One of the many excuses that I used to not homeschool for as long as I did was that, as much as I absolutely love my children, adore spending time with them, and think that they have fantastic personalities, creative minds, and unique perspectives on the world, they can be really exhausting at times. In short, the idea of spending all day, every day with these two beautiful, short people scared the you-know-what out of me. I enjoyed my walk with them to the bus stop every morning, and I smiled every morning as the bus drove away. I came home, sometimes still wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, made a cup of cocoa or chai, curled up in front of the fireplace with a book, and relaxed for the first 45 minutes or so of my day before starting any chores or heading to the gym. I never ran the television during the day, savoring the quiet. And when time came to start watching for them to return from the bus, I'd put the garage door up, secretly watch through the curtains or "just happen" to collect the mail 5 or 6 times until they came home, and be ready for the chaos to resume. Homework, snacks, hugs, chattering about the day, friends from the neighborhood arrived and the TV turned on while I made dinner (sometimes; other times that didn't happen until my husband got home and did the cooking) or else we'd jet off to karate or swimming or gymnastics. Boys & noise, that's what a healthy house is all about! But when the boys are home, somebody needs something about every minute and a half-- did I really want that 24/7 with no vacations? No. I LIKED my quiet time each school day. Nobody in the house was more enthusiastic than I about the arrival of each new school year.
So. Now we're homeschooling! Have I lost my mind yet? After all, it's been seven weeks of blissful togetherness with both of them, and eight with my litigator 7YO! And the verdict is . . . we couldn't be happier. Okay, maybe we could be a little happier. The 7YO has just been nearly as sick as he's ever been in his life, which has led to us being nearly sequestered for the last 2 weeks or so, which has led to the 10YO going a little crazy and getting a little case of the lonelies and me going just a little nuts (for those of you who are a little behind, "homeschooling" is a bit of a misnomer for the vast majority of us who are not doing this for primarily medical reasons, and much of the experience is often conducted away from the home and around other human beings). But except for these two weeks, we couldn't be happier. And I am most definitely not going crazy (these past two weeks excepted, just a little; I've gotten used to use being able to go whereever and whenever we want).
So, where did my hypothesis go so far afield? It turns out that . . . school is fantastically cool when a) you are being challenged academically and b) the subject matter is interesting and c) you are free to move around and get into a comfortable position and take motion breaks as often as needed while working and d) you can think and discuss your ideas as you study. So the kids are happy, enthusiastic, and excited about subjects they thought they would dread. They are getting themselves out of bed at 6am just so they can start their day and see what is awaiting them. For the teacher, I'm discovering that my kids are fantastically exciting all over again; I always used to wonder, during the day, what they were like in school, and now I get to see it. I get to watch the lightbulbs go off, when my 7YO says, "Hey, shouldn't that Roman (Diocletian) have known he was doing something not smart by splitting the Empire in half? I mean look what happened to the Greek Empire when Alexander's generals did the same thing after he died-- that's when the Greeks started to lose their power, too! If this Diocle guy had studied history, he might have known better!" I get to hear my kids say, "Turn off Spongebob! It's time to read Homer!" Even better, I get to watch my 7YO with mild learning disabilities finding his own rhythm as we work his therapies into his school day, and watch him improve daily. Instead of "Reading is boring!" I now find him curled up on the couch with a book. Instead of getting back reports from teachers that his recall of stories is behind schedule, I find he can analyze and draw comparisons between stories in very intelligent ways. My 10YO is discovering interests and abilities, and a new self-confidence that he never knew he had. And he finally has the time to explore extra reading on topics that pique his interest. During history he was fascinated by Alexander the Great, so now he is reading a biography about Alexander the Great, to round out the biographies of Herodotus, Socrates, Archimedes, and fictional works from a variety of series about the Greek and Roman myths and emperors.
Okay, that's fantastic, but it doesn't really answer the question, now does it? So, you're a selfish brat and want to keep all the fun of watching your kids light up to yourself? (Couldn't resist-- the "People homeschool out of selfishness is one of my favorite lines lately). Okay, so all that doesn't really answer how it is that I'm not going nuts.
