A few minutes later, I'm joined by the BSA person and the speech language pathologist at the school. We make our introductions, they sit down at the tiny table before me, and then look at me expectantly. And wait. Suddenly, I realize that they are expecting me to lead this meeting. I have no idea what this is about, so I start pulling things out of my ass. She's the autism support person after all, so I assume this is about 'A' - the only severely autistic kid at the school. I haven't worked with him yet, but I can see him out of the corner of my eye wandering around the classroom self-stimming. "Well," I say, "I think our priority is implementing some strategies for A to help him stay contained and follow a structured day plan." They nod enthusiastically. Good, I think. I've got the right kid, right idea.

So we discuss A for a while. Typical autism case. Picture schedule, PECS communication system, gross motor and sensory activities, transitions, etc. We put some strategies into action and then fill in the resource teacher. It's then that I remember that I'm not even on his IEP. Occupational therapy was supposed to serve him in his old school, but that school didn't have an OT so they never added it to his Individualized Education Plan. "What's the procedure here?" I ask. "Do we have to hold a supplemental IEP meeting to get OT added before I can work with him?" The resource teacher said, "Well, I'll call mom and ask her when she can come in. Does anyone speak Spanish?" So she and the Spanish-speaking BSA went off to do that, leaving me to hang out with some of the other special ed kids who were in resource, thus assuring that I would miss all further communication on the matter until, about fifteen minutes later, A's mom walked into the room and I realized that were having this IEP meeting now.

The resource teacher hurried me over to the corner and told me to add some goals and a frequency into the IEP system, print the signature sheet and update the front page. "What?" I looked at her blankly, then admitted: "I've never used this IEP system before. I didn't get trained in this." Oh. She, of course, had no time to walk me through it. So as the meeting began to proceed without me, I sat there trying to find my way through a new computer program, come up with goals for a kid I've never assessed or work with, and make sure that all the numbers and percentages and wording was compliant with the standards for the district. I love a good challenge.

The good news is we had a great mom. You could tell that she's a good advocate for her son, and not the kind of 'Advocates' that are a dirty word in the district because they bring lawyers and try to sue us. She only spoke Spanish, but I was happy to discover that I understood nearly every word she said. I've been studying Spanish for about two months now. I put in about four hours a day and it's finally paying off. I've got this whole system of multiple exposures. I listen to Spanish talk radio and music, follow along with Spanish audiobooks, read books in Spanish, activate Spanish subtitles on every DVD I watch, write screenplays in Spanish (good conversation practice!), and switch between four text/workbooks that focus on vocab, sentence formation, pronouns, and verb tenses. It also helps that I can see Mexico from where I live and hence have ample exposure to the language.

I do have a lot of little kinders that only speak Spanish so it'll be a challenge to communicate with them. I always have this weird fear that if I use the language, it'll sound stilted or out-dated to the listener. It's sometimes hard to connect what you learn with what you experience in the real-world. Like if I were a doctor and I learned how to treat pneumonia or perform an appendectomy, I'd wonder if maybe this is just the way it's done in textbooks. You never should trust a textbook, you know? You always figure they're written by some old retired person that hasn't worked in the field in like fifteen years, and then it takes another five years to publish and distribute so you have to take what they say with a grain of salt.