I’ve got exactly one month until our next ARD meeting. Unlike all the other times, where I was minimally prepared, and wholly accepting of being lead by the hand into signing whatever ‘they’ thought was appropriate, this time around I’ve got a well-controlled fighting spirit and the knowledge to advocate for my daughter’s best interests.
A concern of mine stems from the fact that when the other ninth grade students were receiving their regular state competency exams, TAAS in our state of Texas, my daughter by virtue of the ARD received an alternative assessment using an eighth grade testing. This concerned me as being inappropriate because in many areas she shows signs of being gifted.
When my daughter was in seventh grade, she was homeschooled by me. That year she also had her first incident of mania and depression with Bipolar Disorder. The testing performed at the hospital showed she spelled at a fourth grade level, reading and comprehension was above average with a tenth grade level, and her math was in the stars category, almost eleventh grade level. When I withdrew her from public schooling in fifth grade, I was shocked to find my daughter was virtually illiterate and spelled at a second grade level. So, considering I have no formal education as a teacher, bringing her abilities up that far was impressive, at least in my own humble opinion.
I have independent testing from several sources since my daughter has periodically needed hospitalization since going back to public school in eighth grade. I’ve never really lined them all up to see if there’s been a regression in her abilities. I plan to before this next ARD. Today, I’ll be calling the hospitals and requesting copies of all testing performed there.
What I want to do is ask her school to re-test her and find out whether in their own assessments she has regressed in her levels. I need suggestions on how to do this…do I just request it and they’ll do it, or should I anticipate resistance and have those other assessments in hand prior? Her school has a one-size-fits-all approach to special education, and she is currently in the resource room with a special educator eighty percent of the time. I see no homework being assigned, and I know that most of the other students are ‘slow’. My daughter is brilliant in some areas, and has even asked for two math courses instead of one which she wants me to present for her at the ARD. I never could get the basic concepts of fractions, decimals and percents into her, so we homeschooled with a focus on higher math, mainly algebra and pre-calculus since she showed a real aptitude for logic and algorithms. She now as a freshman has remedial math while the rest of her high school peers are learning algebra. She said she’s afraid she’ll forget her algebra if this goes on.
Her vocabulary is measured as equal to first year college student, but she still misspells and her handwriting is atrocious. I’ve requested time and again that they test her for dysgraphia, but I can’t seem to move them on this.
How do I get them to educate my daughter both as gifted and learning disabled at the same time and to offer remediation for her deficits while presenting a challenging curriculum to her higher abilities? Thanks in advance for any replies.
Bonita
Re: Regression and remediation
Socks, I swear to God I love ya to death. This is great to meet someone who has been through what I’m preparing to go through. Yes, definitely, I may need to consult with the professional advocate. And thank you for your website listing…it goes on my desktop and not just in my ten ton ‘favorites’ file.
Bonita
Re: Regression and remediation
:-) this person is free.In case you were wondering. Might not live close enough to go to meeting,but could give you a heads up as in regards to state rules.OR come chat with us! www.net-haven.net 9pm EST she is usually there.
Re: Regression and remediation
I’ll be there tonight if possible, but just in case, do you have their phone number? I live within driving distance of Dallas. You could email me the number if you prefer. I really appreciate the help.
Bonita
Re: Regression and remediation
Kewl…I’m printing out quite a few nuggets of info from the sister page to the chat room. They have a book available for LD/gifted learners. Also an article accommodations and modifications for students with dysgraphia. My poor printer will never recover from this I fear. :)
Bonita
Re: Regression and remediation
Hey girl,and by the way,the article regarding dysgraphia was written by none other then Sue Jones,who also does the education chat,on Net-haven,as well as frequents this board. I used that very same article to request testing for my kids!! Your printer will NOT fail you,your on a mission.
email me
Okay trying to get an email through and it won’t seem to cooperate. Email me so I can send you her email.
Graphing scores
When we make graphs of student progress we send the percentiles 1-100 up the y axis and then list achievement scores across the bottom in bar graph form. The other thing we do is mark the verbal & performance IQ’s and shade that in lightly across the whole graph because those achievement scores should be expected to fall *somewhere* in there.
Re: Graphing scores
Thank you so much! It will really help me to get this thing right. I appreciate the insight.
