New here, done lurking

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Hi,
I've been lurking about for a few weeks, and decided to stop and offically say hello.
I'm probably way older than most of you here, and your school stories brough a deluge of tears from long hidden memories. I'm one of those that would never repeat my childhood...EVER.
Beginning around 12 I had several very serious attempts at killing myself. God that was a terrible time. Anyway my parents were abusive which didn't help.
Years later I went back to school and got my degree in teaching. Worked for a few years, and then developed a crippling form of arthritis and Fibromylagia and can no longer work.
Here's the rub...my son was dx'd a few years ago and he has it worse than just about anyone. Even in his social skills class for aspies he sticks out. Last year was hell...even with the dream IEP that I had hand written, and support from all of his doctors and specialists. We had a wonderful behavior plan..the school had to provide private transportation, no homework, no punishment of any kind, and he could leave and come home if he really needed.
One week into the year he develoved a very serious stutter. Oh, he's 12. The witch of a teacher was 2 years away from retirement, and just would not cooperate, even after I got the regional state ed rep telling the school that they HAD to do what the specialists reccomended.
I was at that school more days than not....finally in March he told his teacher that he was going to kill himself, and he hasn't been back to that school since. She had him so upset that he was melting down 3 or 4 times a day....not just swearing but chair throwing, desk clearing...well you ge the picture.

The school reccomended this year that he be put in a social skills only class and needed a therapist to moniter his evey movement to help him just to get through his day.
So, rather than put him through what many of you, and I did I am now homeschooling him! Big challenge for a disabled single mother. I'm a basket case now, but he hasn't had a meltdown since.
He has other disorders which will effectively keep him from doing a lot of the BS they require at school, and I don't know how much I will be able to teach him, but at least I will know that he will not be thinking about killing himself each and every day like I did.
Anyway, now that I 've written a book...and all I started out to do was say hello.
Hello.

Hello and welcome.

My son is also 12 and its been a very rough year at school. If the teachers would actually read the IEP it would be most helpful.

How is homeschooling going for you? Does it help that you have training in education? Quite a few of the parents who post in the parents forum do homeschool although I do not. Not yet anyway.

BeeBee

Read the IEP? Not around here they don't. The school was so bad, that even now that I home school I send all the info to the superintendent and not the principal that now handles it. That principal did nothing to help get the teacher comply to the IEP and behavior mods. I never thought I'd be homeschooling, but the school had made such a mess of everything.
I really never saw me home schooling, but he was so miserable, and I remember just how terrible school was for me.
Having the teaching degree helps in that I have learned many methods of teaching him, which is key. But I think any one can do a good job of it.
When I discussed homeschooling with P's psychiatrist's exact words were "if you teach him nothing at all it would be more that the school ever had.

No amount of reading will cause a fundamentally sh***y teacher turn into a good one. If at all possible i'd suggest moving him to a class somehow somewhere where the teacher isn't an ass and actually CARES about their students and wants them to succede.

Last edited by Nomaken on 14 Nov 2005, 4:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The sad part is that I'm sure its true.


Not to turn your intro thread into a "beat on schools thread" but I have to share this story with you. Both my son and I am dyslexic/dysgraphic. Him very much so, myself less. Because of this, he is never to be graded on spelling, just on content (per IEP) and he can dictate his papers to me or an aide. He had to look up and list all the states and their capitals. He dicated them to me. I knew the spelling was off on a lot but I'd gotten close enough that I knew the teacher would be able to tell what he meant. Fine. We go to the Parent/teacher/student conference and he's gotten a D- on that paper becuase of all the spelling mistakes. I actually started laughing because, in effect, I'd gotten an D. The homeroom teacher kept saying she would have the American Studies teacher change the grade but that wasn't the point. The point was the American Studies teacher must not have read the IEP OR the summary the homeroom teacher had sent out (recaping the accomidations).

Amazing! But not surprising at all from my experience with the school and it's staff......If not for the fact that I had an advocate (witness really) at all our movies, I would be hesitant to believe what I was hearing. There is no reason for blatent IEP violations, but these teachers count on the fact that 80% of the parents don't have a clue as to what is really going on in their kids school life.

And this wasn't just an issue with ONE teacher, but the last 3 years. Not just the school, but the whole system.
It may work fine for NT kids, but not for the really unique kids like my son.
I really feel that the tenure system has far too much influence on the caliber of our teachers.
Sorry BeeBee for your problems. I hope you will stand your ground.

Wow, where do you find teachers like that? Surely you're not referring to the public school system?!