Schedules and School

Posted by Heidi



Going into this past school year, we knew trying to work out Ethan's schedule was going to be tough. As any RS mom knows you need to be one step ahead of the process and I mean this physically and literally! So this time last year I started planning for his first "official" year of school.

The first issue to deal with was timing. We live in the sub-division where our kindergarteners go to afternoon kindergarten. I knew this would not work for Ethan for a few reasons. He tends to get more off balance as the day goes on and I did not want this to become an issue in school. He also has a ton of his annual appointments in the fall (because his birthday is in August) and we have to wait after that due to the evil insurance gods and their rules (another story for another day ;D). Most of his specialist like to make appointments in the afternoon due to they do surgeries in the morning. So am class would mean missed school.

The next issue was that I needed to plan his weekly OT and PT. This has to fit into my day off. Since I have to fit it into one day I was able to get back-to-back appointments BUT only in the afternoon. I knew that having 2 hours of therapy in the morning and then going to school would be rough on him.

So I had to petition the school starting in April to have him switched to am kindergarten. I went ahead and scheduled all those appointments in advance in hopes that it was granted. Thankfully it was and due to such advance scheduling Ethan will now receive a perfect attendance reward on June 11th. This is quite an achievement for any child but for one that has all that goes on in his life I am proud of him (And ME!!)

We try so hard as RS parents to give them as much of a "normal" childhood as we can. He was able to attend every day this year, so I feel like I gave him consistently and "normal" this year!

Oh what challenges does next school year bring? Well I have already started planning! He has full day school then! Whew....