Preschool

I can't believe that we have started the preschool process for our babies!

Anna automatically qualified for Early Intervention because of her spina bifida. Early Intervention services will end with her third birthday and we will then pick up services with the public school system. I met with two of the special needs teachers and Anna's EI therapist this week at the school for a pre-qualification discussion. Keep in mind that we were already told by the principal that if Anna was accepted, an offer would be extended to her sisters as well. Although, no one wants to put that in writing.

I should back up and explain how the preschool in our town (and most of the state) works. They have classrooms filled with 15 students. Half of the students have special needs while the other half are considered to be peer models. The cost is approximately $120 a month per student for the two days a week session and approximately $175 a month per student for the three days a week session. {Multiply that by three for us.} In our school system, there were empty seats this year while other towns filled up and children were placed on wait lists.

The meeting went fairly well except that Anna doesn't really qualify as having special needs. She is above where she should be for language and social/emotional skills and her physical disabilities are not impairing her ability to learn. The teachers were quite surprised at her speaking ability after Anna's therapist showed them her most recent evaluation. That is when they started telling me that one option would be for Anna to enroll as a peer model.

For peer models, I was told that they mainly look for kids who have 80% understandable speech and will listen to adults. For example, the kids should be able to sit in a circle without getting up and running around the room. I think that the girls would easily pass those "tests" but I am their mom. Anna's therapist concurred. She talked about how Anna can easily communicate with eight word sentences, carries on conversations and tells stories. I actually counted the number of words tonight when Allie blurted out a long sentence. Ten!

We will not know for a few months what will happen. There are a few different options for Anna but she needs to be evaluated by the OT and the PT for the schools. In addition, they will try to interview the girls closer to their third birthday as development over the next few months will be huge.

We briefly discussed separating the girls versus keeping them together. They would want to separate them and have enough classrooms in order to do so. I did mention that state law now allows me to keep them together if I feel that it is best. I actually do not have a strong feeling either way. I thought it would be nice to have them start out together and then eventually separate them for kindergarten or first grade. They are all very social and no one is more outgoing than the others so I think that they would be fine together. My thought was why not take advantage of the benefit of being a multiple and extend that to comfort at school until they are used to being there.

Would it be wrong of me to dress them the same if the school pushes us to place them in separate classrooms? {I should note that Anna has already started to trick people when asked if she is Anna. She'll respond with, "No, I am Em-o-lee." I just about fell over laughing when she did this to Auntie Joan one day.} Oh, these girls are so much fun. It's only going to get better.