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Hahaha I love kids.

I just pushed back and said no we really need virtual because we have no childcare. It went pretty well, there was one point of contention around para support and we wanted them to make sure they have a good plan for next school year. Basically he is being over-served currently because there is another child in his class who has 100% shared para support. They want him to become more independent, which is absolutely the goal, but the start of a new school year is a bad time to pull the rug out from under him. In all honesty, the principal always HAS to have the last word and when you mix that with my husband it can be a flash point because he likes to make sure he got his point across. He got a little snippier than he probably had to, but honestly he's still pretty pissed about how things went down last year. I'm wondering if she thought that in-person might defuse that, but in all honesty, virtual is better because I can give him some off-screen signals that he needs to chill. Our phone conversations have usually been worse than our in-person interactions, but this particular principal really gets under my skin. I feel like she tries to make her problems every one else's problem. We've been though 9 different principals over the years between our 2 kids, and I've only had 2 have that have acted like this (and the other one is at Q's former private school, which, we basically left because of that attitude). She tried to get rid of him, and now we are back and she's stuck with us. That relationship is going to take awhile to repair, if it can be. Unfortunately because her behavior earlier triggered us because of some past trauma, I probably will never be able to trust her.

Overall, though, E is doing really well now that we've got his medications dialed in. He's made a lot of progress in his PT goals for writing and cutting. I think everyone is on board with what we want E's skills to be when he moves to middle school in 7th grade. The goal is no para support, able to write out his math work, and can use a laptop or computer to write out his longer response work. We are still working on letter formation in some cases.

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We had an ARD for Luke while I was traveling to Seattle last week. It went well, even without me. :eek::green:

He needs to be retested, but based on what we've told them, his old test (from when he was 3), and what they've observed so far, he's going to be starting with several supports while we wait. They're going to have an aide in class to help him about for about an hour every day, and he's going to be a part of a pullout group for a social skills class with his caseworker. They'll be working on things like taking turns and engaging in conversations. That should be good for him. I think they're even going to give him short speech sessions once a week. Hopefully after his next eval he'll be getting full speech therapy as well. 

Overall he's doing well. He's adjusting and making some friends. He's on par with the other kiddos as far as reading and phonics is concerned. He needs individual attention in composition, his handwriting is good, and he's likely very ahead in math. It's helping me considerably to know that he's doing well because as we all know, this adjustment has been harder on me than him. 

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2 hours ago, Destiny Skywalker said:

Hahaha I love kids.

I just pushed back and said no we really need virtual because we have no childcare. It went pretty well, there was one point of contention around para support and we wanted them to make sure they have a good plan for next school year. Basically he is being over-served currently because there is another child in his class who has 100% shared para support. They want him to become more independent, which is absolutely the goal, but the start of a new school year is a bad time to pull the rug out from under him. In all honesty, the principal always HAS to have the last word and when you mix that with my husband it can be a flash point because he likes to make sure he got his point across. He got a little snippier than he probably had to, but honestly he's still pretty pissed about how things went down last year. I'm wondering if she thought that in-person might defuse that, but in all honesty, virtual is better because I can give him some off-screen signals that he needs to chill. Our phone conversations have usually been worse than our in-person interactions, but this particular principal really gets under my skin. I feel like she tries to make her problems every one else's problem. We've been though 9 different principals over the years between our 2 kids, and I've only had 2 have that have acted like this (and the other one is at Q's former private school, which, we basically left because of that attitude). She tried to get rid of him, and now we are back and she's stuck with us. That relationship is going to take awhile to repair, if it can be. Unfortunately because her behavior earlier triggered us because of some past trauma, I probably will never be able to trust her.

Overall, though, E is doing really well now that we've got his medications dialed in. He's made a lot of progress in his PT goals for writing and cutting. I think everyone is on board with what we want E's skills to be when he moves to middle school in 7th grade. The goal is no para support, able to write out his math work, and can use a laptop or computer to write out his longer response work. We are still working on letter formation in some cases.

