School choices..

[miranda]

Quick recap since I haven't been around lately: DS is in 4th grade (ASD/GAD/ADHD), level 1 setting in school, gets one 30 minute pull-out per week for social skills, and this year we added back OT time (15 minutes per week in the classroom to help him use a Chromebook/Google Read and Write because his handwriting is still atrocious and he refuses to use a laptop.) He is at "grade level" for about everything, although this year is a tough call because his teacher seems not to focus on writing at all. He hasn't had a single writing assignment come home. Last year was a nightmare getting him to write book reports and such. He struggled with structuring his paragraphs in addition to simple handwriting/spelling/etc. This year whenever I ask his teacher how he is doing she says he's doing "great" and keeping up with the class in all respects. It seems like they spend the majority of the time on math, which he is good at. Report card shows progress in all subjects. So from a confidence perspective he is happy this year, although I'm still uneasy because...

Middle school is coming in 6th grade. At his IEP meeting I broached the subject and they asked me where I planned on sending him. I said "A" of course, the school immediately next door to his elementary school which all the kids feed into. All 4 of the educators at the table looked stricken. I pressed them for feedback and they uniformly said it was a bad choice for DS. I pressed for more details but they said "we don't want to be quoted as disparaging them." I've gotten along with his team very well over the years and was/am really perplexed by their response. His MSW finally admitted that she thought the leadership at the school was challenging and children with "discipline problems" had a rough go there. I countered that DS doesn't have discipline problems, although he is still very much the argumentative type that needs a teacher who won't engage in power struggles. I asked them again why I need to be so concerned; currently DS only gets 30 minutes of pullouts, and none of them would respond. His mainstream teacher just sat there looking uneasy. They left it at: if you want to go there, make sure you engage with their MSW and ASD resource teacher ASAP and that I should "fight hard" to get what DS needs.

My gut is telling me that DS is more impaired than they want to let on and they know he isn't going to get supported well at "A" school. To me, other school choices aren't an option. He knows everyone at this middle school. Because of changes in school policy ala Olmstead, every school has to be set up to accommodate ASD kids (before ASD kids were routed to certain "program sites.") "A" school was previously an ASD program site, and is now losing some services because fewer kids with ASD are being routed there from other neighborhoods.

I plan on engaging the MSW at the middle school this spring. How should I approach it? What does he "need"? I mean, I think I know that he'll need a lot of executive functioning help, e.g. he'll probably need to check in with the ASD resource teacher once a day to help keep his homework straight. And I assume he'll continue some sort of social skills pullout.

Can anyone read the tea leaves- am I missing something here??

[funchicken]

Do you know any parents or have any friends who are teachers who you can ask about this? That is such a hard situation.

I'm really concerned about the high school that our neighborhood feeds to. It looks good on paper, but there have been a lot of problems with the principal, and a friend of mine who was an ELL teacher there opted to take a less convenient job at a different school just to get out of there.

[miranda]

Feb 26, 2018 11:25:35 GMT -5 funchicken said:

Do you know any parents or have any friends who are teachers who you can ask about this? That is such a hard situation.

I'm really concerned about the high school that our neighborhood feeds to. It looks good on paper, but there have been a lot of problems with the principal, and a friend of mine who was an ELL teacher there opted to take a less convenient job at a different school just to get out of there.

I have some feedback from parents. Of the 5 kids in our elementary program last year only 2 went to the A school. They report that it has been "tough" but both say it is a product of it being middle school years, not necessarily the school itself. The other kids went to dramatically different schools (outside the district). Anecdotally it seems the higher-functioning kids go to the A school while others find unique options to suit their needs.

Good point- there's another teacher at our school who has kids currently attending A school, maybe I'll talk to him.

Selfishly, DH and I can't imagine NOT sending him to this school. He can ride his bike there with the neighbor kids- or even walk if he had to. The hours are great. He will know literally everyone because he attends summer programs with kids from all three elementary schools that feed into it. And the icing on the cake- there's a Scout group that meets as an afterschool club there.

[mightymaude]

miranda,

Anecdotally, I work in "A" school. Likely not the SAME one you are talking about, but enough similarities that I was initially wondering if I did.

The middle school is across the parking lot from the elementary school. The elementary school is phenomenal and we have loved having our kids there. We rarely have to fight very hard for services and it really feels like we are part of a team.

I was horrified when I moved to teaching at the middle school this year. I taught just down the road at the high school and thought I knew the type of kids I was dealing with (after all, their older counterparts were in my school) but no, not at all. This place is a hellhole and I would NEVER send my kids here. I am frantically looking for places to transfer to before DS gets to sixth grade (he is also in 4th). The administration is extremely weak, so discipline is a joke. While your kid might not be a discipline problem, all of the kids who are take up the teachers' attention. I have had entire days in which not a thing got done because all I am doing is attempting to contain chaos. I have heard that when they are in 6th and 7th they still kind of believe that the administrators are scary so they behave better, but I have the 8th graders and have literally dodged flying chairs and not had administration do anything about it.

