Edu-macating Educators

Bella is in Kindergarten this year, she is younger Kindergarten (she turned 5 after the start of the school year) but she is a bright kid.  She knew her alphabet (upper and lower case), her numbers to 20 (recognizing them), could count to 100 (got stuck a bit on 50), knew some of her sight words, and how to spell her name.. intellectually she was ready for Kindergarten.  Sadly, behaviorally she still couldn't sit still through a Disney Princess movie, never mind the marathon of all day Kindergarten but we enrolled her anyway.  Our hope was that being around child a bit older would increase her maturity and her behavior.

I've never posted much about the children's behavior or any issues that we go through as a result of their past life experiences.  Mainly for their privacy and ours.  But sometimes things need to be discussed openly for both my benefit and for others to understand and learn how to better help children who come from traumatic and/or neglectful pasts.

We are presently in the process of having her evaluated for an IEP (Individualized Education Plan).  Honestly, I am scared...  I am so scared that they School District will find that she is not in need of an IEP, even though I KNOW she does need one.  She is fully capable of learning but the classroom environment sets her off.  I can't seem to pinpoint a trigger, but it does seem to be centralized around larger group activities (circle time, recess, the bus ride, e.g.).  At those times her behavior is just out of control (to put it simply) she becomes defiant (yelling and screaming at those in authority roles, running away from the teachers and other adults, and even physically hurting other students by pushing or pulling them).