Wondering if any of your young children have Aides with them throughout the day in school? The nurse at our elementary school recommends we ask for one for my daughter when she starts kindergarten.
Thanks
we don’t have an aide but suspect thedistrict may require one, as expecting the teacher to treat lows and highs isa big ask in a classroom with 22 kids. I sort of wish this was not required as it will mark him as different more than is necessary, and he doesn’t have an aide at preschool. Then again, he has three different teachers at any given time so there’s a buffer in case a dangerous reading is missed by one.
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Why not use a classroom aide rather than a one-to-one aide? I think this would be a good solution. And I’m sure it would be good for the classroom, students nad teacher. I think every classroom should have an aide to help all students (we call them educational assistants).
I did have a one-on-one aide growing up all the way from kindergarten to grade 12, but it was because of my visual impairment. She did help a bit with diabetes management in elementary school, but diabetes wasn’t nearly as involved during school hours as it is these days (and these days there is no way I would get a full-time aide, though likely would get a part-time one-on-one aide and/or a classroom-based aide).
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so there is a classroom aide this year who helps with reading, but my sense is that there’s a lot of bureaucracy and they require a paraprofessional who is specifically focused on the health issues. So if someone else in Samson’s class winds up needing a para they may double up, but I doubt they’d have the reading specialist (whose presence is also based on contingent, rather than assured, budgetary dollars which are raised by the PTA) do that task.
It’s silly because I really don’t think Samson needs that, but I’m not sure it’s worth starting his public school career fighting over it.
The nurse at my daughter’s school pretty much told me you are going to need to fight to get her an aide, they won’t want to give her one, I guess for money reasons. There are some other children in the classes with other non medical issues that do, so I dont see why not.
I appreciate your wanting to start out on a good foot with the school and all, but my experience says the squeaky wheel gets the attention. If you think Samson would be better off with the aide, get the aide.
Also, make sure you get a valid 504 started with the school this year. This document carries the weight of the federal government and our school takes it very seriously. This would be where you fight for the aide in my opinion. Also, your physician’s school orders can help with getting what you need.
Also, not to prepare you for trouble, but you will run into more ignorance in the school than you ever thought possible, i.e. the lunch monitor that successfully snatched my son’s phone from his grasp when he was checking his bg, or the teacher that told the class that my son was too high to take the test, it goes on and on.
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I think he’d be better off without the aide – at least so far that’s my thinking. But it could evolve once I see what they’re willing to do in class and how attentive the nurse is.
One thing that causes shivers to go down my spine is the “share bin” in the lunch room. Our older kiddo has been lunching on those random things people put in there for the past several months, leaving his healthy food untouched. How on Earth will we make sure Samson isn’t just noshing on raspberry butter cookies all day and leaving his normal food alone?
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Why do you think he is better off without an Aide. Not that I think you are wrong. I’m just curious since I dont know what the right thing is to do or not for my 4 year old?
I think it’s more about not wanting him to stand out – having someone hovering in the classroom who is there exclusively for him. I don’t ever want him to be embarrassed by his diabetes but I also don’t want him to have that be front and center if it’s not necessary.
Plus he doesn’t have one in preschool, so it seems like it would be a step backwards, in a weird way.
But then again, I’m also not confident it’s something a teacher can do, and I don’t want a district nurse who is potentially in charge of the whole school (460 students) to be the only one responsible. I guess as we begin the 504 process (later this year) we’ll see how things shake out.
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That totally makes sense. I feel that way sometimes too. Crazy to have 1 aide there just for her…but it does make me feel better when I think about it. Annie( my daughter) will only be going to preschool 5 hours a week, so we dont have an aide in preschool either. Kindergarten scares me more since.its.all day long every day. I wonder when I should start the 504.process? She starts September 2019.
we called up our district a year or two ago and they said to start the process the year before he enrolled. Our district has pre-K for 3-year-olds so we could have started it earlier, but we felt like changing our preschool routine wouldn’t be ideal.
I would start the process by talking to your physician for local knowledge, then start it with the school once the next school year starts. If there are any other parents of T1’s around it would be helpful to talk with them, that way you may know what they will push back on, if anything. Getting it put in place involves a series of meetings and ultimately a signed document.
@Nreid77
There is quite apparently a huge difference among schools and districts. We never did a 504 as the nurse and Principle never said No to anything. Seemed about as ideal a situation as we could have. I actually thought this was just the way it was everywhere in the current day and was pretty shocked to hear some of the (current) situations that some other people have to go through in their school. It is not even like we are in a super progressive area - about as middle of the road in all aspects as you could get.
We have dealt with middle school and high school.
One big reason, is so that your child can have accommodations during standardized testing. Otherwise they are not allowed anything but a calculator and some pencils. The 504 accommodates this, I want my son to have low snacks and blood sugar measurement during the PSAT, SAT, as well as state testing.
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We had a full set of accommodations for the SAT. It is not required to have a 504 for that. However if you have a 504, my understanding is it makes the request process a little easier as the 504 is used for requesting rather then writing its own request. In any event, the school made the SAT accommodations pretty easy. We were taking the SAT at our own High School so they handled all the paperwork. Really all I had to give them was a note from the Doc and a list of what accommodations we wanted.
EDIT: In terms of the cgm, I didn’t want to make it difficult, so rather then request to use a watch or smartphone, I told them we would only use the Dexcom Receiver. I know the SAT folk are always worried about cheating from everybody so figured a smartphone would just open a whole can of worms I would rather avoid. Using the Dexcom Receiver pretty much bypasses that issue.
for later versions of Dexcom aren’t they doing away with the receiver? Or is that wrong?
That’s what I heard too.
No. There are currently no concrete plans in the USA to get rid of the receiver with the exception of integration with pumps in which case the pump takes the place of the receiver.
Europe is different.