium has tables with adapted switch toys (Zoe loved this), a fully accessible tree house, and a fish pond! If you want to see pictures of the school, you can check out their website and go under the special places and programmes area:

http://www.tdsb.on.ca/SchoolWeb/_site/viewitem.asp?siteid=10217&pageid=11994&menuid=13576

Zoe Gets In Line

My favourite part of the whole day was watching Zoe explore the school in her walker. Everywhere was completely accessible. At one point a line of children walked/rolled by and Zoe saw a gap in the line, so she just got in line behind a couple of kids in walkers. The teachers all thought she was adorable and said, "Come on Zoe, you can come to my classroom." Well, that is all the encouragement Zoe needed, she walked right into the classroom with the rest of the kids! Looking around we could see that some of the kids are ahead of where Zoe is at, some where she is, and some behind which is perfect. We want Zoe to be at a place where she can learn from her peers as well as act as a role model. While her preschool has been amazing with her, it has become clear recently that Zoe is "the disabled" student and the school is not really sure the next steps for helping Zoe grow and develop. So it is perfect timing for her to start in her new school for the fall.

Zoe's New Best Friend

There was a little girl who was quite taken with Zoe and we saw her a few times throughout the day. At one point she asked me if I had a baby in my belly and when I said, "Yes" she asked if it was a boy or girl? I said we didn't know yet. She said she thought it was a girl baby because that is what she wanted when her mom recently had her baby brother. I said, "We will find out soon when the baby comes out" and she quickly replied, "When Zoe goes to school here in September and we are best friends, she can tell me if the baby is a boy or girl."

Well, good to know Zoe already has a friend lined up!