Who's Doing ESY This Summer vs. Supplemental Education?

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Our school's summer break is basically 8 days away. My son is not on ESY, but we do supplemental education during the summer and front-load him for the next year. But, because it's summer, we make it lots of fun. I'm going to be posting some of the things we do on my blog and WrongPlanet as we go along. My son is transitioning from 2nd to 3rd, but some of the information is applicable to all ages.

How many of you are doing ESY? And, are you prepared? And, how many of you are doing summer school or supplemental programs (even homeschooling) to help your child out?

I know regression is a huge thing during the summer, so I hope we're all doing something. It really helps.

My son(5yrs) is going to ESY, but we're kind of splitting it up this year, because he got awarded a spot in the summer camp, so he'll start his ESY later in the summer. During the summer ESY is the only way he still gets his services. I don't think he's really retaining much, as he doesn't seem to be learning much during the regular school year as it is.

That picture is so cute!

I know what you mean about retention. But, it will come. For the longest time, it seemed like my son wasn't learning either.

A summer camp and an ESY combo sounds great! My son did a camp specifically for children with autism last year in Los Angeles and really enjoyed it. The student-teacher ratio was like 1:1. It was very well organized and if we didn't have a few other trips booked this summer, he'd do it again. We just can't squeeze it in. But, he still needs to be in intervention. Even though he's a bit higher-functioning, we're not at the level where he can go 3 months without intervention and learning. So, he'll be doing ABA and a tutoring program...plus homeschool stuff I got.

Thanks for sharing. Your son is adorable! By the way, do they have some "inclusion" elements in that camp and ESY? Just curious. At your son's age, he does need to be around "typical" peers for the role modeling. I know "inclusion" is like a 4-letter word in some school districts, but I really think that it helps...even if it's only for a small segment in the day.

Nice chatting with you.

we arent doing esy with any of our boys. our 14 yo goes for 2 months every summer to visit his bio dad, so he cant do esy. we give our 5 yo a break in the summer, he is only going into kindergarten, so esy isnt really needed just yet, but he has classic autism and a lot of anxiety/stress with school, so summer is time for him to recover from the school year. our 7 yo son loves school, he will be doing camp invention in the middle of the summer as well as summer reading program at the library.

our main issue this summer is that we are moving to a new township and school district. two of our kids are already enrolled at gifted schools in that district, but we are trying to find a good school for our youngest who needs the most accommodation. i wish he could go to the gifted elementary school, i am sure he could pass the testing required for entry, but they simply arent set up for kids with sensory and toileting issues. i hope we can find somewhere suitable so we arent having to drive him to his old school.

I'm curious what ESY is. Our son is very high functioning so there are many things we just aren't tuned into, and there may be families here that may have borderline needs but are not being provided with all the information on all the possible options.

extended school year, basically summer services. it is a requirement in ieps that esy be considered. i have never, not even once, had it offered to my kids or even been told that its a possibility, but every single iep has the box checked that it was considered and determined to be unneccessary. i have never pushed it because we havent needed it yet, but may in the future.

pretty much! to be honest, most of our ieps have been with children only receiving speech therapy, and i wouldnt put them in esy just for that. my two youngest didnt get ieps until may of 2010, so this is only the second summer since their ieps began; one of those is for ST and one for ASD. my oldest had ieps for 7 years for ST, he didnt get an ASD iep until this year.

the only one i think that would academically/therapeutically benefit from esy is my youngest, and his retention is good anyway. school is very stressful and anxiety producing for him, so we'd rather he have the summer off. my SO is a SAHD at this point which means we dont have to worry about childcare in the summer.

i never expect the school to tell me what the options are, i would be foolish to depend on them for that =) if i think we need esy in the future, i will tell them so, but for now, its less confrontational to say nothing since we wouldnt want it anyway.