If our school days were all like a typical weekend day or holiday back in our public school time, I would likely be certifiable by now. But . . . they aren't. Although we definitely don't just recreate school around the kitchen table, we do still have a certain amount of structure to our days. It is a flexible structure, to be sure, but there is structure. For each day, I look ahead at any appointments, pre-scheduled outside classes (science classes at the Delaware Museum of Natural History, gym classes at the Hockessin Athletic Club, science or literature or music at Longwood Gardens). I estimate how much time we should spend on school that day, and then allocate to activities such as science experiments, math, reading, history, geography, grammar, Latin, music, art, etc, and then I create a list of activities for each child and leave it on the kitchen table the night before. If they wake up before I do (a common occurance) there are things on there that they can do before I come downstairs and get that cup of chai into myself, such as silent reading. Each kiddo has a scientific lab timer, so if son#2 is supposed to read for 30 minutes, he sets his timer for 30 minutes, finds a comfy spot and curls up with his book and starts to read. Yes, reading longer than the timer is perfectly fine; that's a minimum time, not a max. If something interests you, you can pursue it, and adjustments can always be made if we run out of time later! Sometimes, we pack up and head to the park-- we might play for an hour or two, and then pull out some notes and do a history lesson in the shade while we cool off, sometimes attracting a few extra students to our "class." :) One little 3YO joined us on Monday, insisting to her mother, "Story!" The toddler Moms at the park were kind of smiling at the way the boys were jumping in with ideas, thoughts, and analysis of the fall of Rome-- both were really involved in the lesson, which was awesome.
Oftentimes, the history discussion spills over into dinner, as the kids are still processing what we discussed. Or sometimes the topic will be the music we're listening to, or the book we're reading together out loud (We've finished the kids' Iliad and Odyssey, and have moved on to the Aeneid).
They still have time for friends, Pokemon, chess, swimming, swinging a sword like a pirate in the back yard, and some down time on their DS's. But no longer is all of their time around me spent quizzing me incessantly about which thingamabob is a Fire Type or which one could defeat a Psychic. They have things to do, places to go, and things to read and think about, even during their free time when they have nothing assigned to them. In short, between the structure that gives them something to focus on, and the information that is actually occupying their minds these days, and, I believe, thanks to the degree to which I have gotten to know my children better, they have become more interesting people. And it's perfectly fine, at ages 7 and 10, that they still want to discuss Pokemon from time to time-- that is, after all, what 7 and 10 year olds are supposed to do. It just helps all of our sanity that they don't do it 24/7.
Of course, it also helps that my fantastic husband also facilitates me getting the heck out of dodge every now and then! My usual strategy is to go shopping with a friend for a few hours on a weekend day. Failing that, dinner out by myself on a weeknight will do the trick. This past weekend, we went with extreme measures, and even with son#2 rather ill, I stuck with my plans to attend a fantastic conference hosted by The Focus Foundation. Aimed at parents of kids with 47,XXY (an extra chromosome), it featured a fantastic lineup of speakers, including Dr. Darius Paducah, Dr. Alan Rogol, Pete Wright, Dr. Kenneth Rosenbaum, Dr. Laura Tosi, Carol Stock Kranowitz, and Dr. Carole Samango-Sprouse, EdD, head of the Focus Foundation. Okay, so I had a weekend escape steeped in information about my kid?? Yep! It was a fantastic weekend, and I spent it with some really great parents, pediatricians, and school administrators (yes, they were) who all showed up to learn more about this genetic arrangement and how it affects those eXtra special individuals who carry it-- and all of the people with whom I spent the weekend were adults :).Great information, and time with adults-- and I returned ready to spend more great time with my kids!
That leaves one missing piece-- exercise! Exercise I work in while my kids are taking classes at the gym. I can drop them off and then go work out myself, either karate or hit the cardio and weight machines and stretch. It's not as much time as I'd like, but it's time at least. And of course, if I take the kids to a playground or park, playing with them counts! Then I can put in some time at home while the kids join me and I can go at a pace where they can keep up. I am sure this will not last for long, and my older son will soon be giving me a run for my money. I do not let on that sometimes he already is.