Bonita
Re: Regression and remediation
Bontia and socks, i’ve been following your messages. My son was hospitialized at the age of 8 for suicidial thoughts and depression. He left the hospitial with the diagnoses of being bi-polar. Before this he was tested and known to have dysgraphia. he’s in fifth grade now,i can’t make out what he writes, he very smart, but scores way below 5th grade level on p.a.c.t testing, as a matter of fact the school has assked us to take the forth grade p.a.c.t test this years so that it doesn’t bring down the schools over all results! Bonitia i wuz wondering why you decided to home school your daughter and if lookin back you think it was a good idea? I been thinkin about doing it with my son, what’s your advice?
Re: Regression and remediation
Oh, gosh, hon…it’s so hard to advise someone else about such a personal decision. It was a very rewarding three years, and it brought us closer. I think having my daughter around continuously taught us how to be companions to one another…but there again, no breaks from mommyhood with the choice to homeschool, and if your son is the least bit like my daughter as a bipolar child, hearing ‘no’ or ‘you must’ from mom can cause an emotional seizure with rages, tears and horror for hours on end.
Would I do it again given the same circumstances? Yes, I probably would.
Would I do it now knowing how difficult and grueling it can be? Huh-uh, no way…loved it, but I’ve had enough of that. Parenting a seriously mentally ill child is pretty intense…homeschooling a child with those difficulties can be downright depressing. When I stopped enjoying it, and she was resisting to the point where I couldn’t get her to learn anymore…it was time to let it go.
Some folks homeschool from the get-go…and some for a year or so. Either way, the time taken to become intimately involved in your child’s education will be an experience neither of you will forget. I’ve never taken her academics for granted since. I used to just scan her graded papers from school to see if she passed or not. The only time I really got involved before homeschooling was if she was showing a real problem with the subject. You’d be surprised how many times the state mandated curriculum is in error, and I mean gross error. I made the mistake of pointing this out to one of my daughter’s teachers…her reply scared the heck outta me…she said she knew it was wrong, but she was required to teach it anyway! I said I don’t care what your requirements are, I’m telling my daughter to put the right answer on the test whether you like it or not, pinhead. God, public education is so second-rate…it really is. Bright students are too much trouble, and poor students aren’t worth noticing…but it seems teachers today are screeching for straight middle of the road bozos, pure mediocrity is blessed in today’s public education. That’s one thing homeschooling will also do for you…it makes us remember our own school days, when we really learned to read and write and do math by the numbers. In my high school, Spanish was offered alongside Latin, French, German, Greek, etc. Heck, one of my friends went to a school where he learned Russian and Mandarin Chinese and became a linguist. In my freshman year, our history class studied journalism while researching and writing as a character we picked. My section of the paper was as Karl Marx, and for that I read a translated Communist Manifesto. Well, I also went to a parochial boarding school which taught classical education. There’s an option for you, too…why not check out a private school and try to get the district to foot the bill for you. It’s been done, and pretty darn often from what I gather. Also private schools pay their teachers even less and give them larger class sizes, so what’s the incentive…I guess those teachers are really in it for kids and maybe parents who send their children there care enough to be involved.
I think you’d be very very surprised at the difference it makes to teach your own child. I began to see where unreasonable ‘busy’ work was tiring and pointless to the kiddo, and how quickly boredom makes a subject bitter and creates almost a permanent resistance. I saw that it was much more important whether the child learned, rather than the teaching, and we threw standardized curriculums to the wind, and testing was never a pass or fail. Failing wasn’t an option…if she didn’t get it, then we went over it again, but only those areas she didn’t grasp the first time…we didn’t beat a dead horse. It made me see the difference between a good teacher and a bad one.
The good teachers are more concerned with whether the child learns, rather than simply stopping at teaching. A person can teach all day long, and it’s pointless if the child never gets it…and to me, being willing to exist in futility doesn’t seem to be very smart. Good teachers care…poor teachers simply teach and think much of their style without evaluating their results. That may be why statistics show the best teachers experience burnout, and the really poor teachers hang in there for many years. I don’t know…the system is so broken, I wouldn’t personally know where to begin to fix it.
Knowing this…hmmm…makes me think twice about why I sent my child back into that academic sewer. Teaching one child was hard enough…I can’t imagine teaching twenty or more students. Well, I guess I’ve outed myself…I’m an educational elitist, but god it was so fun to study Shakespeare or immerse ourselves in Mexican history and culture. We used a map, and she’d stick a pin into wherever…then we’d head to the library and study the place until she was bored and wanted to travel on, usually after two weeks or so. We journeyed together, and I think that’s really the point. We learned together, and it was so much fun…for the most part.