Thanks for the info! We are in the "thrives away from school" group, even though he does like the routine of school. But, yes, overall, it's so stressful for him and once out for summer he'll apply all his academic skills in his own creative ventures; that extension is natural to him. But, it's not like we're a family that has to worry he'll lose key speech skills.

Still, makes me wonder what it is like for more impaired kids, the whole school (follow "my" agenda) v. Alternative child-led options thing. It isn't an obvious answer, is it?

Never been offered ESY although my daughter does attend regular summer school - 2 weeks in math and reading. I can't even begin to tell you how much her writing suffers over the summer. We still continue with workbooks (bless the dollar store and their supplemental educational section...) and we take lots of day trips and encourage journalling and such. Getting her active and moving is usually our main concern.

Hmmmmm... maybe I can request a copy of her math book for 4th grade and get her started in Aug... I'll tell you though, her OT kind of ends up smacking her forehead when we get back to school in September. Loves that she lost some weight and is stronger but bye bye to half a year of handwriting intervention. I just can't seem to keep her on track with that at home.

I am the mean Mom that makes my kids do school stuff during the summer. I usually have all my kids doing math and read whatever books they want most weekdays. I will have the older two working on typing skills a bit each day too as I want my AS son to pick it up for his writing. I do reward them though. I do a spreadsheet of what I want them to do each day. At the beginning of summer, we agree on what percentage they have to complete, so we do have some days where they get to be lazy. If they meet that percentage, then they get to choose something for me to reward them with at the end of summer break. The older boys usually pick a video game. They also earn daily video game time this way. Otherwise, they would spend all day in front of the Wii.

What I have them do usually only takes 2 hours at the most. My kids will still get up on the early side, even in summer. I let them watch TV and graze for the first couple of hours. We are doing summer swim team this year, so they have swim team practice for an hour at 9am each morning. We then come home, and they do their math books and some reading. As soon as they are done, they usually want to play video games. We have lunch and many afternoons go to our HOA pool. We usually run into other kids from school there. My kids are fish, so we can be there anywhere from 1.5-3 hours. We come home, clean up and hang out until dinner, unless we have an evening activity, which is almost nothing during the summer.

We also go to the library often and do most of the summer reading programs. We do day trips to the zoo, the science museum or the water park. I try to space everything out all summer, so we aren't killing ourselves, but we aren't bored and fighting either. We have structure, but it is a laid back, flexible schedule.

You guys, thank you so much for your replies and I am totally NOT surprised that several of you have not been offered ESY. That goes on everywhere! It's a shame because parents sign that IEP not even realizing that that's an option. And, many of our kids need it. If you're on a traditional schedule, 3 months is a long time for our kids to be without services, training or education.

We have a lot of budget cuts where I live and things with the educational systems are getting very tight and I believe this plays a role in why many families aren't told about ESY -- money! Yes, money. That sounds bad, but it's really how I feel.

"Regression" is the catch-word down here. If the district feels there will be regression over the summer, then they'll opt for ESY. But, sometimes the burdon of proof is on the parents to prove there will be regression. It's crazy! And, HFA and Asperger kids really get the short-end of the stick because many are academically on par or ahead of the game. Schools don't care that they may regress in other areas.

twinplets, you are not a mean mom! It sounds like you're very organized and really have your academics mapped out quite well. We do the summer reading programs as well. There's one library that gives out certificates to Carls Jr., In-N-Out Burger for every 2 hours you read, so we'll go and read for two hours, get our certificate, then go out to lunch for free.

Unfortunately, my son is not at the level yet where he can go an entire summer without intervention and learning. I hope that by the time he's twelve, we'll be able to send him to a regular summer camp and not have to worry about ABA, speech (social skills), OT and all that during the summer. After 4 intensive years of intervention, he's pretty high-functioning. But, there are gaps and areas of need that we need to focus on so that he'll be able to handle himself without people stepping in to help.

I hope you have a wonderful summer. I'll be posting throughout the summer now that I have more time.