Traditional Private School -- Should We Continue

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Our recently diagnosed 5-year old is in a small traditional private school. The school has a very low kids to teacher ratio so she gets a lot of attention. She will be entering her first grade next year. Her current teachers believe she will do well next year provided she receives additional services after school. She is still being evaluated by the school district and does not yet have an IEP (it has been 12 weeks since we started the process), so we do not have many options at this point. Regarding the cost of private school, she is the only child and we are making sacrifices to pay for it. But we absolutely love the school and so does she!! !

So the questions is to both parents of AS and AS themselves, do you see the benefit in a small very close-knit school (provided you get social skills and play therapy elsewhere)? Or are we setting her up for failure for not exploring other options?

Just as a side note, the other kids in her class do find her weird and it is hard to hear that... She does not yet recognize that they see her as different, she just sees them as friends.

There are two reasons for school;

1. Learning
2. Socialising

You're saying that the learning will not be taking place at this school? Well, some of it at least.

That leaves socialising.

If your child really loves the school because of friends, it might be bad to remove her but if she loves it because it's "school", then you could probably move without too much hassle.

Aspies attract other aspies.
There aren't as many aspies as NTs.

A larger school will (generally) have a higher chance of having more than one aspie in a given year/class than a smaller school - hence more potential friends.

The exception to this rule is a special school.

This is logical, but not always accurate! My son is in a small, private school, which is not for children with special needs, and yet despite the fact that there are only about thirty kids in his grade, he is not the only aspie! There are several quirky kids who are friends, so they have found each other and have their own little group. Obviously, they are not the "popular kids," but that's okay.

Anuta1, in figuring out whether to stay at the school you're in, or whether to switch, the real issues are: which school will be willing and able to handle the issues that come up? where will your child be valued as an integral member of the school community? The fact that the other kids see your daughter as weird is not necessarily an issue, one way or the other - that could be the case in either school. The real issue is what that means - how does that manifest, what does school do with that, and do they think she's weird and accept her, or does the weirdness mean she'll be ostracized? It's great that the private school seems open to having your daughter there as long as she receives services outside of school, but will that mean they think she's supposed to magically seem typical because of her social skills and play therapy? Will they be willing to do any kind of social skills work at school at all? Many "typical" students also need social skills support, and many aspies have trouble generalizing the skills they learn in outside groups to a different environment, so a group within school would be far more useful than one after school.

Have you had any indication from the school about whether they would be open to making accommodations, if necessary, in school work? Some AS students have difficulties that may not manifest when the child is as young as your daughter, but if the school is very rigid in its demands and expectations, it might not be the best "fit" for an aspie. If they will be flexible, if necessary, it is a good sign. Do you know how they are in terms of accommodating children with other learning needs?

I would definitely look at the other options - looking is not a commitment to switching your daughter - it just gives you a sense of your choices. Sometimes, depending on your school district, you will be pleasantly surprised at how warm and nurturing a public school will be! And if you can obtain the socialization skills, OT, Speech & language as part of her school day, and without incurring costs, that is a plus as well. It's certainly worth checking out. If she's going to switch schools, it would be much easier now than a few years into school.

Good luck.

Thank you both very much for your input. At this point we are waiting for the options the public school district will offer. We were never intent on sending her to a private school. She started a neighborhood public school for Kindergarten, but just was not functioning well in a large class setting (25 5-year olds per one teacher). At the time, they did not offer us any options just made it clear that she was mis-behaving constantly. We gave a private school a try and it worked out well. We privately (by a neurologist) diagnosed her and then contacted the school district again. I wish we were still in the system as it would definetely make things easier.

I just to make sure that I am not projecting on her my desire for her to go to this little cozy private school at the expense of providing her with needed services (it is mostly social skills for her at this point that need improvement). We are very comfortable with her diagnosis, just see her as "different and unique in her own ways", but at same time we cling to this idea of her continuing her life as a NT kid.

I am a bit lost at this point as to what is the best for her, thus the questing and rambling.

a larger school does not necessarily mean your child will do better.............a small school does not necessarily mean your child will do better..............you really need to see what the district has to offer, and visit. trust your gut instinct. if you don't like what you see/hear-realize that it's not easy to get things to change

What she said!

My son (14 y.o., AS) has been in only small schools - sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. My grandson (6 y.o., PDD-NOS) has been in small pre-school and in "regular" public school. This year, 1st grade in public school, has been the best so far. It isn't perfect, but his school is warm and nurturing, even though there are lots of kids. The class sizes are smaller than yours (about 20 kids per class), and he is in a learning support class for part of the day each day. He doesn't need it for subject learning needs, but because of his other needs - he can't handle the stimulation of the large classroom for the whole day, and he has central auditory processing issues. He's advanced in both reading and math; has fine motor needs, speech and language needs, and (of course) socialization needs. Generally, when he is in the large classroom, either the teacher or the aide from the learning support classroom is also there, as an aide to the regular classroom teacher, so it is rare for him to be in a classroom with only one teacher. The school has an overall attitude of inclusion, and the kids are (generally) accepting of difference. He has school friends, and even occasional after-school play dates.