I rarely go to IEP meetings.  I trust and support whatever the team decides (the team includes parents).  Legally, admin doesn't need to be there since the case manager or school psych can also sign as admin. 

You can write the IEP to say a second staff member (para) needs to be in the classroom and not a 1:1 and can float and support whomever needs it.  I have never heard of "100% shared para support"--that sounds like it could get legally messy--I wouldn't even know how you would write that in an IEP.

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Our district hates doing 1:1. They claim the kids get too attached or dependent on it being the same person day after day. So the other child is impacted enough that he needs a 1:1 but since he shares with E, they technically "share" a paraeducator. So basically, this child may not be in E's classroom next year, which means he wouldn't have the full time support he is currently getting, but is only documented as 60 minutes daily SEL (pull out) by a SpEd teacher and 60 minutes weekly for OT (pull out). So they changed it to 90 minutes paraeducator SEL support (push in) instead (which, honestly, I'm cool with, and 60 minutes pull out daily for OT handwriting support. The contention point was that they better just prepare for a rough transition at the beginning of next year so be ready for it. He is doing great now but he almost always backslides at the beginning of the school year. Whether that's because he has been at a new school every single year, or because he just hates going back to school after a lazy summer, I dunno.

We always have someone from admin there. Personally I would rather have the school psychologist, he has been way more helpful and generally has good suggestions. He made them implement the ticket system that I suggested at least twice before they actually did it.

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Honestly, that is my biggest reason for wanting to move to a year-round schedule. I would happily take 2 weeks off every couple of months and then a 3-4 week summer break. It would be so much less daunting to find a week or two of camps than a whole summer worth of camps. Ultimately I get about 3-4 weeks of straight vacation time and 2 weeks of sick leave a year, so I couldn't take off the entire time, but we wouldn't be so limited on when we can take vacation and we could find camps the other weeks. Or just work from home. Right now I really think we are gearing up to ask my husband's boss if he can wfh 2 days a week instead of 3 for the summer so E can be home again. I almost wish he qualified for extended school year because he needs that structure and routine, even if it was only half day. I think we will try some half day camps, too, but I think full day might be too much for him.

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14 hours ago, Destiny Skywalker said:

Our district hates doing 1:1. They claim the kids get too attached or dependent on it being the same person day after day. So the other child is impacted enough that he needs a 1:1 but since he shares with E, they technically "share" a paraeducator. So basically, this child may not be in E's classroom next year, which means he wouldn't have the full time support he is currently getting, but is only documented as 60 minutes daily SEL (pull out) by a SpEd teacher and 60 minutes weekly for OT (pull out). So they changed it to 90 minutes paraeducator SEL support (push in) instead (which, honestly, I'm cool with, and 60 minutes pull out daily for OT handwriting support. The contention point was that they better just prepare for a rough transition at the beginning of next year so be ready for it. He is doing great now but he almost always backslides at the beginning of the school year. Whether that's because he has been at a new school every single year, or because he just hates going back to school after a lazy summer, I dunno.

We always have someone from admin there. Personally I would rather have the school psychologist, he has been way more helpful and generally has good suggestions. He made them implement the ticket system that I suggested at least twice before they actually did it.

Some school's admin go to every IEP meeting.  It may be a school/district thing.  As a principal, I think it is weird me being there because I am perceived as the final word when in fact I know the student the least out of everyone in the room. 

As a case manager and still in my current role I always went with parent recommendations first (even if I did do not completely agree) and if it doesn't work there is more buy-in for your idea OR it does work and I just learned something.

2 hours ago, Ms. Spam said:

The thing about starting new years and being prepared would probably help if we go to a year round school. I mean if we're going to be prepping kids for work life then I don't know what job has a school schedule except well schools.

