Shadow for Callum

Oops, just realised that I haven't told you all about the latest goings on with Callum and day care.

Just before Christmas the day care director mentioned briefly to us (in the car park while we're trying to strap two grumpy kids into the car) that she thinks Callum needs a shadow at school because he keeps wandering off from where he's supposed to be. It wasn't the best way to approach us, we were left with a million questions and no way of really finding out what was going on.

The next day a letter at school to say that we needed to come in and discuss the situation with Callum. Then Kieran got sick so we couldn't go in and eventually I had the conversation on the phone with them. Well Callum is a wanderer at school, when they're all supposed to be outside Callum will disappear and turn up in the pre-k class reading books or "playing" with the turtle (don't ask). The ratio is 6:1 in his class and they feel that Callum's safety may be compromised because they can't watch him at every minute. They want us to provide a 1 on 1 shadow/teachers aide to be with Callum full time in the classroom. Now I knew Callum wandered sometimes but not one of the teachers had made it sound like a problem and suddenly it was something that needed to be fixed asap. I really wished that they'd talked to us sooner because at least then we could have put the wheels in motion sooner and I wouldn't have had to spend part of Christmas frantically writing job postings, calling regional center before they closed for the holiday and generally feeling under pressure to have someone starting when school started back on the 3rd (yesterday).

We've had some great looking candidates and are hoping to interview this week. Now I've had time to reflect on it I actually think it'll be good for Callum to have more 1 on 1 time, I just hope he doesn't get annoyed at having this person breathing down his neck all day.

Financing is another issue, this will end up costing us about $550 per week. Day care have offered to help us out for the first month and after that we're hoping that at least some of the funding can come from the regional center but I can't see them hurrying the paperwork through as Callum only has 3 months before he'll be transitioned to the school district.

I'll keep you posted.