I met with the assistant director of special education for the local school district on Monday. I went into the meeting well armed with a printed list of my concerns, as well as copies of documents from the previous meeting we had which was so upsetting to Tina and me. I think the meeting went pretty well. We had a calm, rational discussion in which I was able to clearly state all of our concerns.

We discussed that the speech pathologist had made a number of insensitive remarks which were offensive to us. Her supervisor stated she didn't believe the speech pathologist to be a racist. I told her that I believed this was most likely true, and that her remarks were probably made out of ignorance. I did not really want to belabor this point, but was clear that the comments she had made left us with little confidence in her.

The big issue for us was that while the "team" had agreed Kai would receive speech therapy service, they were going to be provided without any kind of standard testing first. And that the this speech therapist was who was going to be structuring and providing the services. Our main concern here is that she has clearly stated numerous times that she believes Kai's early exposure to Mandarin is the main cause for any issues we raise.

The supervisor assured me that Kai will now be given a "formal" standardized evaluation. So on this point, pursuing this meeting was worth it. The evaluation will be administered by the speech therapist in question, but she is supposed to be consulting with some of her colleagues first. After this test, there will be another team meeting with me and Tina. The supervisor will attend this meeting. And if we aren't satisfied with this evaluation we can have the district pay for another evaluation by an independent speech pathologist.

I was very clear about our concerns regarding this therapist and the way she has been so antagonistic to us in every meeting. At one point when asked what we would like to see happen, I told her we would like to see a different therapist working with Kai. She replied by saying this wasn't going to happen this school year, but there was a possibility of staff changes next school year. There was no real commitment in this comment, and it could have been said just to placate me. But who knows? Maybe we aren't the only ones who aren't happy with this woman. Either way, I know that our concerns have been heard by the appropriate person and that the way things were going has changed, but it's going to be a slow process.

In the meantime we have contacted the local university about getting an evaluation for Kai through their speech pathology department. We don't know what this will cost, or what services specifically it might lead to, but it's another option for us to get Kai the help he needs.