[miranda]

mightymaude, I was not even thinking about it from that angle. If the admin isn't serious about discipline, the bullying could be out of control. And you reminded me of something a SN parent told me a few years ago when she toured "A" school- she asked the ASD teacher what they do about bullying, her response was: "Well, it's middle school, so it's not great." FML.

[funchicken]

Did the team mention a school option that they thought would be a good fit for your DS? I find it really perplexing that they would balk at the school you were planning to send him to without giving an explanation or suggesting an option that they thought would be better. Granted I'm just beginning the process of trying to get services, so I don't know very much yet.

[miranda]

funchicken, from my perspective, the team has always been reluctant to provide recommendations of this sort, fearing retribution from their educator peers in other schools. They all but said this to me at our meeting. When I have asked about this in the past they will say "You should get in touch with so-and-so's parent, they had a great experience at X school." I'm on the school's SN parent group and have talked at length with other parents about their middle school transition plans, but there are so many choices in our district that I don't know anyone currently at A school; everyone is opting for charter schools these days.

I just sent an email to his ASD teacher asking her pointedly "what services should I be asking about when I talk to "A" school later this week." I asked her to provide examples of transition services that she has requested for students in the past when transitioning to "A" school.

[auntie]

Feb 26, 2018 10:43:46 GMT -5 miranda said:

Quick recap since I haven't been around lately: DS is in 4th grade (ASD/GAD/ADHD), level 1 setting in school, gets one 30 minute pull-out per week for social skills, and this year we added back OT time (15 minutes per week in the classroom to help him use a Chromebook/Google Read and Write because his handwriting is still atrocious and he refuses to use a laptop.)


Is he otherwise compliant around the Chromebook? How is that different than using a laptop? We found the best route to keyboarding skills at that age was using the computer for forums that spoke to his special interests. Better than OT, better than keyboarding programs. 


He is at "grade level" for about everything,


Depending on where you live, grade level could still put him behind his peers. DS was "at grade level" in 4th in a school where the average 4th grader was reading 3 grades ahead. There's also the concern that reading level at this age is not fully teasing out issues with parsing fiction- plot devices, symbolism, implied/inferred information, ToM, central coherence and character motivation- that will become critical to academic success in middle school. 


although this year is a tough call because his teacher seems not to focus on writing at all. He hasn't had a single writing assignment come home.


Wow. Just wow.

Last year was a nightmare getting him to write book reports and such. He struggled with structuring his paragraphs in addition to simple handwriting/spelling/etc.


If he continues to struggle with organizing his thoughts to paper, Kidspiration or Inspiration writing software may be useful for him.


This year whenever I ask his teacher how he is doing she says he's doing "great" and keeping up with the class in all respects. It seems like they spend the majority of the time on math, which he is good at. Report card shows progress in all subjects. So from a confidence perspective he is happy this year, although I'm still uneasy because...

It's hard not to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I did not truly believe DS would graduate from college until I saw his name in the official program; DH suspended belief until the actual diploma arrived in the mail 7 weeks later. They said 4-6 weeks which added to DH's misery. 

That said, I think there are many educators who will answer the question about how an IEP student is doing with "great" with the implication that he's doing "great for a kid with ASD, SLD or whatever". You want unbiased information about standards in the mainstream because that's the only appropriate setting in school and the workplace for your child going forward and they throw you a sugar-coated bone thinking they're being "kind". Ugh. I finally got to the point where I would ask point-blank-  "great or great for a kid with ASD, ADHD and SLD?"  

Middle school is coming in 6th grade. At his IEP meeting I broached the subject and they asked me where I planned on sending him. I said "A" of course, the school immediately next door to his elementary school which all the kids feed into. All 4 of the educators at the table looked stricken. I pressed them for feedback and they uniformly said it was a bad choice for DS. I pressed for more details but they said "we don't want to be quoted as disparaging them." I've gotten along with his team very well over the years and was/am really perplexed by their response. His MSW finally admitted that she thought the leadership at the school was challenging and children with "discipline problems" had a rough go there. I countered that DS doesn't have discipline problems, although he is still very much the argumentative type that needs a teacher who won't engage in power struggles. I asked them again why I need to be so concerned; currently DS only gets 30 minutes of pullouts, and none of them would respond. His mainstream teacher just sat there looking uneasy. They left it at: if you want to go there, make sure you engage with their MSW and ASD resource teacher ASAP and that I should "fight hard" to get what DS needs.