 

28 minutes ago, Destiny Skywalker said:

Honestly, that is my biggest reason for wanting to move to a year-round schedule. I would happily take 2 weeks off every couple of months and then a 3-4 week summer break. It would be so much less daunting to find a week or two of camps than a whole summer worth of camps. Ultimately I get about 3-4 weeks of straight vacation time and 2 weeks of sick leave a year, so I couldn't take off the entire time, but we wouldn't be so limited on when we can take vacation and we could find camps the other weeks. Or just work from home. Right now I really think we are gearing up to ask my husband's boss if he can wfh 2 days a week instead of 3 for the summer so E can be home again. I almost wish he qualified for extended school year because he needs that structure and routine, even if it was only half day. I think we will try some half day camps, too, but I think full day might be too much for him.

I was in a district that tried year round school, but off are so ingrained in our society, it is difficult to overcome.  Childcare is the big issue.  It may work better for a select few, but not on the whole. For example, it is VERY difficult to staff a camp or hire additional personnel in daycare throughout the year.  Your main workers, college kids, are away.  Who are you going to be hire to work two weeks every eight weeks? 

 

 

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On 2/11/2023 at 2:41 AM, Jacen123 said:

I think I’ve been unknowingly waiting my whole life to read Dr. Seuss books to my son.

I was the same but with Hairy Maclairy books. (About a Scottish terrior that gets up to adventures with his crew of neighbourhood dogs) 

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And now it looks like we're going to put Noah in school as well. 

We just no longer have the time to give him the attention that he also deserves. He's doing his school work 100% on his own right now, and that's mostly ok, but I feel guilty that we can't do more. I also feel like a failure for dropping homeschool and sending him to school. So yay for mom guilt! 

I've got him on the waitlist for a local charter school that follows a classical education model. I'm also redshirting him a bit. I want him to start as a freshman rather than as a sophomore as he would be age-wise. His birthday is in the middle of the summer though, so it's not like he's going to be way older or anything. Because of the way the classical model works, it's just better if he can start at the beginning of the sequence rather than in the middle. Assuming he even gets in. He's number 32 on the waitlist for the fall. I did go ahead and tried to enroll him for the remainder of this school year as well just to see, and he's #1 on that list. So maybe we'll have him finish up 8th grade there if it guarantees him a spot next year. 

But now I'm definitely going to need to get him a formal dyslexia/dysgraphia diagnosis. Accommodations are super easy when you homeschool, but now I'm going to need paperwork so the school will let him utilize audiobooks and such. 

He's not exactly happy about this, but his concerns so far are more about how early he's going to have to wake up and whether the uniforms are comfortable. Oh yeah, they have uniforms. I think he's secretly somewhat looking forward to a change. 

So I guess I have until the fall to fit in all of the learning I'd planned for him but I know they won't do in school. Oh and he needs to be refreshed on Latin, and he's not going to like hearing that either. 

 

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So about 50% if homeschooled kids end up going to high school in some states instead of continuing with their homeschool education in the home. Totally don't take it personally or that you're a failure. My older step-sister homeschooled both her kinds because well Georgia schools are about on par with Louisiana education - REALLLLLLLY Low in ranks of anything back in the early 2000s.

And now one of my cousins has a high school aged kid too that is wanting to go back to school instead of continuing with education in the house. my cousin, Bridgette, is really struggling with her feelings about public school and her failure as she is taking it because it feels like a rejection of her personally by her oldest son.

The teacher part of me would like to point out you did awesome and not to take it and internalize or make it personal. Kids are about pushing boundaries at this age so breaking out from the house as it were and going to public school maybe a great way for them to assert some authority/agency/whatever the new term is over that. 

For Bridgette its more about trusting the school with her kid though. All I could tell her is that we will do our best to make sure that they're safe and learn and get the things they need. A parent is always welcome in school too. So she plans to volunteer. I dunno what to tell her about gun violence though. Statistically it's a small fraction of gun violence. More kids die at home from guns in the US than at school. I think by volunteering at the school may help her alleviate some of that fear. You can see how the school handles bullying even if you volunteer at the library or work on the PTA.

Also he can always learn on top of school if he's that super motivated. I wish we still taught Latin in school. LOL

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Q's best friends' (they're twins) mom refuses to send her kids to public school because she is so worried about gun violence. She is also not from the US, so she thinks we're all gun-toting crazies. I feel bad because I think it's not that likely to happen, but I also did go to high school with the Northern Illinois University shooter, so... In any event, I don't think the private schools really have any better security, even though they pretend to.

