As I mentioned in my previous post, 6th grade for my son went fairly well. My son had adapted to the Middle School really well. He also enjoyed his special education teacher. There were a few red flags including the focus of his IEP meetings was about accommodations for state testing, there was a discouragement to participate in parent teacher conferences, and a debate about the number of excused absences.
Finally 7th grade rolled around and the year did not start off the greatest. My son was having extreme tic episodes that would go on for hours. We had been in and out of emergency several times, with no real help except sedation. Of course these events resulted in absences from school. At this point the school was requiring a doctor’s excuse for the absences. This was a bit ridiculous because we did not run to the doctor every time my son had episodes of tics. If so, we would be at the doctor’s office every day. This requirement was really becoming a burden on myself and my family. It was requiring us to go to unnecessary doctor appointments which in turn resulted in additional medical expenses, more missed days of school, and missed work for me. The situation was frustrating.
At one point I showed the school nurse and my son’s Special Education teacher a video of the tic events which were happening. They understood the seriousness of the situation. I explained to them that we had to figure out a way to keep the education process going. Their suggestion was to get more help from the medical community, which in turn meant more doctor appointments. My son was already seeing a very good neurologist and a neuropsychologist. I was really desperate for help and started to go along with the recommendation that involved, as the nurse described, a community approach to my son’s circumstance. They were suggesting involving government agencies, the school and social workers into the process. Once again, there was an expectation that the solution was to change my son. I tried to point out to them that my son’s medical condition was not going to change, at least not in the near future. Instead we needed to identify a way to accommodate him.
Here is where the enlightenment happened to me. I was expecting them to think outside of the box in regard to accommodating my son. For instance, we could have tutoring, or other methods of getting the materials to my son, other than via classroom attendance. We needed to fit his education around his availability. I could not predict when he was going to have these bad tic events. Also, if he was in school, there is no way he was learning anything or was engaged during these tic events. It was really teaching him a bad lesson in life — such as going through the motions is enough.
Since the team was not capable of thinking outside of the box, especially with no major bureaucracy involved, I realized that the only reason I was going along with the school’s recommendations was to get them off my back about my son’s absences. It had nothing to do with my son’s well-being. We already had the best doctors in the field. It had nothing to do with his education. It had more to do with bureaucracy such as attendance policies. I also realized I didn’t need government agencies imploding into our lives and adding additional stresses on the situation.
I then began re-evaluating the education that my son was receiving. For the last several years I had concluded that they were not pushing my son enough in school. He was capable of doing so much more. While evaluating the situation it occurred to me that the schools were not even meeting the educational goals in my son’s IEP. A goal is supposed to be able to be achieved in a school year or less time. In the last four years, I think my son had only achieved two of his IEP goals. The remainder of the goals just kept rolling over from year to year, or worse, and just disappeared. I realized they were making no progress. As an example, my son was studying addition and subtraction facts for the last four years. He had made no progress in math since third grade, which was the year he started having tics and the year they moved him into special education classes. I just didn’t understand how no progress had been made in four years. On top of it all, this is a boy who had figured out addition on his own before he started kindergarten. Math was supposed to be one of his strengths.
It was these events that brought me to the conclusion that my son was not being educated in this school system. He was not making any progress. He wasn’t being given the same opportunities as other children. I asked myself who is going to pay the price for my son’s lack of education. The school? No. Instead it would be my son. I was concerned that if he didn’t get a basic education what was going to happen to him when he became an adult. To be honest I was totally stressed out about this situation. I knew my son was just being passed from grade to grade with no tangible goal in mind, other than how to move him through the school system with the least effort and at the least cost. I knew then that I needed to intervene. I berated myself that I hadn’t intervene sooner. Once again I thought our educational system had my son’s best interest in mind and that they were the experts to creating a successful educational environment for my son. Well, I was wrong.
It was at that moment I decided that I had to take matters into my own hands. I had to make sure my son had a future.
Continued . . .