They have spoken. It's interesting that they are not only in agreement that this isn't a good fit, they feel strongly enough to be warning you a year out so you can investigate your options. Are you tight enough with any one of them to continue this conversation off the record to get more information? Are their other parents a few years ahead of you who can speak to the suitability of the school for a student like your DS?

One of DS's middle school teachers called his middle school "the range of the strange" which applies not just to the students. Middle school attracts a diverse mix of teachers- some great and some not-so-much. 

In most schools the bolded is a discipline issue- it's one of those behaviors that might be given a pass when he's one 8 year old in a class of 28 kids you understand really well. When he's one of 150 11 or 12 year old kids you see in a day for 50 minutes it may be seen as disrespectful. That's one of the biggest differences between elementary- teachers aren't as invested in each student. That's not entirely bad, if you have the sort of kid who rubs a certain kind of teacher the wrong way, he'll have less time to get in trouble.

The other issue is that if this school has a "discipline problem" that could be teacher-speak for "those other kids are going to eat your son alive". Middle school can be treacherous for a kid with ASD who is mainstreamed. This is an age when typically kids are hardwired for conformity and are uncomfortable with kids who different. Sometimes teachers will even use this to their advantage allowing other students to enforce standards through ostracism. Not to freak you out, but my kid was bullied more by peers in 2 years of middle school than all of elementary or high school. Fortunately, middle schools here are aware and proactive around this fact, so issues are dealt with swiftly. 

My gut is telling me that DS is more impaired than they want to let on and they know he isn't going to get supported well at "A" school. To me, other school choices aren't an option. He knows everyone at this middle school. Because of changes in school policy ala Olmstead, every school has to be set up to accommodate ASD kids (before ASD kids were routed to certain "program sites.") "A" school was previously an ASD program site, and is now losing some services because fewer kids with ASD are being routed there from other neighborhoods.

More later, gotta run.

I plan on engaging the MSW at the middle school this spring. How should I approach it? What does he "need"? I mean, I think I know that he'll need a lot of executive functioning help, e.g. he'll probably need to check in with the ASD resource teacher once a day to help keep his homework straight. And I assume he'll continue some sort of social skills pullout.

Can anyone read the tea leaves- am I missing something here??

[funchicken]

Feb 26, 2018 16:40:11 GMT -5 miranda said:

funchicken , from my perspective, the team has always been reluctant to provide recommendations of this sort, fearing retribution from their educator peers in other schools. They all but said this to me at our meeting. When I have asked about this in the past they will say "You should get in touch with so-and-so's parent, they had a great experience at X school." I'm on the school's SN parent group and have talked at length with other parents about their middle school transition plans, but there are so many choices in our district that I don't know anyone currently at A school; everyone is opting for charter schools these days.

I just sent an email to his ASD teacher asking her pointedly "what services should I be asking about when I talk to "A" school later this week." I asked her to provide examples of transition services that she has requested for students in the past when transitioning to "A" school.

Interesting. I know a few people who've moved to a neighboring county that is supposed to have better special education services than ours does. We've been trying for years to get written accommodations in place for DD1, but it's been really hard. The meeting we had a few weeks ago was the first time I'd met the new Child Study team, and it sounds like there's a lot for me to learn as we approach MS (DD1 is also in 4th). I hope you keep us updated on what you find out and how things are going with your team.

[auntie]

miranda, said:


My gut is telling me that DS is more impaired than they want to let on and they know he isn't going to get supported well at "A" school.

That is always a possibility. They have information about how well he manages in school that you don't see. We had DS's psychologist observe DS and prospective school settings to get more information to use in making choices. Our district puts a lot of effort into transitioning to middle school- DS's resource teacher and classroom teacher also observed settings available at the middle school and the middle school IEP custodian observed DS in his elementary classroom and resource classroom ahead of making the choices. I deferred to their judgement and it went really well except that we did tweak one class the second week of school. 

Of course, they could think he's more impaired and be dead wrong. Some of the staff at the high school and even in elementary thought DH and I were delusional about college for DS. A few conceded that he might do OK at a small school with a lot of LD or ASD programming. IRL, DS graduated from a large state university just as most of his peers did. 

The other thing is that maybe they're just concerned by the social piece. Middle school is rough socially. With ASD you can assume social and emotional development that lands him years behind his classmates. He doesn't have the emotional toolbox they have to work through the social challenges. Middle school is a weird place and a lot of kids with behavioral health issues see flares around this age. DS liked middle school better than elementary, but he did suffer a round of depression and anxiety at this age. He was aware of how different and immature he was in comparison to other kids and it bothered him a great deal. It's made safer when the staff is proactive in supporting diversity and respect with zero tolerance for unkindness in all forms. In education, fish stinks for the head down. If you have a lousy or week administration, this might not be the school for you.