Well, if you do decide to homeschool…be prepared to give up life as you currently know it, and definitely check out the legal requirements of your state first. Some parents have been jailed for refusing to send their children to public school. I wish you many blessings in whatever you decide to do. Either way it’s still a committment to your child’s education…fight the system or fight the child…and sometimes fight yourself when you’re tired and don’t want to teach ‘today’. Oh, and a clean house…forget that…you won’t have time. Stock up on lots of microwave dinners, and expect to maybe get a shower every other day if you’re lucky, because for every hour you teach that child, you’ll spend about two in preparation. Sounds like a job one would only do for somebody you love…I wonder what teachers are in it for, can’t be the wages. Anyway, I’m tired and waxing long here.
Find a homeschool support group in your area before making your decision, talk to the other parents, see the challenges and the hope, and it will also introduce you to the nicest bunch of parents and really well adjusted children who don’t curse, steal, lie or live their lives stabbing each other in the back. It’s an entirely different point of view…and I miss it sometimes.
Do let me know what you decide…this is almost as fun as a pregnancy because you’d be having your baby all over again with brand new eyes.
Bonita ( who writes ridiculously long posts)
Re: Regression and remediation
Bontia, thank- you so much, for all your advise and help.Your fast becoming my hero! lol. my son is so clingie now if i home schooled him, i fear that he will loose all touch with the real world. So, for me I don’t think it would be a good idea. I am so glad that i didn’t have to go through it to make a disscission. I am not a very well educated women my self and I don’t hink i’d have the smarts or patients to handle this and him too. I am going to look into private schools and see if that could be an option for us. Again thank-you, your advise and wisdom on these matters, means more then i can say! :)~
Re: Regression and remediation
Aside from saying I LOVE bonita’s long posts,humor is god’s way of relieving stress. God know’s we need a break now and again.
I do want to say that I know a parent of a child who is bipolar diagnosed and this child is on homebound education. The psychiatrist wrote a prescritpion stating that it would be too difficult for the child to be enrolled into a classroom,so the public school placed them on homebound education. He recieves two classess via teleclass,and two are taught by a teacher at the home. Mom basicly homeschools,but the curriculum is not determined by her. To me this might be a little easier if your concerned about going homeschool all the way. Once the prescription was written it seemed an easy task in my state anyway. Might check on this possibility.
Re: Regression and remediation
Socks, thanks again. I guess just talking about it all helps me to see things more clearly, and yes, maybe homebound instruction would give me that added ‘umph’ to motivate both Christa and myself, and then I could have more control over not just that she’s being educated, but how she’s being educated. First things first, though, and getting the intermittent homebound initially could lead to perhaps all her classes becoming distance learning. Texas Tech University offers such courses, some being dual credit. Christa is so very smart. Her goal is to become a child psychologist and help other kids who will be going through what she’s already navigated. A noble goal, and she has my full support in this. She’s wistfully mentioned any number of times that she’d rather be homeschooled, but I haven’t relented, and I won’t. My daughter has a right to a FFAPE…meaning a Free Fair Appropriate Public Education. I’m not letting the government off the hook.
Bonita
Bonita,
I know exactly how you feel. I have two boys both with LD/Gifted/ADHD.
Their LD is dysgraphia. I had a tremendously hard time getting the school to figure out how to educate them. I personally wound up putting them in a small private school. It was this or homeschooling. The way to prove regression is just what you are planning to do. Graph all scores that can be compared. Take any and all testing that is the same. For example if you have woodcock Johnson achievment scores through out the years graph these scores. Plan on putting them on a big poster board to present,but also make copies and distribute them to the team. This does make quite a visual understanding of what you are talking about. Not to mention the hint of being in the position to take this school to court for compensatory services. They will understand this,without you ever having to say a word. The best article on this is written by wrightslaw. I have a link to this on my webpage. The link is entitled “understanding the scores”,within this article it talks about how to make a graph and show regression or progress. I used this article years ago and once graphed I was appalled to learn my son regressed 2 grade levels in Math and made absolutely no progress in Language arts. It help me get him much more intensive remediation. My webpage address is:
http://expage.com/socksandfriends If you are interested I know a really good advocate in the Texas area. Email me and I will connect you two together.
Good luck and keep up the fight.