So, looking back, it feels kind of silly now that I ever worried about spending time with my own children. I mean, they're my kids, and I really, really like spending time around them! They're neat people with neat ideas in their heads and interesting things to say. And really, home schooling is not just endless free time; whether we go on a field trip or set up with specific learning goals for the day, we generally have an agenda to get after; we're all on the same team, and they're learning how to relate and negotiate in age-appropriate ways. As long as I can honor that-- and as a mother, how could I not-- we are ready to succeed!
--Thanks for reading!
Showing posts with label The Focus Foundation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Focus Foundation. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Journey Toward Homeschooling, Part 2
Last week I told #1 son's story; here is #2 son's story.
The first thing you need to know is that my 7YO son is an amazing, bright, sunny, funny, intelligent, loving, loyal, curious, brave, affectionate little boy who happens to have a genetic condition known as 47,XXY. Some people refer to this genetic arrangement at Klinefelter's Syndrome (KS); I won't argue with anyone about that designation; those semantics could be a whole blog post. We'll stick with 47,XXY and argue the KS thing another day. I only bring it up because more people have heard that name.
Some of the pediatric symptoms of 47,XXY can include low muscle tone, milestone delays in gross motor and/or fine motor development, delayed loss of infant reflexes, poor suck reflex, delayed speech development, tall stature starting by age 5, continuing delayed gross and/or fine motor development after age 5, motor planning and motor dyspraxia, executive function problems, ADHD, autistic-like symptoms, anxiety, sensory-integrative disorders, epilepsy, auditory processing disorder, difficulty learning to read, delayed development of social skills, and several more. As 47,XXY is a spectrum disorder (the extra X chromosome can come from Mom or from Dad, and some people may have an extra X in just a few cells instead of all of them (mosaicism) each person is treated to a distinct subset of these symptoms, but rarely would he have all of them. Some lucky few have few to none. What is true is that Son#2 was lucky to be diagnosed-- only about 25% of males are diagnosed during childhood in the United States, despite this being a fairly common genetic arrangement, with 1/667 males being 47,XXY, and 1/500 live births being a male or female in possession of an extra 1 or more X or Y chromosomes. Please see www.thefocusfoundation.org or www.genetic.org for more information! In fact, there is a great conference coming up in April in Annapolis, hosted by The Focus Foundation!
My husband and I first suspected son #2 had issues pretty much right away, but were reassured by our pediatrician. By 12 months of age, we were certain of it-- low muscle tone, delayed milestones (not one or two, but most of them) yet signs of good intelligence and spunk were there in abundance, and our pediatrician blew off our concerns. An evaluator misreported his status at 15 months, but when he didn't walk until 23 months or speak his first words until 26 months, we finally got him some attention, though even then the pediatrician was pretty dismissive that he needed any special attention. He did, at that point though, finally qualify for some state services including physical and speech therapy, beginning just prior to his third birthday, and on his third birthday he was handed off to our local school district, still sunny, smart, friendly, shy, eager to learn, loving, and unable to climb, run, jump, get two feet off the ground, or slide, swing, or climb.
At his first IEP evaluation, we got a preview of things to come. The school district declared that he had made such progress, having actually gotten two feet off the ground at the same time in an attempt to jump, and getting up to almost 80% proficiency in speech production, that his IEP should be canceled. Then the physical therapist arrived at the meeting and lit everyone up. Very attached to Son#2, and impressed by his tough work ethic in therapy, she fought for him in a way we didn't yet know how to do, and the IEP was quickly rewritten, and it stuck for another year-- his second year of preschool.
