The meeting went fairly well, was much longer than I anticipated it to be (over an hour).
The teachers, counselor, and Homebound Director came into the meeting with the intentions of two things. Shortening his schedule to only two classes for the remaining part of his semester (taking away his elective classes) and exempting him from all missing assignments in his classes. I said no to both ideas.
Jordan has been dealing with this since he was 6 years old, he does not use this auto immune disorder as an excuse, because we raised him not to; so my intention is to educate these teachers and make sure they don't use it as an excuse either, just because they feel sorry for him. We are not going to just sweep it all under the rug and let him slide by to graduation, its just not happening; he knows he has to work for it, even if it means working a little harder to get there.
I told them, Jordan can do the makeup work, and is willing and able to: I just need for them to actually work with him on it, be patient as he does the work, and if they offering afterschool tutoring, etc., he will participate on that. Luckily they all stay afterschool Monday-Thursday, so its not like they would be making special requests just for Jordan.
What pisses me off about the situation is their expectations with Jordan, like he can't do the makeup work and remain on the A/B honor roll. Again, this is not an expectation we set for Jordan, its an expectation he sets for himself. We don't do anything to make his life even more stressful than it already is, he does that enough for himself. And I told them at this meeting those exact words, just have faith in Jordan, be patient, and he will get the work done in a timely fashion.
He has qualified for the Homebound Program due to his medical needs, I don't anticipate needing the program, unless his blood counts dramatically drop again (fingers crossed). We are impatiently waiting for Chapel Hill to call us to start the progress of taking Rituxan for four weeks (once a week). I did let them know at the meeting that I don't have a start date on this yet, but when we do start it, he will miss at least two days a week for four weeks (the day of treatment, and quite possibly the day after treatment, depending on any symptoms he will have from the infusion). Other than that, he will miss one or two days a month, for appointments. Unless, of course, his counts drop to where he cannot attend school. The teachers were instructed to not count him absent from here on out, because he is now a part of the Homebound Program; so thats a relief.
So we will be meeting again next month, a week after report cards have been sent out. So Brian and I will have a sit down with Jordan tonight, because we have two weeks to get him caught up on his work, before the final grades for the first nine weeks are put into the computer for report cards. Our goal is for Jordan to prove these teachers wrong, that he can do the work, and remain caught up with his peers. I would love to go into next month's meeting and be like "I told you so".
Blood work tomorrow afternoon, hopefully his platelets haven't decrease, since the IVIG is no longer in his system. Fingers crossed....
Will update when I get his results from that, continued thoughts and prayers as we continue this journey with Jordan. :)
Update: Jordan's counselor called and after talking to the 504 coordinator, they feel that it would greatly benefit him more to place him on a 504 plan. So I have a meeting about that next week.
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