Homeschooling for Autistic Children
Wow, it's been three and a half months since my last post. I read more than I write. Generally, it seems that others have more important things to say and better tools to say them with. Perusing my last entry, I realized that the school never intended to accomodate my son. The school psychologist never filled a care plan, no one sought to redirect us to an appropriate program. We pulled our son out of school on Halloween. I have been homeschooling him since.
We aired our grievances with the district's special ed dept over the course of say, three weeks. Finally, we had a meeting during which they told us that the school had no obligation to accomodate our son, it was the district's responsibility. They offered a school with a self-contained special ed class, with the intention of letting my son in the 1st grade class with support.
We asked for these types of things in the weeks following the meeting and were told they couldn't help us. We were continually told that the problems needed to be resolved within the home school. We were also told that whatever recommendations the district made (to train the school staff for example) were not binding and up to the discretion of the school principal (who was very hostile and ignorant of autistic accomodations).
Now I have seen the school with the self-contained classroom. It seems nice. It doesn't offer the academic programs that our home school does. It doesn't have structured sports or PE, which help organize Pop's energy and help him transition to class. We will try it out, though.
I am angry that my son doesn't have the right to go to his home school. If he were in a wheelchair, would he get punished for being late to class if they had no ramps? Would they be able to send him across town to a school with ramps? They have programs for children that don't speak English-they don't send them to special schools.
Anyhow, we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, Mommyteacher is having fun with playing school at home. I'm learning a lot myself.
We aired our grievances with the district's special ed dept over the course of say, three weeks. Finally, we had a meeting during which they told us that the school had no obligation to accomodate our son, it was the district's responsibility. They offered a school with a self-contained special ed class, with the intention of letting my son in the 1st grade class with support.
We asked for these types of things in the weeks following the meeting and were told they couldn't help us. We were continually told that the problems needed to be resolved within the home school. We were also told that whatever recommendations the district made (to train the school staff for example) were not binding and up to the discretion of the school principal (who was very hostile and ignorant of autistic accomodations).
Now I have seen the school with the self-contained classroom. It seems nice. It doesn't offer the academic programs that our home school does. It doesn't have structured sports or PE, which help organize Pop's energy and help him transition to class. We will try it out, though.
I am angry that my son doesn't have the right to go to his home school. If he were in a wheelchair, would he get punished for being late to class if they had no ramps? Would they be able to send him across town to a school with ramps? They have programs for children that don't speak English-they don't send them to special schools.
Anyhow, we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, Mommyteacher is having fun with playing school at home. I'm learning a lot myself.
posted by HortenseDagle | 11:01 PM
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