The second year was more of the same. I left the meeting puzzled and disappointed, and wishing I had brought an advocate with me, wondering how the school could sit there with a room full of specialists, and tell me it was up to me to explain to them what his needs were and how to help him, or else the IEP would be cancelled. Weren't they supposed to have done an evaluation? And why didn't the evaluations they did do, look at more than just benchmark averages? A young, bright kid can use his intelligence to "cover" for specific deficiencies that will come back to bite him later . . . shouldn't these people who have advanced degrees in specific fields such as speech and psychology be aware of this fact? Where are the subtests? Where is the data with classroom performance showing the discrepancy between his ability and his classroom performance, and why are they asking ME to show this? Isn't this their job? Even after protesting the evaluation, we met again with what looked like the same cast of characters and ultimately were left with a 504 (a plan provided under a different law, the ADA, which provides accommodations, not services, and a lot less legal protection for the student), not an IEP (defined under the IDEAS law, which provides services and legal rights) as he headed into kindergarten, and an extraordinarily unsatisfying "solution" that for his dysgraphia and other issues, he would simply not have to complete his work. I'll stop there; the issues this brings up are rather obvious, the reasons we didn't take the district to court are not, but those issues are not the subject of this blog. The fact remains that the district deliberately was playing dirty pool with son#2 and several other children and they knew it. Off he went through Kindergarten and first grade with a 504 plan that didn't really meet his needs. We were "assured" against our better knowledge that he was performing at grade level. In short, the school dug in their heels and cancelled son #2's IEP coincident with his diagnosis of 47,XXY, and were told that it was because WE could not PROVE he was one of the over 70% of children with the condition who suffered academic consequences from it, and that it was our burden, and not theirs, to demonstrate that he had a problem (that is nearly a direct quote from the district special ed person).
What a surprise, then, to arrive at a parent teacher conference and be told for the first time, nearly halfway into the school year a year and a half later, that our son was in the "high risk" reading group, as his reading was so far behind grade level benchmarks. Not one person from the school had contacted us to let us know of our son's placement in this group. It was at this point that we contacted Dr. Carole Samango-Sprouse of The Focus Foundation, and set up a multi-day, in-depth academic and physical evaluation for son#2. We inquired about getting the district to pay for the outside evaluation, as there are provisions that require them to do so. However, they once again stonewalled us; we were now a year and a half without an IEP for our son, and they wanted to institute a lengthy process to approve this evaluator, and we were not willing to make our son wait yet another six months just to start testing, and we went out of pocket. It was well worth the effort. We ended up with a detailed report explaining exactly where son#2 was strong (sometimes, surprisingly strong! Yay!) and where he was running smack into roadblocks. The report confirmed what we already knew: We had a very, very bright little boy, whose language difficulties were causing him to go unrecognized in areas where he was strong, and thus not being permitted to progress as rapidly as he could. These same difficulties also were not being addressed, and thus were not permitting him to overcome them and progress as rapidly as he could in the areas where he struggled. All of his roadblocks were of a type that CAN be overcome, with appropriate, timely support, and the clock was ticking. The report also outlined specific recommendations for how to address our son's challenges. Upon receiving the detailed report back from Dr. Samango-Sprouse, I sent a copy of it to the school, requesting a follow-up meeting to implement her suggestions. I received no response. Normally, this "oversight" would have brought on a firestorm of protest and documentation from me, however, this brings us up to our very happy four months in Saint Paul, MN.
Thank goodness for Horace Mann Elementary School in St. Paul, MN. What a gem of a place! Son#2 was welcomed with open arms while we were there on sabbatical. Knowing that they had little incentive to invest in this child, as he was to be there for such a short time, they nonetheless said that every child is important to them, and every child will learn while at Horace Mann. And son#2 did indeed learn. He received support in every area where he needed it. He received support in areas where Dr. Samango-Sprouse's report identified needs and where they found creative ways that I never thought of to challenge him. He was encouraged to sail in areas like math where he was really strong, separating out the language problems from the math. And the other students just adopted and helped him, taking him right in and accepting him socially as one of them-- talk about "Minnesota nice!" He actually asked for additional school time, similar to his brother, showing up an hour early for school for chess club, and staying an hour late, for art lessons.
We returned from Minnesota with a comprehensive IEP in place, and were heartened to learn that son#2 was returning to his old school, to a classroom staffed by a teacher with a degree in special education! How awesome is that? Apparently not too awesome. After a long and frustrating (probably longer than legally permisable) wait, we finally met as a team. We discovered that son#2 had been inexplicably placed in the remedial math group, instead of the advanced group. I'll fast-forward, and give my favorite quote of the entire meeting. First the context: This district has nearly 20,000 students. That's correct: 20,000 students. And that's only about half of the families-- at least half have gone over the state line to better schools, gone to private schools, fled to charter schools (technically still district schools) or fled to neighboring districts. So here's the great quote: We don't know how to help your son, because we don't have very many special education students in this district. And of the kids who probably are special needs, not many families apply for social benefits; the families in this district tend to be "high quality" families who take care of their problems at home, instead of dumping them on us.