Support can make all the difference in terms of success and safety at middle school. DS's IEPs in middle were very comprehensive. Sure, he got the same 30 minutes of MGW programming. But it was the supports for executive function that were most critical. DS had things like organization pushed into his classes. Most of his academic classes in middle were mainstream academics in a smaller setting taught by a teacher dually certified in the subject and sped. Most of the kids in the class had ADHD type EF problems- the teachers built in organization and strategies for tracking assignments and materials, assignments and assessments were chunked; bright kids but flaky.  

To me, other school choices aren't an option. He knows everyone at this middle school.

It's always best to keep an open mind. It's also a good idea to have a Plan B ready to implement on the fly. What are your objections to the other schools? Is it logistics? Reputation? Standing up for your son's right to attend a neighborhood school? 

Knowing everybody? Here, middle schools consolidate 4 elementaries, so nobody knows everybody. IN a way this is a good thing because it gives kids a chance to re-invent themselves. A kind of do-over. Middle school is a when kids really start to bond over mutual interests rather than convenience. It's also an age when formerly sports-mad kids who are not outstanding in their sport find new interests like music or academic clubs making more kids available for yours to connect with. 

Because of changes in school policy ala Olmstead,

I don't understand this.

every school has to be set up to accommodate ASD kids (before ASD kids were routed to certain "program sites.") "A" school was previously an ASD program site, and is now losing some services because fewer kids with ASD are being routed there from other neighborhoods.



YMMV, in my district, most kids with "just" ASD are fully mainstreamed by middle school. Some like yours and mine were always in a mainstream or resource setting while others came from self contained programs. The kids in secondary ASD programs tend to be more impaired and atypical and will be in school until they're 21 rather than graduating with their peers. Based on what you've shared here, I would expect your DS to have little need for more intensive services in secondary apart from people understanding he has ASD.






I plan on engaging the MSW at the middle school this spring. How should I approach it? What does he "need"? I mean, I think I know that he'll need a lot of executive functioning help, e.g. he'll probably need to check in with the ASD resource teacher once a day to help keep his homework straight. And I assume he'll continue some sort of social skills pullout.


This is similar to what DS got but it was more in the context of a program for ADHD/EF issues. 

[miranda]

auntie, thanks for the insight. I think it boils down to them thinking he is going to be eaten alive and their worry that the administration isn't going to look out for him in a bullying context. At least, I hope that's the worst they are thinking. I like DS's elementary school and I think his team is pretty on the ball, but I also feel a strong undercurrent of laziness. So my fear is that he's sliding by and not really meeting grade requirements and they just don't want to provide more services. This year seems to be very heavy on rote facts, (math and nonfiction reading/writing) so he seems to be doing well, but it's so hard to tell. I definitely need a Plan B- there are other options and if need be, we'll head there. One thing DS has going for him is that he seems to be liked by peers. He has lost his BFF because their interests have diverged, but because DS is involved with church, scouts, and he attends our districts "after care" program after school and all summer, he knows lots of kids from all three of the elementary schools that feed into the middle. Even if they aren't close buds of his, I feel better knowing that the chances of him knowing a kid in each class are pretty high.

Chromebook is just another laptop, I'm not really familiar with Google Read and Write but I know it has a strong word recognition piece. DS hates using it, which is why I demanded we bring back OT services to force him to use it (they push in services weekly now to make sure he's using it; the teacher gave up trying to force him to use it). He prefers writing because it's faster, but no one can read his writing. He types pretty swell on the Ipad with two fingers. His teacher said most kids type with two fingers and can type as fast as her.

Olmstead is the US Supreme Court case which is requiring states to desegregate services to individuals with disabilities. Basically more inclusion for everyone, more opportunities for disabled adults to choose what type of group home they live in, more opportunities for supported employment with NT peers, etc. In our district it means everyone has to be able to attend their community school. This has always legally been the case, but not in practice. For example, I toured 5 different elementary schools and only those that were "ASD Program Sites" were happy to see me. The others bluntly told me that they were legally required to support DS, but it would be a fight to do so. Obviously being at an ASD program site has been the best setup for DS, so no worries there. The high-functioning crowd has been raising a stink about the desegregation because it means the gold-standard treatment they could have received at an ASD site has gone away and they may have to slum it in a school where their kid is one of few on the spectrum, instead of where DS is where are 25 so the school is well-versed in ASD and its accommodations. At our school we have lost all but one of the lower-functioning kids. I talked with both parents and I get it- they went from having all their needs met without having to ask to having to fight every day. They both went to a special ed charter school.