Special Needs Child Forced Into Kindergarten or Have Strike Against Him

Hello! I am desperate for help/advice.My son, now 4 (D.O.B. 08/01/2013) was diagnosed at age 3 with Global Developmental Delay, Sensory Integration Disorder, and ‘suspected’ Childhood Apraxia of Speech.He was nowhere near ready at 3 to start preschool, so we waited until he was 4 to enroll him. He came a long way during this past year with speech and social skills along with an understanding of some curriculum.We live in KY and they just, as of last year, changed the age cut-off to Aug. 1st, which is Jace’s birthday. From the beginning of the school year I have been adamant that I do not think Jace should be enrolled into Kindergarten following 1 year of preK unless there is a huge change in his learning capacity. He is not even potty trained yet, and I don’t see it happening anytime in the near future either.So we just had our end of year IEP meeting and everyone was on board that Jace is NOT ready to advance to Kindergarten. But everyone acts like this is such a huge deal, and I cannot for the life of me understand why. So our meeting ended and I received a call the next day from his preK teacher. She informed that the plan was in place for Jace to repeat preK buuuuuuut, they sort of had to make an exceptional change for my son because apparently this is unheard of. She went on to further state that Jace will be registered as a Kindergartener through our main elementary for our area (We live in a county school district that has many, many schools for each level, but our home school does not offer preK services so he attended at a neighboring school in the same district) but he will register at said school as a preschooler. But, again, this will count against Jace because he can only be held back once between K-2 (or maybe 3rd, I was not quite sure at the end of convo but felt I had asked too many questions already).My dilemma is that I want Jace to go to preschool again, for a second year, but I also still think I would, in the future, may want to hold him back again because he has pretty severe speech and motor delays. I don’t see him progressing as fast as this ‘timeline’ is laid out for him. I would be ecstatic if I was wrong and overly joyful if he did respond to therapies and schooling in the near future.Also, to add on to my son having this strike against him already, I was also alerted, sort of confidentiality, that the way the state laws are set up for standardized testing, Jace would be put at a disadvantage here. The way it was worded to me was no matter his current “real, actual” grade, he is still considered to be one grade ahead because of this whole “registering as a kindergartner, but enrolling as a preschooler”. Therefore Jace would have to take the standardized test for the next grade level that he hasn’t even approached yet. For example, he is in the second grade actually and factually but the school system recognizes him as a third grader, so he would have to be given the third grade standardized test. This is very worrisome/bothersome to me!! That doesn’t seem fair to my child at all!!Obviously, he is my child! I want him to succeed! I have never been a mother of a special needs child yet, especially dealing with the school system. Apparently it doesn’t come with a manual either, just like parenting.Anyways, KY laws (roughly) state “Children ages 6-18 MUST attend school”. Then it goes on to state (roughly) children ages 3 & 4 MAY attend public preschool. So my concern is the gray area. Why are they forcing this on my son when the law states he does not have to attend school (K-12) until 6yo. I had voiced to the members of the meeting that my child cannot be the only one that is/or has been affected by this! I plan on contacting the appropriate channels to sort this out but needed some advice for the meantime.Thanks for listening!! Stephanie via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2sy7j6t