Change on the horizon

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We've got some big news about Maya.

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This past year Maya has been in what is called a "communications" kindergarten - a program for children with high cognitive abilities but other challenges, such as emotional or social difficulties, speech problems, etc. She is in a class of just eleven children with a teacher (trained in special ed), an aide, and a host of professional support staff (art therapy and occupational therapy once a week and speech therapy twice a week, in addition to weekly gym and music classes). In addition, she also has weekly sessions with a developmental psychologist and a (different) speech therapist who works with her on communication issues - "how" to have a conversation as opposed to how to pronounce various sounds. She has been working her little ass off, and it shows. She has made so much progress she's practically unrecognizable as the same child who entered the class last September. She's still got her challenges, but that light at the end of the tunnel is shining brighter by the day.

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For next year, Maya has been referred to a regular mainstream kindergarten class, out of the special ed system. (Because of her October birthday and her circumstances, she is entitled to and encouraged to take two full years of kindergarten. She will benefit tremendously from having an extra year before she enters full-on elementary school in first grade, and this way instead of being one of the youngest in her year she'll be just slightly older than her classmates.) She'll receive two half-hour in-class aide sessions a week (normally for cognitive issues, but in her case for social skills) and possibly, hopefully, one in-class therapy session a week, if such a thing is funded in our city next year. She'll still see her psychologist once a week (that we do privately) and will also continue with the afternoon speech therapy sessions one afternoon a week, but other than that it's head first into the deep end of the pool, complete with a mainstream class of 35 kids. (Yes, sadly 35 is the norm here - with just one teacher and one aide.) The particular class we're sending her to is in a fairly small building, so when possible they do try to keep it a bit smaller. The year Itai was there they had "only" 27. The good news is that that particular teacher and aide are wonderful, and we feel they'll work really hard to see that Maya acclimates well and doesn't get lost in the shuffle.
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We're cautiously optimistic. Thrilled that they feel she's ready to return to the mainstream, but more than a little concerned about how she'll react once she's out of her very small, very nurturing special ed class with all the extra supports and staff.

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We did have an option for a halfway point, a small special needs 1st grade class, but since her biggest challenges are social and emotional we all agreed that having her move programs and schools three years in a row would be unnecessarily difficult. Better to go in now with the same group of kids she'll go all the way through elementary school with, and perhaps even all the way to high school, and with a kindergarten teacher and aide that we know and trust. A harder transition now, but hopefully an easier one into the chaos of first grade (the first year of elementary here - kindergartens are in small freestanding, one-class-only buildings), since she'll be moving up with a large group of kids, hopefully friends.
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So all in all a somewhat stomach-churning change, but one that will hopefully prove itself to be a very good one.
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