Where I'm going with this is, when you meet with the public school, you need to see what they are offering, both in terms of supports and in terms of the school. Sometimes kids with special needs are not in their neighborhood schools - this can be good or bad. Meet the principal - the principal sets the tone of the school. Talk to other parents, parents of kids with similar issues, if possible. If the principal is one who values parental input, cares about the kids, and expects excellence from the teachers - and somehow has the love and respect of the staff on top of that - you may have found the perfect place! If the principal is someone who thinks the school staff are the only experts, that parents are a necessary evil - run, don't walk, from that school. That doesn't even necessarily mean you have to rule out public school - you may be able to go to a different elementary school in your district. Kids with IEP's often can. If there is a parent group in your district for parents of students with special needs, that group can be an unbelievably good resource. Other parents, especially a few years ahead of you, can really help, and are usually eager to do so.

Although I'm not a parent, I thought I'd post my experience here. When I started high school, my school for freshman year was very large (about 4,000 students). I had a lot of friends there, but also a lot of enemies. To top that off, it was also a very rough school where a lot of inner-city kids were being bussed in. After that, we moved to a small town just a few miles away. The school itself had only about 900 students. That turned out to be even worse than the large school! I made absolutely no friends whatsoever, and pretty much everyone there hated me. They were very cliquey as well. After a year and a half of homeschooling, we moved to yet another school district. This school has about 2,500 students. Everyone here thinks it's pretty big, although I find it to be only smallish-medium. Anyway, the students here are excellent. I'm very popular now, and I have no enemies at all. I'd consider this school district to be easy-going. Plus all the students here hate the other two school districts I lived in. However, when I moved here, I made sure no one could associate me with what happened in the last two school districts for so long. I made up a new past life for me (I had just moved here from the state I was actually born in) and I went into a lot of details with it and always remembered every bit of it. Everything here, in the end, turned out to be perfect.

Thank you so much for all your replies. I guess I knew I would get a "yes or no" answer, but I was reassured nonetheless.

To answer an earlier question, I do not know if the current school expects her to "turn" NT:) But they are working with us. When we brought her social skills program to school ("how to maintain conversation", "how to join others in play"), the teacher was very intent on using it and even commented that all the kids might benefit from the program.

It is a waiting game for us at this point, but we did sign into the contract for next year at the current school (to guarantee a spot).

Our eldest daughter, now 14, was in a small private school setting through 5th grade. Although the school was did not have a LD or special needs focus, they were very accomodating in her early years and the children were accepting. About third grade, things began to change. The children were less accepting and the teachers became less cooperative until finally we left the school.

The experience I have to share is that as long as the school is accepting and supportive, and your child is thriving, I would stick with it. At a certain point however, you may find that your child's needs are not in line with the school's ability if they are not equiped to support a child with extra needs.

Talk it over with the administration of the school and don't be afraid to have a frank discussion about if the school is an appropriate fit for your child. If it is working now, go with it. But also start thinking about a "Plan B". We now homeschool our AS daughter, but we are glad she had a start in a more traditional school setting.

Good luck.

I have sometimes wondered if my son would have done well in the local Catholic school, simply because the set up from the get-go is more in-tune with his sensory issues. The classes are smaller and more structured, and the desks set up in a traditional spaced and front facing arrangement. But, he wouldn't have had services, and it is impossible to know how aware the teachers would have been of how to handle his special needs. The simple question is, with a the more appropriate environment to start with, would his issues have risen to the forefront as they did in the public school, or would they simply have not caused any problems? There really is no way to know, is there?

When it comes to school, every child is unique, and every classroom is unique. I really don't think there is a magic formula. But if you are in a situation that is working, and have a happy child, I say stick with it. If you are in a situation that is not working, make a change. I believe that all our kids can be happy and successful in school given the right placement.

And things could change from one year to the next. It's difficult to know.

I like the factors another poster listed above. Will the school be willing to make accommodations with homework, etc when it becomes apparent they are appropriate? Does the school foster an environment of acceptance of differences (VERY important for Aspie kids)? And so on. All the little things built into the culture of the school that will affect how things play out in the future.

YES YES YES YES I see a HUGE benefit in a private school setting, and I speak from personal experience. The schools, the children and the private school system all tend to be profoundly more forgiving than the public schools. My only positive school experiences were the four years I spent in private school (K & 1st and 7th & 8th). The rest was an asbolute living hell. As for the kids thinking she's different, they saw me as different too. The difference was that the private school kids were a lot more fogiving of my differences where the public school kids ridiculed me to the point I wanted to kill myself.

Thank you very much Mikomi for your personal input. Both my husband and I did not have the best school experiences (and we covered Catholic, Waldorf, huge suburban public, small rural public, magnet (gifted) public between the two of us), so we do not have strong opinions one way or another.

Regarding your comment, I do not know if the kids themselves are more forgiving or the school structure provides some room for being different. As an independent school, they are flexible in their curriculum and do not have to teach "to the test". I noticed that acedemicaly kids have a wide range of abilities which are usually addressed on individual basis. What I am trying to say is that individuality is very much appreciated and there is never a push to be like the next guy at the private school.