Scholarships: My son needs help now, not later
Posted: May 24, 2011 in Education, General Blogging, Indulgent Commentary, Learning DisabiltiesTags: children, discalculia, disgraphyia, dislexyia, education, IEP, learning disabilties, post-secondary school, scholarships, secondary school, special education
I was watching Oprah Winfrey’s final shows this week. There were several presentations regarding her contributions to education including her celebration of teachers, the girl’s school she founded in South Africa, her ability to touch the lives of so many children, her book of the month club or the scholarships to young men at Morehouse College.
As I watched this show honoring her, I wondered to myself what about my son. Will he ever feel the rapture and the power of education? Will college be in his future? If not, what will happen to him? What will his life be like? Without education beyond high school, I knew his life would be hard. Both my husband and myself have degrees from college. Even with this education, our life has been a challenge. I can’t imagine facing life without that little extra knowledge and without the advantages it may bring.
Right now my son’s education is in the hands of our public education system. This is the education system that everyone is talking about as failing to prepare our children to be leaders in the world. This is the education system that needs to be completely overhauled. Now keep in mind all of this criticism is in reference to mainstream education. This criticism is in reference to the children who don’t have reading problems. These are the children that do not have problems doing mathematics. These are not the children who have autism. These are not the children who struggle with school, who need to learn things in a different way, and who have learning disabilities. I am not talking about the children that have developmental delays. I am talking about children who need a little extra help. There is a group of children who do not fall into the classification of children with developmental delays or in with children in the mainstream educational programs. I am not talking about have a “quality of life” plan, which is directed at children with developmental delays.
So what is a mother to do when she has a child that has learning disabilities? How does she ensure that her child is prepared for an adult life, facing the world on their own? This topic leaves me sleepless at night. I don’t want my son to have to struggle, especially as a result of limited or inferior education.
As you may already know there are scholarship programs for post secondary school for children with special educational needs. Young people with special needs are finding their way to college more and more, as disability law mandates access to classrooms and campuses, and programs are developed to meet the needs of students with intellectual disabilities. I am very thankful that these opportunities are available.
My concern is not with post-secondary school. My concern is getting my child to post-secondary school. I know that my son is at serious risk for dire consequences of not receiving a proper education. If his education continues as it is in the public school system, he is going to have a hard, hard life. So when it comes to scholarships, I need the help now.
I need maximum access to any educational resources available so that I can get my son through middle school and high school. I can’t rely on the public schools. They don’t care. Children like my son are considered to be a burden on the schools’ budgets and are the first place they cut. It is very obvious to me that the public education system has an objective to limit resources to a child such as mine. They seem to be very complacent to continue passing him from grade to grade without meeting any measurements of a quality education. From what I have seen so far, the Individual Education Program is useless in regard to this. It is a facade to make it look like they are providing an education.
As evidence of this, our school system has been working with my son for 3 years learning basic math facts. The reality of the situation is, if they were really vested in his education, he would have surpassed this level of math in year one. The other evidence of this is my IEP meetings. Everything is presented as going “great.” I am not stupid. I can see where my child is at, as compared to other children in his grade.
My frustration is that I see me child falling further and further behind in a school system who doesn’t care. I want to get him additional help, but I can not financially afford it. I need help and I don’t know where to turn too. Like I said, I appreciate the scholarship programs for post-secondary school, but I need scholarship programs now to get my son through secondary school.
My employer provides a scholarship program to the children of their employees. Once again it is only for post secondary school. I actually submitted an application for my son, and of course it was rejected. From my perspective what good is a post-secondary school scholarship if I can’t get my son through secondary school.
I write this story to raise awareness. I don’t think there is enough public attention on this subject. I am sure if more people saw this topic through my eyes, more could be done to help children such as mine. I will continue in this awareness campaign, and continue searching the web for some program that may give my son a sliver of hope. I realize teachers have a hard job, but I need to focus on the child that I am responsible for, and at this point the teachers have let us down.
For more information on post-secondary education scholarships, check out these sites:
http://specialchildren.about.com/od/specialneedsscholarships/tp/Special-Needs-Scholarships.htm
http://www.allianceforschoolchoice.org/UploadedFiles/Home/School%20Choice%20Yearbook%202010-11.pdf
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