My son is begging to be homeschooled.

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Today was not a good day at school. And I can see where my son is correct in his thinking where he is feeling picked on by teachers and the principal. I have been at school everyday since it started to help out in math because my son was moved up a grade for math and the class is huge. He has been very responsible and has gotten his homework done everyday. I checked all the kids homework this whole week except yesterday another person did it. She made a mistake and said TJ didn't have his done (not true because I sat with him while he did it then checked it). Well the teacher said maybe he wasn't in his seat when homework was checked and he can present it next week for 50% credit. Which I totally disagree with. His teacher also told me not to write down his homework (for my own use so I can make sure he wrote it down correctly) because it is teaching him that he doesn't have to do it because I will. But he doesn't know I write it down and he has done a fab job all week writing it in his agenda. She also said maybe I shouldn't be volunteering in his class because it might be distracting for him. And she said maybe he has ADHD which we had him tested for and they said NO WAY and gave us the diagnosis of AS. He has not gotten lower than a 93 on any of his work but she gave him a 83% grade as of now because she only gave him 1 out of 5 for participation points. I'd like to scream now.

I don't blame you, scream!
This sort of thing is going to happen all the time on a day to day basis. It's hard, it's unfair and it leaves you and yours feeling violated, but in this social-dawinist world its the norm. I think it may be better to get a "professional" to explain to the teacher, or at least some literature that can be digested in a short time. Would it be possible to have homework handed in straight away on arrival and have marks called even if your son has taken a comfort break? Please, please try to distance yourself from this on a personal level. It's impossible, but teachers (and everyone else for that matter) will take your intervention as special pleading, your son doesn't need that, only a bit of understanding. All the best to you.

I hate to say it but it is probably going to get worse, some teachers might actually hate him for being differnt insted of just not respecting him. Sorry that I dont have anything good to say. Maybe you should get some kind of IEP report so that if the teachers continue to treat him this way you have legal recourse.

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Have you seriously considered homeschooling him? I was having problems similar to your son's, and also massive social issues in school, but Mom took me out to be homeschooled and I've done great! I graduated last year. Homeschooling goes with AS very well, I think, and I highly reccomend it. I am responsible for homeschooling my 12yo sister with Down Syndrome this year, and I'm having a blast!! We've homeschooled for a few years, so I designed a curriculum for myself when I was homeschooled centering around my obsessions. It's a great thing, the freedom...and school only takes a couple hours a day!! I highly reccomend it, if you and he really want to do it, it is always a possibility.

Antigone -

1) Is your child identified as one with an ASD. Trust me on this one, the Rochester School District has serious problems with this issue because they feel that their evaluation is the only valid one and do not listen to anything that any other professional has to say (at least until a legal professional visits them).

2) You need to talk to the teacher quick about the half-grade. If the advance math program at Lincoln-At-Mann is the same as the program at Friedell, your child needs to keep at least an 80 average to remain in the program. They check this at every 20 week mark. You need to do something now or they will kick him out of the program if his average is not high enough.

3) You need to contact the person whose email address I sent you. She can assist you in finding resources and people to talk to. One of her contacts was successful in getting her AS son services at the same exact school that you were butting heads against. They can help you but only if your need help.

I feel sorry for your son and his situation but I am not surprised. If the district does not recognize your son as special needs, it would be the 3rd person whom I have heard about that has this problem. In fact, the problem is well documented in the Rochester Post-Bulliten (July 2, 2005 - B Section, you cannot miss it). That is why you need to network with the parents here. They can help you and your son.

Sorry is I sound blunt but honestly, after driving school bus for one year with a contractor for the Rochester School District, I have lost all illusion that this is a good district

Ljbouchard,

Thank you for the advice. When we got his diagnoses from the clinic we went to school and they said they would do thier own evaluation. They did and they came back with a big report and told us that his problems were not significant enough to warrant any special considerations. Last year I didn't mind that because his teacher was fabulous and worked with us. But right away I can see that we are starting a battle for this year.

