Christina, Author at A Mommy Story

Apr 13, 2014

Changes to the Gifted Changes

April 13, 2014 By Christina

So some good news: after a lot of outrage by parents of gifted children in our school district, the district has announced it will postpone any changes to the gifted services programs.

Well, sort of. Last week, the district administration met after a parent meeting earlier in the day, where they got an earful from parents who were not happy with having the changes dropped on them with no notice and no input. I spent a good deal of time speaking with the superintendent and gifted services coordinator, explaining why I was opposed and how the new plan would be harmful to Cordy, as well as others.

So after the administration met, their spokesman released a statement saying that next year would instead be a transition year. When asked by the media if that meant the changes were all on hold, he said yes, and NBC4 and the Dispatch quickly got the news out. We cheered and celebrated.

Then, less than an hour later, the spokesman issued another statement, saying that the first message was incorrect: they WOULD still go forward with the changes, along with a few modifications to help ease the transition. Hopes were crushed, parents were angry, and we were all confused as to how they could have screwed up the message so badly.

But THEN, about 30 minutes later, another reversal happened. Parents had already heard the first news, sending letters to the superintendent thanking him for postponing the changes. No one seemed to know what the correct story was. So, realizing how hard it would be to backtrack on the first release, they moved forward with postponing the changes for one year.

Crazy, right? While I have to wonder at the failure to double check your message before you release it, I’m still thrilled for the one-year reprieve. It’s a win on a technicality, but it still counts as a win.

Letters came home this weekend with the applications for the gifted ed ECLIPSE classrooms. Our school is keeping their class for now, and a handful of schools are still moving forward with a 3rd grade ECLIPSE class, too.

I’m really hoping the school district will take this year to engage parents on what works and what needs changed with our gifted services program, and will allow parents to take an active role in helping to shape any changes.

Filed Under: school

Apr 7, 2014

I Leave for a Week, and Everything Goes to Hell

April 7, 2014 By Christina

Forgive me, Internet, for I have sinned. It’s been over a week since my last post, but in my defense, I have a really good excuse:

We spent the week at Walt Disney World, partially for me to attend the Type-A WDW Workshop, and partially to have a vacation with my family. There were some amazing moments, and some amazingly good (and bad) timing to certain events, but we’re home again and settled back into real life.

I wanted to tell more about our trip to Disney, but then something else got in the way that demands attention first. The day after we returned from our trip, I was summoned to a community meeting regarding changes to the gifted education services offered by our school district. Cordy is identified as gifted and receives gifted services, so naturally this concerned me.

Her school offers an ECLIPSE class, which is a self-contained class for 4th and 5th grade gifted students. The class provides enrichment beyond the standard curriculum and encourages more out-of-the-box thinking – the perfect environment for our creative thinker who can’t always explain how she found her answer because it just appeared in her head. We (meaning her parents and the staff of the school) had been planning for her to join this ECLIPSE class for years, and at her IEP meeting earlier this year, we agreed that in April of this year we’d have her start spending a small amount of time in the class to help transition her into it.

That same day, I also received a letter in the mail from the district, telling me that the entire elementary gifted education program was being restructured, condensing all of the highly gifted children into five schools instead of the sixteen neighborhoods where the ECLIPSE classrooms are currently found. It also informed me that Cordy was being reassigned to an entirely different school in order to attend an ECLIPSE class.

Wait…WHAT?

The school district is, in fact, getting rid of ANY gifted education services at her current school, which has nearly a quarter of the student population identified as gifted. They intended to send her to a school where only 4% of the student population is identified as gifted. How is this equitable?

But wait… it gets worse. Beyond giving parents no choice at all as to where their children are to go in the Columbus City Schools district for gifted services, they also gave us only seven (7!) days to respond to the letter. Never in my life would I have considered the school they want to send Cordy to as an appropriate placement for her. I certainly wouldn’t have toured the school. Where she is now is where everyone believes she is best served. Everyone, that is, other than the district administration.

There’s even MORE bad news, though. Should a parent decide they don’t want their child to attend a failing school in order to get gifted services, there’s a line on the form we’re to return where we’re asked to sign to decline services. However, included in that is a statement that says we accept that our child will not receive gifted services if we decline the district’s placement option.

So parents, who had no advance knowledge of these changes and were not given any chance to provide input, are being told that our gifted children will either go to the failing school demanded by the district, or they will have their right to gifted services removed.

I don’t respond well to threats, especially where my children are concerned. I attended the meeting that night to learn more about the reasoning behind these decisions, only to find their reasoning was all based on lies. The Gifted Task Force recommendations that the district claims helped drive the changes have no recommendations for altering ECLIPSE. The state standards that they also referenced have no bearing on the current ECLIPSE classes, either.