Remember, in part one, where I had a day when I filled out the paperwork to become a homeschooling family? I submitted the paperwork to the state exactly ten minutes after that statement came out of the mouth of a district-level special education person, and son#2 began staying home with me to homeschool the following week, when he conveniently (honesty) got sick (son#1 began the week after that, ten days after the state paperwork was submitted). We had two options. Take them to court, and sacrifice our sons' educations while we sucked away our time, money, emotional and spiritual and physical well-being over a course of probably a handful of years over a sysiphean task (this district has already been successfully sued over failing to provide IEP-mandated services to young students-- obviously, they didn't learn a thing from the experience). Or, pour our time, love, and resources into actually giving our sons an education.
Here's the final kicker: During the week that son#2 began homeschooling and son#1 was finishing up, son#1 was interrogated by son#2's student teacher as to his whereabouts. Then the school nurse was directed to call us and try to scare us out of homeschooling, insisting (at the principal's direction) that we probably hadn't registered properly with the state and could expect a visit from the truant officer. I wished them good luck with that, gave them the name of the state liaison to home schools, and suggested they send any such requests through her office, and asked if they'd like her email address, since I was in contact with her, as I was already quite legally registered as a state school.
We are now 2 & 1 weeks into our new venture, and both boys are showing signs of being extraordinarily happy about the change. They're working harder than ever, having both been "promoted" a grade by their new teacher/principal/superintendant/leader of the pack/momma duck, or more than one grade in certain subjects. They're taking cool subjects. They're writing on the walls and windows (a timeline and hand-drawn map), reading Homer's Odyssey (a prose version), and when they don't really grasp something, which is rare, but can happen, they're encouraged to go back and explore it in another way until they do get it, not to just forge on ahead because there's some new deadline coming up as there is in the public school classroom. We have no deadlines other than those we choose to impose upon ourselves. As a result, they're learning faster than ever, because they're eager.
And my moderate-to-mildly language-disabled child? His favorite new subjects (being taught a grade-level ahead in one case, and brand-new in the other) are . . . grammar and Latin.
The first thing you need to know is that my 7YO son is an amazing, bright, sunny, funny, intelligent, loving, loyal, curious, brave, affectionate little boy who happens to have a genetic condition known as 47,XXY. Some people refer to this genetic arrangement at Klinefelter's Syndrome (KS); I won't argue with anyone about that designation; those semantics could be a whole blog post. We'll stick with 47,XXY and argue the KS thing another day. I only bring it up because more people have heard that name.
Some of the pediatric symptoms of 47,XXY can include low muscle tone, milestone delays in gross motor and/or fine motor development, delayed loss of infant reflexes, poor suck reflex, delayed speech development, tall stature starting by age 5, continuing delayed gross and/or fine motor development after age 5, motor planning and motor dyspraxia, executive function problems, ADHD, autistic-like symptoms, anxiety, sensory-integrative disorders, epilepsy, auditory processing disorder, difficulty learning to read, delayed development of social skills, and several more. As 47,XXY is a spectrum disorder (the extra X chromosome can come from Mom or from Dad, and some people may have an extra X in just a few cells instead of all of them (mosaicism) each person is treated to a distinct subset of these symptoms, but rarely would he have all of them. Some lucky few have few to none. What is true is that Son#2 was lucky to be diagnosed-- only about 25% of males are diagnosed during childhood in the United States, despite this being a fairly common genetic arrangement, with 1/667 males being 47,XXY, and 1/500 live births being a male or female in possession of an extra 1 or more X or Y chromosomes. Please see www.thefocusfoundation.org or www.genetic.org for more information! In fact, there is a great conference coming up in April in Annapolis, hosted by The Focus Foundation!
