Great P.E.T. Meeting

We had Sam's summer school PET (Pupil Evaluation Team) meeting today. It was supposed to be for ESY (Extended School Year), but turned into an Annual because it is so close to when the next Annual PET is due. (Seth and I agreed to this because we are not requesting a change of services for the fall) You have to have the ESY PET to prove that there would be regression if there were no services for those 9 weeks during the summer. The team all agreed that it would be in Sam's best interest to continue services throughout the summer. Its not that he would regress per say, but once school started back up he would lose 2-3 months of learning because it takes him that long to become reacquainted in an educational setting. 3 full days a week of school with Speech therapy 1x a week. We were shocked that they approved the Speech. We were fully expecting to have to pay out of pocket after the horror stories we have heard. His new case worker was really nice. The nicest one so far (this is his 4th in a year) and was not concentrating on the money aspects of things. (or at least made it appear that she had Sam's best interest in mind)
Sam has made major gains since he started school last Fall. He started in the 1-1 program and transitioned into the 3-1 program in February. His language has flourished and until today I had no data as to how much it has changed. He tested in the 30-50% range; 50% for Cognitive and 30% for expressive. This is a HUGE HUGE HUGE difference from the 1% and <1% he tested in April of 2007. Seth and I were absolutely thrilled. Now, he still has a way to go in regards to "maladaptive behavior" as they call it. Sam will only talk on his own terms, he does not learn in a typical way, needs to learn how to function independently in a classroom and we were basically told he marches to his own beat.;) LOL His social scores were not as great, but for now we are elated that he has come this far and is considered "average" cognitively. Hopefully he will continue to thrive and will come out average in all areas by the end of next year.