L2's new school!

So, after a year of struggling about what our next step should be and what the right decision was, L2 started a new school today. Most of you know that Lucas has a pretty severe speech delay and was diagnosed with mild/moderate hearing loss in July of last year. We've spent the last year and a half struggling with what our best option for him was. He was receiving preschool through our district, but the speech therapy just wasn't enough to help him get caught up. And we have a wonderful SLP that we see once a week, but the commute is almost 2 hours round trips and between travel time and finances adding more sessions just wasn't an option.

Then, about a month ago, I was making a desperate attempt of googling everything having to do with kids with speech delays and hearing loss, and I stumbled upon Phoenix Day School for Deaf and Hearing impaired kids. It had a full day preschool program. It's focus was getting the kids caught up and mainstreaming back into their home schools. It was an hour away.... but still, it sounded like a dream come true.

So I made some calls and set up some meetings. I didn't tell anyone, not even our families, because I didn't want to get anyones hopes up. We pulled his IEP's to show that he wasn't making the progress we would like to see in the preschool program. (For the record, our preschool is 2.5 hours a day four days a week, and he was only getting like 90 minutes of speech total a week, it just wasn't enough)

And ten days ago we had a meeting, with his home preschool, the new school and our district.

And they approved him switching. 

If you don't know, having the district's approval is key. Not only does this particular school require it, but it means they will provide him with transportation to and from school. Even an hour away. Because as amazing as this school is, I couldn't fathom how we could make it work if I had to drive him and pick him up everyday, and still get L to school.

So today, the school bus picked him up a little before 7, and off he went.

To a school that is going to be able to give him what he needs. That's going to be able to get him caught up and communicating some doesn't feel so frustrated. That has a focus on speech and language from 8-3, four days a week. I kind of still feel like i'm dreaming, to be honest.

And the icing on the cake is that his teacher is amazing. She sent me text and pictures throughout the day letting me know how great he was doing and how well he was adapting.

We're so happy, and I'm so excited to see what this year has in store for him!