Where does all of this leave Cordy? In a lose-lose situation. If she transferred to the failing school for gifted ed, she would suffer emotional trauma at being sent to a strange location, with kids she’s unfamiliar with and a staff she doesn’t know. Her anxiety would skyrocket and negative behaviors would likely increase, making it impossible for her to learn. If she remains at her current school, she’ll have the comforts of “home” but stagnate without gifted services to keep her mind active. Should her mind not be sufficiently challenged, her anxiety takes hold again, she becomes trouble in the classroom, and she shuts down and doesn’t have interest in school. Her team at school agrees with these assessments.

It breaks my heart to know she’s being placed in this situation by a careless administration who are likely pleased with the outcome, considering that her mom fought them and won during the school levy battle. But they’re placing hundreds of other children in a bad situation, too, ripping them away from friends and schools they know so they can be placed in failing schools to boost the building’s test scores.

I’m not sad, though. I’m angry. We’ve put enormous amounts of work into getting Cordy to where she is now, and we’re not about to let a tone-deaf, pigheaded administration undo those efforts. Other parents are angry, too, and we’re organizing to resist these changes. Should the district refuse to postpone these changes until parent input can be given to better shape any update to the gifted education program, we will choose to refuse to allow our children to take the OAAs or any other state standardized tests. Our kids are more than a test score, but if Columbus City Schools will only value them as test scores, we’ll take that away from them.

We have no plans to change Cordy’s school. She will remain at her school, and she will continue to receive gifted education services, despite the district’s claims otherwise. If it involves legal action, we’ll do it. She’s a twice exceptional child, and her special needs restrict her from changing schools for gifted services. She was placed in this school by district staff because of the gifted services and the special needs services available, and the district will honor that commitment to her until she is finished with fifth grade, at which time we may choose to leave this train wreck of a school system.

Sigh…it would be so much easier on the school district if they’d stop picking fights.

Parents of CCS children – find out more on how you can make your voice heard at this site. Parents of CCS gifted students are also encouraged to join this Facebook group.

Disney post coming soon, promise!

Filed Under: Cordy, school

Mar 27, 2014

Udi’s Makes Gluten Free Living Tasty

March 27, 2014 By Christina

Disclosure: I participated in this program on behalf of Udi’s and The Motherhood. All opinions are my own.

It was about a year and a half ago that Aaron went gluten-free. At the time, I had first learned about Udi’s Gluten Free foods, and they suggested we try a two week gluten-free challenge. Aaron and I both tried it, completely eliminating gluten from our diets for two weeks. At the end of it, we felt pretty good, but the true test was to see how we felt eating gluten again. I had no trouble going back to gluten. Aaron, on the other hand, discovered just how badly his body handles gluten, and after a few days of extreme pain, realized that maybe gluten-free would have to be a necessary lifestyle change.

This isn’t an uncommon path for many with gluten intolerance, I’ve found. Udi’s reports that only 10% of those who go gluten free are medically diagnosed, while 37% are self-diagnosed and discover through elimination diets. Although in our case, Aaron went to his doctor after this and was told to remain gluten free due to gluten sensitivity. It’s possible he’s had this sensitivity all of his life, although it’s also possible to develop it later in life after a major change to the body or traumatic event.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Aaron, healthy living, Sponsored-AF

Mar 26, 2014

An Unexpected Typical Development

March 26, 2014 By Christina

Cordy is a hugger. Well, she likes to hug those she knows and trusts, and has always been fairly affectionate with those in her family. When she was younger, we had to spend a lot of time teaching her about personal space, as she likes to get right up next to people when talking them.

While she’s a sensory avoider in many areas (like anyone messing with her hair, or loud noises), when it comes to hugs she’s a sensory seeker. I’ve always considered us lucky that in the world of autism, where so many kids don’t like to be touched, Cordy is a child who likes hugs.

Snoopy always gets hugs from her, too.

Over the weekend, we attended a memorial service, with a lot of family and friends present. This was more of a party than a somber memorial service, and it was occasionally loud and crowded. I worried that Cordy would not do well with the noise and crowd. At first, she kept herself away from the crowd, choosing to spin in a chair instead, but then she started wandering around through the people.

At one point, she walked past Aaron and I as we were telling someone about our upcoming trip to Disney. I reached out to Cordy, wrapping one arm around her and pulling her closer to me. I gave her a big hug with a very quick kiss on her head. Usually, she’d wrap her arms around me and attempt to squeeze the life out of me, or hold tight while she lifted her feet and hung on me. But not this time.

This time, she squirmed and broke free of the hug. And then as she turned away and walked off, she uttered those words that most parents dread hearing, the words that signify a move to another phase of childhood: “Mom, you’re embarrassing me!”

What??

I was embarrassing her? How is that even possible?

The first “you’re embarrassing me” is, I’m told, usually a sad moment for many parents. It’s the moment when your child is fully realizing their individuality as they mature, seeing themselves as separate from their parents and demanding to be treated in a way that protects that new identity they’re trying to create in the world among their peers.

