School, next year?!

The 30th of November we went for a second visit to a private Oral school about an hour from our house. I think that's where I want to take Peter for the 2013-2014 school year, but I needed to see more. I chose a great day for it! It was pouring rain so hard we got drenched just getting to the car. Traffic was miserable, gutters were overflowing, and I was worried about accidents. BUT that was the only day my mother-in-law would also be able to see the school, and I thought it was important for her to see for herself how well these kids were doing.

We were a little later than planned (no shocker with the weather). Originally we were going to watch some of their Friday music assembly for the whole school and parents. We only caught the end of one song, but the kids were all enjoying singing and clapping.  Then there was story time, and the kids acted like any other kids- answering questions, laughing, even joking with each other. The director of the school found us and took us down to the toddler area. It's in another building, and it felt like we had to wade down a river to get there!  But it was worth it to see the class in session.

There were two 23-month old kids who had been implanted recently (one just a couple months prior) and one hearing child, who was a staff member's child.  There were another 2-3 kids who hadn't come due to the miserable weather, and I didn't think to ask their ages. In this class, two parents were helping out, and there was at least one aid, so each child was getting lots of attention and auditory input from the adult behind their chair, as well as the teacher.

The class was working on "containers" as an overall theme, and had different bags, and different objects in them to work with. One thing I noticed was the open-ended questions they used with the kids to allow as much communication as the kids were ready for. "What do you see?" was used instead of "what is this?" because then the child is always right, and can say lots of things they see on the object in question.

I was really amazed to find out that one child had only had their CI's active for a matter of weeks. Maybe the child had had some access to sound, or had lost hearing after having some, but he was already listening and starting to talk! I know that Peter will probably take more time before he talks, but he will also be much younger at activation.

My mother-in-law got to sit in for a while, too, and I know it really affected her to see these kids. She told my early start teacher, with tears in her eyes, that she finally felt like Peter "was gonna be OK".

Now comes the hard part- seeing how much, if any, the Early Start program can/will contribute towards the school costs. Also, the Oral School doesnt know what days of the week they will have toddler classes next year, as it depends on who enrolls, and how   many. Whether we go for two days depends on how much funding and it also depends when they have the two days for toddlers. Since I want to keep going to the school for the deaf on Fridays, if the toddler class ends up being Wednesday and Friday I might see if we could just do Wednesdays. I really don't want that, though, for so many reasons. First, Wednesday is a short day at the public school up by my house, and I would not have any wiggle room to be home in time to meet the bus (as I fully plan on putting my homeschooled first grader back in school for second grade). Also, I need to figure out where my preschooler will be in school next year. If the Oral school has class Tues/Thurs then I can put her in a nearby drop-off preschool she liked. If the Oral school has class Mon/Wed, I can't pay for Samantha to go to that preschool three days a week, but only go two. If the Oral school classes are Wed/Fri....well, I don't know what I would do for Samantha. Maybe she'd get home-schooled next year....So much that I know I don't know. It doesn't make me philosophical, just crazy.