IEP, take two, absolute horror.  District head was there, principle was there for no reason other than a show of force as he has no relevant contact with Safi, and the tone was ominous from the moment we all sat down.  There were raised voices, accusations flying, an abundance of snarky and quippy responses, and nothing changed...other that the bridge between us and the Tulare City School District has officially gone down in flames.  It was a significantly more intense and hostile battleground than I was prepared for.  I know it shocked the hell out of all of them and certainly shocked the hell out of me.  But you know what, that's okay.  It was an eye opener, liberating really.  From this point forth Safi and most likely Nixi's social, emotional, and scholastic educations and development are squarely in my hands and that's a safe, strong, warm place for them to be.  Works for me!

I signed the IEP, stating that "I agree with the IEP, with the exception of offer of placement and level of services and support."  While refusing to change the offer of placement to "More Restrictive", they have admitted that Safi needs more supports than she is currently getting and have proposed interventions such as training the recess aides in "collecting data" on the goings-on on the playground as well as how to intervene when Safi is struggling.  Her teacher has said that there are some things she wants to try in the classroom but was not specific and I requested that she type those up and they be added as addendum to the IEP.
Oh, and they mocked a note from her psychiatrist stating that Safi suffers from depression and anxiety and would benefit from a more restrictive environment for support....The District head, Joyce Nunez, saying "Well, that's not very specific.  I have no idea what that means."  I told her to contact him.  It was just a total breakdown of communication and the egos in the room made it difficult to not explode...completely.  As I wont sit here and type that I was calm, cool, and collected.  When the meeting started and it was even MORE rainbows and lollipops than the first, with each member essentially ignoring the social issues that they had willingly discussed in the first meeting I couldn't believe my ears.  The teacher saying that Safi has enhanced her student's growth, blah blah blah...no more 5-15 disruptions daily in class disrupting the educational flow.  My god, I thought I was going to burst into flames right there in front of them all.  Mike was over it within the first few minutes....yet this thing dragged on for nearly two hours.  It was miserable and felt every bit as degrading and dehumanizing as it always has.  The only good thing is that Safi didn't have to be a party to the chaos and madness.

I called the school in Los Angles and told them about the IEP and they said it was no problem that they wouldn't put more restrictive environment, that they would still consider her based on her speech levels alone (receptive speech, or understanding what others say: 5yr 2mos, expressive speech, expressing herself: 3 yr 2 mos.) as she will be 7 yrs old next month and that clearly indicates a serious need in her social and pragmatic speech, and they apologized for how poorly the meeting went.  Thank you Village Glen school, for apologizing for my kid not getting the quality and level of supports and services that she needs in her current district.  You've already won me over.

Nixi remains concerned with going into the hallway because she hears stomping noises, apparently one of the more common auditory hallucinations in kids like her (along with crashing noises, scraping, "bam", etc.), but on a whole she is "stable enough" and doing okay.  Her IEP is the end of this month.  Joy.

Girls were with Mike all weekend and attended the zoo dressed like princesses for a fabulous Saturday morning outing.  I mowed the lawn because we finally got rain and the damn grass grew!  All in all, it was a kind of gnarly and surreal week.  What more can you say.

Sarah