My husband and I first suspected son #2 had issues pretty much right away, but were reassured by our pediatrician. By 12 months of age, we were certain of it-- low muscle tone, delayed milestones (not one or two, but most of them) yet signs of good intelligence and spunk were there in abundance, and our pediatrician blew off our concerns. An evaluator misreported his status at 15 months, but when he didn't walk until 23 months or speak his first words until 26 months, we finally got him some attention, though even then the pediatrician was pretty dismissive that he needed any special attention. He did, at that point though, finally qualify for some state services including physical and speech therapy, beginning just prior to his third birthday, and on his third birthday he was handed off to our local school district, still sunny, smart, friendly, shy, eager to learn, loving, and unable to climb, run, jump, get two feet off the ground, or slide, swing, or climb.
At his first IEP evaluation, we got a preview of things to come. The school district declared that he had made such progress, having actually gotten two feet off the ground at the same time in an attempt to jump, and getting up to almost 80% proficiency in speech production, that his IEP should be canceled. Then the physical therapist arrived at the meeting and lit everyone up. Very attached to Son#2, and impressed by his tough work ethic in therapy, she fought for him in a way we didn't yet know how to do, and the IEP was quickly rewritten, and it stuck for another year-- his second year of preschool.
The second year was more of the same. I left the meeting puzzled and disappointed, and wishing I had brought an advocate with me, wondering how the school could sit there with a room full of specialists, and tell me it was up to me to explain to them what his needs were and how to help him, or else the IEP would be cancelled. Weren't they supposed to have done an evaluation? And why didn't the evaluations they did do, look at more than just benchmark averages? A young, bright kid can use his intelligence to "cover" for specific deficiencies that will come back to bite him later . . . shouldn't these people who have advanced degrees in specific fields such as speech and psychology be aware of this fact? Where are the subtests? Where is the data with classroom performance showing the discrepancy between his ability and his classroom performance, and why are they asking ME to show this? Isn't this their job? Even after protesting the evaluation, we met again with what looked like the same cast of characters and ultimately were left with a 504 (a plan provided under a different law, the ADA, which provides accommodations, not services, and a lot less legal protection for the student), not an IEP (defined under the IDEAS law, which provides services and legal rights) as he headed into kindergarten, and an extraordinarily unsatisfying "solution" that for his dysgraphia and other issues, he would simply not have to complete his work. I'll stop there; the issues this brings up are rather obvious, the reasons we didn't take the district to court are not, but those issues are not the subject of this blog. The fact remains that the district deliberately was playing dirty pool with son#2 and several other children and they knew it. Off he went through Kindergarten and first grade with a 504 plan that didn't really meet his needs. We were "assured" against our better knowledge that he was performing at grade level. In short, the school dug in their heels and cancelled son #2's IEP coincident with his diagnosis of 47,XXY, and were told that it was because WE could not PROVE he was one of the over 70% of children with the condition who suffered academic consequences from it, and that it was our burden, and not theirs, to demonstrate that he had a problem (that is nearly a direct quote from the district special ed person).
What a surprise, then, to arrive at a parent teacher conference and be told for the first time, nearly halfway into the school year a year and a half later, that our son was in the "high risk" reading group, as his reading was so far behind grade level benchmarks. Not one person from the school had contacted us to let us know of our son's placement in this group. It was at this point that we contacted Dr. Carole Samango-Sprouse of The Focus Foundation, and set up a multi-day, in-depth academic and physical evaluation for son#2. We inquired about getting the district to pay for the outside evaluation, as there are provisions that require them to do so. However, they once again stonewalled us; we were now a year and a half without an IEP for our son, and they wanted to institute a lengthy process to approve this evaluator, and we were not willing to make our son wait yet another six months just to start testing, and we went out of pocket. It was well worth the effort. We ended up with a detailed report explaining exactly where son#2 was strong (sometimes, surprisingly strong! Yay!) and where he was running smack into roadblocks. The report confirmed what we already knew: We had a very, very bright little boy, whose language difficulties were causing him to go unrecognized in areas where he was strong, and thus not being permitted to progress as rapidly as he could. These same difficulties also were not being addressed, and thus were not permitting him to overcome them and progress as rapidly as he could in the areas where he struggled. All of his roadblocks were of a type that CAN be overcome, with appropriate, timely support, and the clock was ticking. The report also outlined specific recommendations for how to address our son's challenges. Upon receiving the detailed report back from Dr. Samango-Sprouse, I sent a copy of it to the school, requesting a follow-up meeting to implement her suggestions. I received no response. Normally, this "oversight" would have brought on a firestorm of protest and documentation from me, however, this brings us up to our very happy four months in Saint Paul, MN.