But this…this wasn’t a sad moment at all. I felt the momentary sting of having my oldest child push away from my affections, but then as I considered her actions and words, I wanted to celebrate. Why? Cordy’s social and emotional development has been far from typical for much of her life, but in that moment, she had a very typical and age-appropriate response.

In other words: it’s progress towards understanding and developing typical social behavior. We know she’s on the verge of puberty, and several experts have told us that the hormones of the teenage years make everyone act different, but for kids with autism it can sometimes be dramatically better or dramatically worse. So far, we’re leaning towards the “better” category, as she starts noticing the behaviors of others around her and makes her own attempts at social behavior.

It’s encouraging. So very, very encouraging. In the last year she’s worked harder than ever to understand what’s accepted and what isn’t when she’s out in public. She’s been attending a social skills class for girls with social/emotional disabilities, and that class has been nothing but positive for her. She’s one of the group members that looks forward to her weekly class, enjoys stumbling through social missteps with the other girls in her group, and will now point out the frowned on social behaviors of others.

I may still feel sad at later attempts to push away from me when I try to hug her. But for this instance, I could only smile and be proud of her.

Filed Under: Autism, Cordy

Mar 21, 2014

Slowly Saving for Disney World

March 21, 2014 By Christina

Last year, we took the kids to Walt Disney World for their first trip. It was not a cheap vacation, but one we had budgeted for over the span of half a year. At the time, we didn’t plan on visiting the home of the Mouse for another few years.

And then I had the opportunity to go to a one-day conference this year, held AT Walt Disney World. With the conference offering a discounted deal on room and park tickets for several days around the conference, we decided to make this another family trip. After all, Anna and Elsa from Frozen are now at Epcot, and Cordy and Mira would do just about anything to get to meet them.

The hardest part in preparing for the trip has been bracing ourselves for the expenses again. But I think we’ll be ready with most of our trip paid for before we’re even there, and the kids already have their spending money ready to go. How? Gift cards. It’s how we budgeted and saved for our last trip, and the method we’re using for this trip, too.

I knew about the conference back in the fall, and we quickly decided to make it a family vacation. At that point, each time I went to the grocery, I bought a $25 or $50 Disney gift card if we could afford it. I usually go to the grocery about three or four times a month, so that resulted in $75-200 we’ve been saving each month towards the trip. (Plus a lot of savings on gas thanks to fuel point bonuses on buying gift cards from our grocery!) We had to be sneaky about it at first, since we didn’t tell the girls we were going back to Disney until Christmas morning.

We also asked family for Disney gift cards as gifts during the holiday season. My family already does a lot of gift card exchanging at Christmas, so they were happy to give us gift cards towards our trip. The kids received smaller gifts with Disney gift cards taped to the back of them.

But Cordy and Mira have also been working towards earning their own spending money, too. We use a token system in place of an allowance in our family. Daily chores, good effort in school, and going above and beyond at home earn the girls “doubloons” (we bought a bag of plastic gold coins from a costume store) which can be traded for treats, extra privileges, or can be used like cash to purchase things they want. I prefer this system over a cash allowance since they can trade them in for non-cash rewards like staying up late, or a trip to the park when Aaron and I may not feel like going.

Since we told the kids about going back to Disney, we’ve encouraged them to save their doubloons to trade for Disney gift cards. The doubloons are roughly equal to $0.50, so every 50 earns them a $25 gift card. They’ve worked hard over the last three months to earn as many as possible and have added two or three gift cards to their stash. The cards they’ve earned or received as gifts are their own to spend as they see fit: Aaron and I will cover all meals and some snacks, and if we choose to buy them a souvenir it comes from our money, but anything else they want at Disney World is their responsibility.

I really like the gift card method of saving for a trip. While we also have a vacation savings account that has a very small amount of money transferred to each month, the gift cards are a more tangible reminder of what we’re saving towards, and the girls are so proud to hold the gift cards that they’ve earned, knowing they have their own cards to use at Walt Disney World for whatever they want. Whenever we purchase a new one, we pull them all out so the kids can see the progress we’ve all made towards the trip.

If you used this method, you could set your own schedule for when you buy a gift card. Maybe it’s every paycheck, or once a month, or when you cash in a change jar. (You can buy “add any amount” gift cards with a minimum $10 starting balance, too.) The great thing about Disney gift cards is that they can be used in the parks, at the Disney Store (local or online), and can be used for Disney travel, too. So if you’re a family who likes Disney, they won’t go to waste if you happen to have too many.

For me, it’s less painful to save in $25 and $50 increments, and exciting to see how fast it all adds up. I also don’t feel like a failure if we’re short on money and can’t buy a gift card during one shopping visit, since I know it’s likely we’ll buy a gift card on the next grocery trip.

Best of all? It’ll be such a relief to not have a huge credit card bill after our trip.

Filed Under: money, travel