I had Ella's IEP this afternoon to discuss that her regular ed teacher, my DH, and myself had discussed holding her back for several reasons like her lack of social skills, her inability to remember the entire alphabet, she only knows 19 of the 100 sight words needed to be on grade level, her twin being a bully to her, complete lack of self esteem due to not being on target, and many other things. We sit down and her Special Ed teacher and the Educational Advisor both start off telling me they want to move her into 1st grade with he understanding we don't agree. They were kind this time but showed me proof Ella is beginning to read. She is not consistent with ANYTHING, progress or lack of but they insist she will be in 1st grade next year and won't budge. Seeing some of her work, I see what they are talking about but really all they are doing is postponing the inevitable. She is delayed, the teacher she had for most of the year feels she should be retained, her new teacher feels she needs to be retained, we feel this but one Special Ed teacher says no and Ella gets moved forward. I really am not sure how upset I am over this. I want to say she is learning so much, she is just faking it here for attention, that is entirely possible since we witnessed this with her brother and sister. She is thrilled and I hope we can make some headway this summer so she will be OK there next year. Only time will tell.

We cleaned up the house and are off to the park for some exercise. DH decided to have meatloaf, Parmesan Noodles, and nasty peas (from a darn can no less). We will have ice cream cake for dessert.