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You should never have to fight to do the right thing by your child. Just as you should never fight doing the right thing by your child...
My cousin (yes, the same damn one) refuses to believe that his daughter (the middle child and the oldest with his wife) has some issues that need looking into. At 22 months old my niece has a bigger vocabulary than she does at 3 years old.
Of course, sitting her down in front of the television morning to night might have something to do with it whereas my niece has constant interaction with people.
At Christmas I caught my cousin watching me watch his daughter. The first words out of his mouth was 'There's nothing wrong with her.'
Mine was 'Yeah, and I'm a monkey's uncle.'
We don't speak anymore.
And his daughter's in speech therapy and interaction classes...
I'm glad you pushed for your son to be diagnosed. How can you do what's right by him if you don't know exactly what you're dealing with?
Yes, early diagnosis is by far the best, but knowing what you do now means you can do what you can to help him grow and flourish. He would be in a lot more trouble if you had buried your head in the sand and refused to acknowledge that there was an issue there.
As for your son believing that his classmates are all freaks - well, have you seen some of the teenagers of today? OMG....
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Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Yeah, well, he is in a school that is devoted to Autistic Spectrum students, so to some extent, I do understand his statement. My problem is the patience level in explaining to him that just because he does not exhibit the same behaviors of his classmates, the ones that irritate him, does not mean that he could handle a mainstream classroom. He was mainstreamed until he was in eighth grade and we finally convinced the school that mainstream was not the appropriate environment for him, even if it is the least restrictive.
Pet Peeve rant: US Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Everyone is entitled to a Free Appropriate Public Education in the least restritive environment possible. Why do administrators focus on LRE instead of Appropriate. When mainstream is determined to be not appropriate why can we not look at the most appropriate first (assuming that parents agree) instead of going through all the steps to get to the appropriate environment.
I firmly believe that if Billy had been put in his current school first instead of RSP or EDD programs he would have been much happier and productive there.
I would not be sitting here in Starbucks while he takes the profieciency exam to leave school early and move on to community college.
That was another fight and if it were not for our home district's current assisstant superintendent it might have been harder, despite having the school behind me. When we first approached him with the idea he was prepared to agrue against the idea. Every child should have the opportunity to graduate from high school. I do agree with him. But the individual needs of each child must also be considered, especially when on an IEP.
Billy is behind in his credits because he is unhappy and therefore unproductive. He's intelligent and knows that at 18 he can drop out and leave with nothing and he's unhappy enough to do that. This way at least he has something. And his father and I are agreed that if he wants a roof over his head, his education will continue, even if it is part time at the community college and he must be working toward a goal -- certificate, AA, transfer. What changed the administrators mind was not only our assurance that this would be a beginning, not an end, but the example that I gave of one of my college professors who attained a PhD having never graduated from high school. She earned her GED as a single mother and worked her way up.
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Perspective Alters Reality
I so agree with you on the IEP thing. The whole appropriate issue has been lost in the effort of districts to get kids into the Least Restrictive Environment. That's why the school I went to is now almost completelly multi-handicapped students. All the others have been mainstreamed, whether it was really in the kid's best interests, or not.
My daughter is on an IEP, but, fortunately for her, the LRE and Appropiate one are the same. I'm starting to wonder if in three years I'm going to be sitting in a similar place to where you are right now. She failed English this year, so she's a credit behind already, and has the reputation now as a failure, even though I don't view all of it as her fault. Yes, she blew off some of the stuff she should have done, but the teachers also should have been aware that this was challenged child taking a slightly about-grade-level class in her area of difficulty. She had such great resource help in middle school. I just wish it could have continued into high school.
For most LD's LRE with resource and accomodations mainstream is usually enough. For students with social, emotional, behavioral disabilities (and they are becoming more predominant for some reason) Appropriate needs to become a higher priority because mainstream even resource or main campus ed is not always appropriate and that does not serve the educational needs.
If I had the money, I'd be going back right now earning my SE credential and working on an MA in SE primarily the needs of ED students.
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Perspective Alters Reality
Yes, that really is a growing population that needs a totally different approach than traditional special education. Most school districts don't have a clue how to handle them.
We are pretty lucky in our district. They have one school, 6-12th grades, that deals specifically with kids who cannot handle the traditional school environment, whether it's problems with violence, emotional issues, discipline, they go to that school and have smaller classes more individual attention and more structure. It seems to be working too. They lose a lot fewer kids to dropping out and they have a little less problems in the mainstream middle and high schools. No, it's not the always the best solution to a problem, but it showing that the district is wanting to see kid succeed.
Our school district used to be one of the best in response to SpEd. We had great resource, an award winning Moderat/Severe program, and a fantastic continuation school, as under one administrator. Then a few years ago the then Ass Sup (who's now the Sup) decided that since he had a SpEd background he should take over for the SpEd Administrator, wanted to put him back into the classroom, mainstream everyone, and closed the continuation school and our brilliant school board (which has since been recalled in its entirety) wondered why the community was so upset by them appointing the man Superintendent.
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Perspective Alters Reality
Yeah, we've got a decent superintendent right now and I hope she stays around at least till my daughter's out of school.
Yeah, and pay attention to what school board members are voting for. Ours got so focused on IB and Ag that everything else got forgotten. What happens to the kids who prefer AP or want a career in something other than Ag? Something other than Ag in the Napa Valley, heresey!
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Perspective Alters Reality
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