I'm in the process of registering my son for kindergarten. We have our allergist's letter, and I'm going to request a copy of his CAP RAST results indicating a severe peant allergy as well as a description of what can happen to the body as a result of an anapylactic reaction (referring to body systems affected under the 504).
I will also bring along a completed 504 primer Rhonda posted as well as some of the tremendous info she has posted.
So my next question is about questions. What questions were you asked that you felt unprepared to answer if any. Was there any part of a meeting with administrators in which you felt uncomfortable. How did you deal with it or what did you say that maybe you wish you said differently. I'm going into this meeting hoping for the best due to previous experiences with administrators, but I want to be prepared for the worst--a totally uncooperative, unresponsive, "he doesn't qualify for a 504" attitude.
Also, any advice on other documents that may be helpful in a meeting with the 504 coordinator, principal, school nurse, etc. would be appreciated.
I did feel as though people were not completely listening at some points in the meeting. This meeting took about 3 or 4 times longer than anyone had allocated. In general, everyone was very cooperative.
I prepared an agenda of items I wanted to discuss. This was to remind myself what topics I felt must be addressed and not to let myself get sidetracked too much. This was good, as various people started "running away" on different subjects.
I also prepared a reaction history, this was to point out where I had encountered problems and how this could apply to the classroom. My child had had a reaction sitting on a soiled carpet and since they spend a lot of time on the floor in kindergarden I wanted to show why getting peanuts into the carpet was a "real" problem.
The point at which I felt most uncomfortable was when the district nurse asked me how many times he had been hospitalized. As he never has been, this sort of threw me for a minute. I explained to her that we had successfully prevented this to date by avoidance of peanuts, which to me was the whole point of the discussion. The idea was to prevent this from occurring at school.
The other thing was to give the principal the FAAN information ahead of time. We had applied for it the previous spring and it arrived a day or two before the meeting. This gave backup to a lot of what I was requesting.
As far as my information, I brought copies for everyone at the meeting. This helps everyone feel included and also helps to keep things going in the right direction. If a question addresses something you have already covered in your written info; it is much more authoritative if you refer back to your written info at a cetain place and review verbally than it is to explain it verbally only.
bump