entering back into public school

Do they have friends that are going to the same public high-school? You could talk to the school counselor and request that they have a few of their friends in some of their core classes. How about their lockers too? Can they have a locker assignment near a friend. That request should be pretty easy to fulfill.

If they don’t have friends going to the school, find some. Find out about some of the extracurricular clubs that your child might be interested in joining even before the school year starts. All you need are a few good friends regardless of the size of the school.

The bigger classes might actually be easier for them in some ways. It is not as much individual attention, but, the teacher is not able to cover as much content or assign as much homework as in smaller classes (too many papers to grade).

Teach your kids to that it is their responsibility to get to know their teachers during that first month of school. It is going to take initiative on their part. Even a simple thing like bringing in something special to show the teacher before class will help to distinguish them from the crowd.

Do they have friends that are going to the same public high-school? You could talk to the school counselor and request that they have a few of their friends in some of their core classes. How about their lockers too? Can they have a locker assignment near a friend. That request should be pretty easy to fulfill.

If they don’t have friends going to the school, find some. Find out about some of the extracurricular clubs that your child might be interested in joining even before the school year starts. All you need are a few good friends regardless of the size of the school.

The bigger classes might actually be easier for them in some ways. It is not as much individual attention, but, the teacher is not able to cover as much content or assign as much homework as in smaller classes (too many papers to grade).

Teach your kids to that it is their responsibility to get to know their teachers during that first month of school. It is going to take initiative on their part. Even a simple thing like bringing in something special to show the teacher before class will help to distinguish them from the crowd.

Go there ahead of time and get the lay of the land. If possible, figure out the routes between classes, etc. And project strong expectations of success… having your options ready to catch problems before they cause shutdown.

In our jurisdiction, the school will not do anything unless you have had the children tested within the previous year, i.e., recently. Also, to make significant accommodations, they want a formal adjudgement of dyslexia by a panel of school officials. Then they make an IEP (individual education plan). Nothing’s easy. Big bureaucracy. I don’t know if it’s the same where you are.

If you have such a bureaucratic set up, you may be better off by trying to make direct contact with your boys’ teachers in a face to face meeting. It helps if you have some written recommendations by, say, an educational consultant or if you write them down yourself based on what you know your boys need or will have to have to learn. Your boys’ tutor (if they have one) can help you write them too.

Here it is not an easy process to deal with the public school. In essence, they don’t want to hear from us (parents) and don’t want to do more than they are already doing. You should keep that in the back of your mind, but don’t go there assuming that your system is so bound up in itself. Have you talked to other parents in the system to see what experiences they have had in trying to get things that are out of the ordinary?

Carol

You really have to be kidding about the less homework! My kids go to a school with 1900 students. Homework is assigned nightly by each class which makes for a full evening. Now count in the time spent if the student is in a sport or activity. How do the teachers grade the papers? Many ingenious ways… what they call Peer grading, using scantrons for tests, peer editing, etc. This is in high school. I just wish they had more attention that they rightly deserve, not that they were not just another one of the numbers. Our school district is interested most in how they can help the Advanced Placement students achieve more. The special ed students are left to flounder behind. Are they supposed to? Of course not, but when I pointed out the fact that there was very little inclusion of the sped students, I was told that they work best in the smaller sped classes because “not every regular ed teacher knows how to or is willing to modify their classes.” ” This way the students can get more individualized attention.” When I pointed out that the biology teacher my kiddo had stated, “I don’t do disections because I am a sped teacher teaching biology, not a biology teacher teaching sped.”, I was assured that they would achieve the same learning but maybe in different ways. Boy, did my kid. While the other students in 9th grade were doing disections, my kid and his class were doing full sized outline of their bodies. When they then studied a human system such as the digestion, they could “draw” the organs on seperate sheets of paper, cut them out and paste them on. Talk about elementary school work! I complained all the way to the superintendent of school district. Her reply to me was basically that all they have to do is to provide a “free appropriate education, not an education that we as parents would like our kids to get!”

I say think it over again about removing our kid from the smaller school. If there was one where my kiddo could go, I would have him out of this sd as soon as I could. If I felt confident enough I would even try teaching him at home, but other situations make it impossible.

Good luck with your decision.

What is it you want the public school to do? It’s always best to know what you want. I’d certainly want them to feel they have someone in their new large school they can turn to for help if they need it.

At the least, I would call ahead and find out who their guidance counselor is and have them meet that person before the school year starts. I’d take them through the building and find their homeroom and the way to the guidance counselor.

Becky, I am curious as to why you might put them back?
My experience has been with my two severely dyslexic sons (who are now doing well thanks to private) that no matter how involved I got the public wants the easy way out and that usually doesn’t mean anything positive for our kids, unfortunately.
Our public school had the audacity to say they were going to remediate my son’s severe learning needs through doing homework with them in a small group setting. I think the teachers even believed this would work.
If small class size and small campus was working and you have the funds, and you don’t wish to see them shut down again (it gets harder to bring them back as they get older), consider it an investment to their future and their sense of self as well as your piece of mind.
I’ve just had to fight so hard with our district and they don’t get it at all. I am more of an expert in dyslexia than they are.
They’ve not read the research as to what methods work. One teacher thought she was flooding me with knowledge when she reported about what made adult dyslexics successful. I’ve lived for 15 years with a dyslexic husband. I’ve been his scribe and noted the vast difference in his performance when he types or writes versus when he dictates to me an can concentrate
his all on creating an effective business letter, email, or whatever (instead of trying to figure out how to spell each and every word at the expense of the document he is working on). Third grade versus competent businessman.
Best of luck in your decision…it is a difficult one and one that is sometimes made for us by circumstance although in a perfect world it would not be.
donna