Preschool Progress Report

When I picked Grace up from school today, her teachers had her written evaluation aka progress report ready to take home and review. THIS IS DIFFERENT THAN THE FORMAL EVALUATIONS WE'RE GETTING HER FROM THE EARLY CHILDHOOD LEARNING CENTER. What I'm talking about right now is her regular progress report from her teachers. I'll be setting up an appointment for a sit-down conference at a later time, hopefully soon.

These things below are what they are "grading" her on. Pretty normal things to check out with the kids.

SKILL KEY:
D = Developing
T = On Target
S = Strong

Social Development:
Interaction with peers
Interaction with adults
Understands sharing
Understands taking turns
Responsible with materials

Physical Development:
Large motor skills
Fine motor skills
Self-help skills
Hearing N/A
Vision N/A
Speech development
Language development

Emotional Development:
Expresses affection
Expresses anger appropriately
Expresses frustration appropriately
Cooperative and helpful
Level of independence

Cognitive Development:
Attention span
Follows directions
Completion of task

General Health:
HEALTHY

Basic Temperament:
CONTENT

Favorite Class Activities:
Play dough and
markers

Every item on the list has a check mark in a chart indicating which level she's at based on the skills key above. She had all three of her teachers contribute to the progress report and all of them agreed on what's in this report. Now, you would think that in the list above, I'd be putting a variation of D, T, or S... right? RIGHT?

She got D on all of them. Developing. Not one thing is on target. Nothing is considered to be strong. Every single thing on that chart is checked off as being Developing. I thought that with her physical development, she'd have a higher "grade." I thought that her cognitive development would be a bit better too.

There's also a written portion:

Grace has a difficult time with transitions. She likes everything
to be on her own terms, but she will calm down and move to the next activity
reasonably quickly. She loves play dough, art activities and
drawing. Grace does not play with her peers and can often be found playing
on her own somewhere in the room. We would like to have more words from
her and more direct communication with both peers and adults. She seems to
enjoy coming to school and we are enjoying watching her learn and
grow.

I know she has issues, but I honestly feel like I'm failing her. The thing is, she's always been like this. I mean, her speech regressed a bit when Anneliese was born, and we made so many changes that year. She's always been shy and had some social concerns... but I always thought she was "just shy."

I think I'm upset. Maybe not upset, but now more worried than I was about Grace's development. OK, I AM upset. I'm worried and upset. These are all things that we have problems with at home too, and when we take her out to socialize with friends and family... but... I was still expecting her to have a better evaluation.

She WAS observed on Wednesday and again today by the specialists I talked about previously, from the Early Childhood Learning Center. I'm more worried now than I was. I think I'm going to be pushing them to make sure she gets into the special preschool next year and for speech therapy and whatever else she needs. I'm going to be the pushy parent. My child will get the help she needs, I don't care how bitchy I have to be. Thankfully, this school system seems to be very dedicated to children who need special care. I just hope they realize that Grace not only needs it, but is entitled to it. I don't think this is something she's going to outgrow without some help, and I don't know what to do for her without outside help.