I think it will be ok for Noah, but I can understand the concern and YES, you do want to get a 504/IEP in place, and that's a lot easier to do with a diagnosis. And I agree that having a teenage boy learn largely unsupervised because he has 2 working parents is probably not a recipe for success.

How much is he impacted by dysgraphia? E has come a long way but it basically took him being in-person at school for a full school year, ADHD meds, and 3 years of private OT on top of school OT. He actually wrote out all of his Valentines this year and they were legible. That said, Noah is probably at the age where he's going to use a laptop or computer to write out most essay work. And schools got so used to using Google Classroom that they may not have much in the way of paper assignments anymore. I would think math will probably be the most handwriting.

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It's such a relief when toxic people decide to exit stage right out of your life because they realize you won't let them walk all over you. I've had this family in Scouts that I've had difficulty with for years. Mom doesn't want to lift a finger to help, Dad wants to control things and mansplain to all the women that he is a military veteran and knows more about the outdoors than anyone. (My co-leader is also a military veteran and was a survivalist Girl Scout growing up.) The girl is alright but I'm 90% sure she's neurodiverse with a healthy dose of anxiety and neither parent will acknowledge it. I've basically cut them out of any involvement for the past 2 years because their help is not help. Dad has interrupted meetings where we played trivia games to give his daughter the answer. A few months ago, mom decided to stay at an event while I waited outside for a straggler and she went off on a girl, accusing her of touching her daughter. Another volunteer who was present said she saw the whole thing and no one touched the other girl. The other girl's parents told me they were uncomfortable with the mom and their daughter was confused because she didn't touch the other girl. The girl has started missing meetings and dropped out of our big project because we didn't pick the topic she wanted us to cover. Today dad shows up early and sits in on the end of the meeting and interjects to tell us how he thinks the girls should spend their cookie money. It was a hard meeting even before that, and I had girls crawling on tables because they didnt have their ADHD meds, throwing trash on the floor, and doing anything but the budgeting project I gave them to prepare for their big project. I had to help the girl a lot and she was the last one to finish and the girls were waiting a long time for her, but they didn't say anything to her about it, they just let her finish and made chaos in the meantime. Dad pulled my co-leader outside and said they wanted to leave because of all of the "behavior issues" and saying it was rubbing off on his daughter. Came back inside and asked me for the badge she earned while I try to organize supplies and clean up. Bye Felicia. As soon as I got home I emailed them the list of open troops and told them how to switch her.

Don't get me wrong, I say that I run the most neurodiverse troop in our area. There is a stimulant medication shortage and I had to call parents tonight about how their kid acted because I am not going to address that in front of other families. It's not the troop for everyone but these girls deserve a place too. I hope this girl does ok in another troop. She's not a bad kid but a little spoiled and a little sheltered by her helicopter parents. She needs Girl Scouts, too. I didn't mind her when her parents weren't around, and I realize her anxiety has been high since the pandemic. But I'm not letting her parents steamroll everyone into doing things the way their kid wants. Honestly, though, it's probably my last year leading a troop because of parents like this. I have another family that refuses to help with anything, but they won't leave. Dealing with people like this is exhausting, and it took me 4.5 years to finally wear them down.

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I totally feel you on that. This is my daily routine since coming out of the pandemic. No meds, kids behind and trying to catch up and chaos happening and ON TOP of that the schools like teacher B quit, can you run over and check on her class? And we wonder why there's a teacher shortage or big troops of kids because only one parent like you wants to step up to that endless amount of unthanked chaos.

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I think some people get mad that I'm not constantly screaming at kids for their "behavior". I don't sweat the small stuff but I will call them out if they're being unkind or disrespectful to their troop mates. They're kids and they get enough of that at school. I try to do a lot of hands on activities but some of my girls are super fast, some are great at focus and finish, and some want to give up at the first sign of difficulty. I imagine it's a lot like a classroom, but I only have 9 (now 8) instead of 25.

