SOLC 5

This year I'm teaching a combined regular education Kindergarten class with some special education students included. I was excited about this. I was excited about working with the special education teacher that would be pushing into my class for one period a day to work with the three students that were included in my class. One week before school started they closed one section of Kindergarten in our building pushing the numbers in my room from 20 to 27. YIKES! I was still excited, only now the excitement was also nerves…where will I put all these little cherubs? It has been challenging to say the least. My three included students are just so wonderful and have made fabulous progress. I am so proud of them! It is my non-included student's that I have been concerned about since the first day of school. Since I was the combined class they put in my room student's who had not been through the evaluation process yet, but would need evaluations as the year progressed! So my year has been about paper work, more paper work, meetings, fighting for these children at these meetings, documenting, documenting, and documenting and lots more meetings. Today after working with one particular student on numerous strategies, with very little progress and constantly going back to the drawing board, readjusting, evaluating and adjusting, we had a light bulb moment…it was such a small light bulb moment in the grand scheme of things, but for her and for I, it was HUGE! We danced, we sang a song, we high-fived, and we savored this moment, it was important, she does not get many of these. This sweet little pumpkin works so hard, never gives up and neither do I. It was a good day! When I went to my mailbox at the end of the day, I found more paperwork. It was needed for documentation for another one of my little cherubs, by the time this year is done, 9 of mine will be included. Paper work or no paper work, those light bulb moments are what keep you chugging along!