You’re a Rock Star, Shane.
Six months after my original request for a meeting to discuss Shane’s OCD accommodations, we met again – this time to determine what we could put on the 504, since Shane really only had one issue.
His issue was reading.
Over the summer, Shane was agonizingly stuck so often while trying to read – a fiction book of his choosing – that I’d volunteered to read to him, or to singlehandedly excuse him from the summer homework. Shane simply couldn’t read. The OCD was making it impossible.
Fortunately, though, with a new therapist and Shane’s hard work in therapy, Shane was having way less trouble in November than he’d had in July. In fact, he was hardly having any trouble at all.
“Sometimes I get distracted,” he said. “But I don’t really get stuck anymore.”
“Let’s see what your teachers have to say,” Shane’s counselor said, and she picked up teacher referrals from every one of his teachers. Then she read aloud:
Shane is a great student. He puts 100% effort into all of his work. He has maintained an A for the entire quarter. Shane is polite, hardworking, and cooperative. His writing is very creative and his reading comprehension is excellent.
He sits in the front row with strong students and diligently stays on task. He is not very chatty and will proactively ask for help.
Shane is always attentive in class. He does not get distracted by other students.
Shane does not need any of the accommodations listed in his plan. He is fully independent and can perform wonderfully without them.
Shane’s counselor finally put down the pile of papers and looked up.
“You’re a rock star, Shane,” she said.
Shane, who regularly shows no emotion whatsoever, had just a tiny eye flinch – something that I have come to recognize as pride. His mouth even twitched, and I swear he almost smiled.
And deservingly so. For page after page, teachers had raved about Shane’s incredible ability to do exactly what was expected of him, and to excel both creatively and intellectually. With the quarter ending, we also knew that Shane got six A’s – including an A in his first-ever AP class – and one very high B.
My worries about OCD were over.
The counselor, whose job it is to make sure that Shane stays successful, told both of us that we would reconvene in a year to reevaluate Shane’s 504.
“Is there anything you think you’ll need then?” she asked him.
“Not really,” Shane said. “Sometimes I get distracted when I’m reading but I think I’m doing okay.”
He’s doing okay.
“How about a flash pass?” I suggested. “If you are ever too distracted to read, and you just need to get up and move around, you can walk to the counseling office and just sit until you’re ready to go back to class.”
“We don’t even need to put that on the 504 plan,” said the counselor. “We can just give him one. Do you think that would help you?”
“I could try it,” Shane said.
So Shane got a flash pass which, most likely, he’ll never use. The meeting was over in 15 minutes. And I got the feeling that we really weren’t going to need another meeting in the future.
But I sure did enjoy this one.