I find a lot of adults are just control freaks. They don't want to understand how to help, they just want control or for their life to be easy.

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1 hour ago, Destiny Skywalker said:

I think some people get mad that I'm not constantly screaming at kids for their "behavior". I don't sweat the small stuff but I will call them out if they're being unkind or disrespectful to their troop mates. They're kids and they get enough of that at school. I try to do a lot of hands on activities but some of my girls are super fast, some are great at focus and finish, and some want to give up at the first sign of difficulty. I imagine it's a lot like a classroom, but I only have 9 (now 8) instead of 25.

I find a lot of adults are just control freaks. They don't want to understand how to help, they just want control or for their life to be easy.

Yup. 

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Aaaand, Noah was accepted for this year. Now I have to get him registered by next Monday, buy his uniforms (which he won't be around to help with because he's going backpacking this weekend with his troop), and convince him that this is a good thing (turns out, spending 14 years complaining about public schools has led him to believe that schools are a terrible place to be...:green:). 

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Well I'm glad he got in! I think that's the less stressful option (for you). Personally I'm over here stressing because it's 3 months to soccer tryouts and I just want to know what team she is going to be on next year lol. I hate waiting for decisions.

Walmart is great for uniforms but their shipping is super slow. Maybe just get enough for a few days (not sure how often you do laundry, but I'm definitely doing a load every 2 or 3 days because I mix all the clothes together) and see what he likes and order more? I like their polo shirts especially. All the colors, very durable. Q didn't really like pants so she wore skirts with leggings for a long time, but Noah won't have a choice. Can he wear shorts? Is that something he would like?

Do you think his concerns are anxiety related? Is change hard for him? Tell him it's not public school it's a charter school. ;)

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I think he's actually looking forward to it more than he's letting on. And I think he'll actually enjoy being around people all day. We have to buy his uniform shirts from the school, but we can buy the pants, shoes, belt, and socks from wherever. He's man-sized now though. So we just have to find khaki pants, flat front, no sewn on pockets. I'm thinking we'll start with like 3 pairs of pants and maybe 4 shirts (2 short sleeve and 2 long sleeve) and go from there. It's the shoes that will cause us the most issue because of his oddly shaped feet. And we don't skimp on shoes for him, so we're probably looking at spending $200-300 in shoes alone this weekend (1 brown and 1 black pair). 

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Did Noah start this week?

I'm starting to think I need to get E evaluated for dyslexia. He can read just fine. But his spelling tests are atrocious. Sounding words out doesn't help. (Q also struggled with this, and still is not great at spelling.) My husband had dyslexia as well, but he is really reluctant to have the kids diagnosed with anything more, partially because he's already overwhelmed by all their issues, and also because he is worried all this stuff will be used to discriminate against them.

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He starts next Tuesday. He and I took a quick tour of the campus this week. He's still trying to pretend that he's not excited about this. But today he was talking to his great-grandma and he was going on and on about the campus and everything he learned. I think he's secretly excited about doing something different. 

I did find out that his English class is finishing up reading Fahrenheit 451 this week and will begin a writing assignment on it next week, so I'm trying to get him to listen to the audiobook. He's listened to the first chapter. :hmm:

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I'm really struggling with Q's teacher. She says all the right things about supports and accommodations, but this woman gets so angry with Q and it does anything but help the situation. I think the teacher has her own issues with impulse control and has higher expectations for Q than she does herself. In the past month she has called Q annoying to her face, went off on her for wanting to use the bathroom when she couldn't, told Q "process this" when she said she was having difficulty processing because the teacher was giving too many demands all at once, and then Friday accused Q of cheating after catching some other kids cheating and responded by ripping up Q's paper in front of everyone. I'm super pissed about the paper, way more than any cheating accusations. I feel like the teacher loses control of herself. I really want her out of this classroom but I don't think there's any place to go. I've placed a variance request for next year because I'm so sick of the culture at this school. It was all sorts of promises at the beginning and every person I've interacted with has failed to live up to what they say they do. It's like they've never seen a neurodiverse kid before.

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