My bosses daughter who is NT was being bullied by her teacher, he and his wife ended up having to move her to a totally different school becuase her school's principal was to cowardly to deal with a teacher who he has had multiple problems with, and he refused to allow this little girl to move to a different class. I know I've had to deal with the schools who refuse to follow the Individualize, Educational, Plan. for the children I work with, and thats outright illegal. I don't know if your state has that in place for your son, we in Calif. call it an I.E.P and if a parent reguest one then they can make the school follow through.I like that you are doing your homework in finding out what your childs rights are and what the schools must do to assist. Unfortunatly you are in for an uphill battle, but the more you educate yourself the better off your child will be. Oh and by the way, my bosses daughter's former teacher constantly said she did not turn in her homework or that it wasn't quality work, yet her parents saved her work and brought it all into the principals office, corrected...how can work not turned in be correcetd????Also, he said the quality of her work was surperior and yet the teacher said it wasn't.She is extremly happy now in her new school, but her parents did have to homeschool her awhile as they refused to allow that teacher near her,and the school at first would not allow this child to be transferred.

I had a teacher in middle school who bullied me. She solved the problem of getting caught grading papers though. She would have us do it, by trading with the person who sat in front of you. Kids would always grade my quizzes/homework wrong, but they told me that if I didn't change their answers, they would hurt me after class. My mother even tried to intervene, but when she came up for a meeting between the teacher and the principal, the rest of the teachers on the team were there too, and they ganged up on her.

So I had to wait it out.

And I hate math now with a long undying passion too.

As someone with dysgraphia, a handwriting disablity, I got alot of teachers saying that if my mom wrote down my work for me I was not doing the work. It is of the utmost ignorance to say this to anyone who has a disability, let alone a handwriting disability. Maybe an IEP might get them to realize they have to fallow rules, and not behave harshly to your son.

Unfortunetly, people are right that it does tend to get worse in school. Here are some reasons why:

- Schools tend to focus much more on social ability than academic ability these days. I find it completely rediculous and pointless, to spend time teaching someone how to be prom queen instead of math. As I'm sure you know, Aspies have a hard time with understanding social things.

- In my personal experience at high school. It was not only the students who bullied me, but the teachers. Nobody bothered to do anything about it. If I went to the dean they claimed I must've been in the wrong.

This is why I thought, maybe the kids from Columbine might've been Aspie, although that theory is contraversial. I think though, that there must've been more than them just "acting like Nazis", to cause them to shoot up that school. I felt very helpless and defenseless in high school, because nobody did a thing when I had a problem with a student or teacher. I ended up gaining a "I'm the only one who I can depend on to look out for me" attitude. This kind of, them vs me attitude leads to paranoia. Now, I'm female so I never delt with any physical bullying. However, I can only imagine if I were male, delt with this AND physical bullying. It might just have been enough to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

What happened with the children from Columbine, most likely came after years of abuse from the public school system. Did they have a precipitation towards violence? Perhaps. The point I am making here, is that our schools keep pushing and pushing male students until they break. Let's say that Eric Klebold and Dylan Harris weren't Aspie, they were treated almost in the same way an Aspie male would've been treated.

I had a nervous breakdown in senior year of high school. I slept for about a week after. I was diagnosed with depression and PTSD. When did it become ok for our schools, to allow the trumatization of students to where they are diagnosed, with the same condition veterans of war receive? My parents have told me, if they could go back, they would have homeschooled me.

If your son is complaining now, then get him homeschooled now. It will only get worse, he will only end up more abused by ignorant students and teachers. Not to mention the physical abuse, I kid you not, I saw boys fighting in the halls of my high school while hall monitors just sat there as if nothing was happening.

