Hybrid with participants on Zoom

5-6 parents in person with Mr Dickerson in attendance and Renee Lalla (PTA President) joining on zoom.

Started with introductions - a little information on what brought us to the meeting.

Discussed ways that the school community has helped us feel welcome and what more can be done.

Karisma presented the suggestion basket for parents to write down what they would like to see.

Diana explained what OPWDD was and how it gives her a lot of peace of mind.

Yoko discussed how we can try to capture parents journeys and the information they have acquired to help families at our school.

Here's a very quick overview of my story. This child straight away was always a bit more sensitive than his older brother had been. We were humbled in the first year how many of the things we had been able to do with our first just didn't seem to work to soothe and get him to sleep.

At age 2 his speech was still not well developed so the pediatrician had made a recommendation for EI (early intervention) screening. A couple of people came over and evaluated him but since we spoke mainly English to him I think a lot of his delays were chalked up to having minimal english exposure. At his 3yr old well visit the pediatrician asked if we were still concerned and I said that he still did not make full sentences so she recommended a developmental pediatrician. Things didn't seem too bad so we put it off for a while and eventually we signed up for an appointment with a Dev Ped (Dr Vizarra Villongco with NYP which used to be on Degraw and 4th ave)

https://doctors.nyp.org/rica-vizarra-villongco-md/newyork-presbyterian-medical-group-brooklyn-multispecialty

While we were waiting for the appointment the people at EI had spoken to the people at CPSE and they reached out to me and asked if we were still concerned (this level of proactivity was surprising to me). I said that we were and they offered to evaluate but with a french speaking neuropsych. The appointment for this was in April 2018 and actually came before the Dev Ped. We went to the office in Queens where we did a parent interview, a kid observation and then a family conference. Leo was very reluctant to participate throughout the session. The doctor....TBC