Thank goodness for Horace Mann Elementary School in St. Paul, MN. What a gem of a place! Son#2 was welcomed with open arms while we were there on sabbatical. Knowing that they had little incentive to invest in this child, as he was to be there for such a short time, they nonetheless said that every child is important to them, and every child will learn while at Horace Mann. And son#2 did indeed learn. He received support in every area where he needed it. He received support in areas where Dr. Samango-Sprouse's report identified needs and where they found creative ways that I never thought of to challenge him. He was encouraged to sail in areas like math where he was really strong, separating out the language problems from the math. And the other students just adopted and helped him, taking him right in and accepting him socially as one of them-- talk about "Minnesota nice!" He actually asked for additional school time, similar to his brother, showing up an hour early for school for chess club, and staying an hour late, for art lessons.
We returned from Minnesota with a comprehensive IEP in place, and were heartened to learn that son#2 was returning to his old school, to a classroom staffed by a teacher with a degree in special education! How awesome is that? Apparently not too awesome. After a long and frustrating (probably longer than legally permisable) wait, we finally met as a team. We discovered that son#2 had been inexplicably placed in the remedial math group, instead of the advanced group. I'll fast-forward, and give my favorite quote of the entire meeting. First the context: This district has nearly 20,000 students. That's correct: 20,000 students. And that's only about half of the families-- at least half have gone over the state line to better schools, gone to private schools, fled to charter schools (technically still district schools) or fled to neighboring districts. So here's the great quote: We don't know how to help your son, because we don't have very many special education students in this district. And of the kids who probably are special needs, not many families apply for social benefits; the families in this district tend to be "high quality" families who take care of their problems at home, instead of dumping them on us.
Remember, in part one, where I had a day when I filled out the paperwork to become a homeschooling family? I submitted the paperwork to the state exactly ten minutes after that statement came out of the mouth of a district-level special education person, and son#2 began staying home with me to homeschool the following week, when he conveniently (honesty) got sick (son#1 began the week after that, ten days after the state paperwork was submitted). We had two options. Take them to court, and sacrifice our sons' educations while we sucked away our time, money, emotional and spiritual and physical well-being over a course of probably a handful of years over a sysiphean task (this district has already been successfully sued over failing to provide IEP-mandated services to young students-- obviously, they didn't learn a thing from the experience). Or, pour our time, love, and resources into actually giving our sons an education.
Here's the final kicker: During the week that son#2 began homeschooling and son#1 was finishing up, son#1 was interrogated by son#2's student teacher as to his whereabouts. Then the school nurse was directed to call us and try to scare us out of homeschooling, insisting (at the principal's direction) that we probably hadn't registered properly with the state and could expect a visit from the truant officer. I wished them good luck with that, gave them the name of the state liaison to home schools, and suggested they send any such requests through her office, and asked if they'd like her email address, since I was in contact with her, as I was already quite legally registered as a state school.
We are now 2 & 1 weeks into our new venture, and both boys are showing signs of being extraordinarily happy about the change. They're working harder than ever, having both been "promoted" a grade by their new teacher/principal/superintendant/leader of the pack/momma duck, or more than one grade in certain subjects. They're taking cool subjects. They're writing on the walls and windows (a timeline and hand-drawn map), reading Homer's Odyssey (a prose version), and when they don't really grasp something, which is rare, but can happen, they're encouraged to go back and explore it in another way until they do get it, not to just forge on ahead because there's some new deadline coming up as there is in the public school classroom. We have no deadlines other than those we choose to impose upon ourselves. As a result, they're learning faster than ever, because they're eager.
And my moderate-to-mildly language-disabled child? His favorite new subjects (being taught a grade-level ahead in one case, and brand-new in the other) are . . . grammar and Latin.
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