I'm sorry to have to expose you to this reality, but I do not want to see another Aspie suffer what I went through. I hardly remember anything I was supposed to have learned from school, because every day was another trumatic experience. I was severely and visably depressed. I was a Goth in high school, and I don't mean I just wore all black. I mean I liked Marilyn Manson, wore white face paint and extensive black eyeliner, and I STILL was not diagnosed as having depression until after high school. You know why, because I wasn't failing. That's right, I was punished for acheiving academically.

Public schools just are not places where one can teach someone with Asperger's Syndrome. If it's your only option, then you have to be extremely vigilante over how the school treats your child. You can ask my mom, she had to go to over 10 PTA meetings just to begin to get things straightened out for me.

Save your son from learning the only lessons our public schools now provide. Self-hatred, and what it is like to be hated. I really feel bad having to dump all of this on you, but I honestly feel if I save one Aspie from having gone through what I went through, I've done good. I also want to re-establish that I did not go through physical abuse. If this just happened from emotional abuse, I cannot imagine what would happen if it was coupled with being beaten up, which is a real risk for your son.

There's also bullying in universities and workplaces. Kids who get away with bullying grow up to be people who make life a misery for others in college, at home and in the workforce so that's why it's so important to nip bullying in the bud when kids are small.

Pandora, it seems they do everything but nip bullying in the bud at public schools. They usually try to make the victim feel guilty for reporting on the bully. Telling them the bully has a hard home life, do they really expect sympathy from someone for someone who makes their life hell? All it does is make it worse for students who have been abused. Since teachers like to claim the reason bullies bully, is they're abused at home. People who have been bullied assume people who have been abused, also abuse in kind, and therfore don't deserve empathy.

I want to re-state what I've said in my earlier post. Public schools simply are not a place for Aspies, or anyone that matter who can't play along with the dog eat dog social hiearchy, that sadly has become all too commonplace in public schools these days.

I once had a math teacher, in algebra, who said I was "never going to get the material, so you might as well just sit in my class and doodle". So you know what? I did just that. I'm actually pretty good at math, but I've got this huge psychological block with it. I just shut down and feel like I can't do it. I credit that idiot math teacher.

This situation absolutely must be addressed in some way. Either your kiddo needs to be homeschooled, moved to another class, or that teacher needs to stop being an idiot. Make it happen mom, you are your child's advocate. I know it isn't going to be easy (some teachers really shouldn't even be in the positions they hold) but you don't want him turning out like me with a mental block in the subject he's being tormented in. Should you have to do this? Of course not. Sadly though, sometimes it seems we end up having to fight for just what is owed to our children.

I really hope everything turns out okay.

For the young person with dysgraphia - my empathies. I also have dysgraphia, and went through school long before it was realized that such a thing existed. We used fountain pens, were not allowed to erase, and cross-outs were not tolerated. It was a total misery every day trying to keep up and then having to go home and re-do and re-do and re-do written work, only to catch hell for it not being up to standards when I finally turned in my best product.

There were no IEPs or specialized interventions when I was in school for kids with any sort of special needs. I do think they had speech therapy for the kids with language disorders, but that was about it. Hearing impaired kids either wore hearing aids or went to schools for the deaf, visually impaired kids either took their own notes on their braille machines or went to schools for the blind, etc. It was necessary that we figure out how to survive in the system on our own - some of us did and some of us didn't.

I never did get around the dysgraphia thing as long as I was in the public school system. I had to work harder than most of my classmates just to not fall too far behind them in that respect - but life is like that. Sometimes you will just have to work harder to make a go of it. Maybe that doesn't seem fair, but that's the breaks. It's something you'll just have to manage to compensate for by being an expert in something else.

My one bit of good news for you is that once I left school I never really had to do more handwriting than to sign my name in a checkbook or, maybe, print out a short note for someone. Everything else was type written, and now is emailed or word processed. The dysgraphia shouldn't hold you back from doing anything other than, perhaps, being a calligrapher.

Good luck!

Nan, did your hand really cramp up after doing all that writing? For me if I write alot it's like, "Hand..hurting..lots..must...stop....the writing!"