Don’t know that this is so much a question as a quest for some moral support.
My son is 18 years old and high school graduation is less than 2 weeks away.
He had a full psych-ed evaluation when he was in 7th grade. Results were an average IQ overall with a diagnosis of dyslexia, ADHD, and a general, catch-all “non-verbal LD” with very significant problems in short term memory. In addition, he is profoundly deaf in one ear.
We are on the East Coast US in a city that has a good public elementary school system, an abysmal middle school system, and a not much better choice of high schools. Charter schools did not appear on the scene until he was near high school age. Erego, my son has received all his education through the parochial school system. According the psych-ed report, the best schooling option was determined to be a private school geared specifically for children of average/above average intelligence who had learning disabilities. There were 4-5 to choose from. The cheapest one was $17K/year. The closest one was 2 hours away. After exploring transportation, financial aid, and other issues it was decided that such schooling was out of our reach. I am a single parent.
I also read up on IEP’s, the ADA, his rights, my rights, the school’s rights, etc. and decided in the end that my son was on all counts a “fall between the cracks” kind of kid.
Not eligible for special services in the public school system because he was able to perform at grade level and needed to be 2 grade levels behind in order to qualify for special ed assistance. Eligible for in-classroom accommodations and received some, but the application was inconsistent and the benefits negligible. In short, he was riding a stationary bicycle in the Tour de France. Obviously able to ride a bike, he had the wrong equipment and no one seemed to [b]know how [/b]to lend him the right equipment.
In addition, I am not the model of patience when it comes to trying to explain what the problems are and what is needed to make school a success for my son. I am appalled when involved in conversations like:
[b]Me[/b]: “He’s in the 2 percentile for spelling and it’s the 7th grade. Doesn’t that tell you something? If he was in the 2 percentile for math, you’d be telling me to put him in a school for the disabled.”
[b]Principal[/b]: “Well, it’s only spelling. That’s why they make SpellCheck.”
:shock:
[b]Me[/b]: “He can read at grade level, but it is a slow and laborious process which means he won’t read textbooks to study. He almost never reads for pleasure because reading is not a pleasant experience. He can’t spell worth a damn because he truly doesn’t understand the mechanics of the language.”
[b]Private Tutor Experienced in Orton-Gillingham[/b]: “Well, if he’s reading at grade level, he should be fine. And he can always use SpellCheck.”
:shock:
[b]Me[/b] [i](actually asking for some accommodations in the form of oral testing)[/i]: “This class is structured in exactly the right format to ensure that my son will fail it. It is heavy on individual reading assignments and the vocabulary tests are lists that have to be memorized in order to pass. It perfectly matches up with every single obstacle he has to overcome.”
[b]Junior Year English Teacher[/b]: “I can’t verify that these are problems for him because he hasn’t been turning in homework assignments. If he’s not doing the work, then I can’t see where the problems are. If he turns in all the assignments for the quarter, then I could tell you what can be done.”
:roll: Me: “You’re just not getting this at all, are you?”
My philosophy and what I’ve taught my son has been that out in the working world, no one asks or wants to know if you have a learning disability. I work in a company with over 400 people. I’ve been there 6 years. I know of one person who has identified themselves as being dyslexic and no accommodations are made, asked for, or offered. Therefore, my son and I have worked together to get around the obstacles thrown up by the average classroom and the average classroom teacher. He has learned to identify what he needs and how to provide it for himself while staying within the “rules of the school”. The goal is to teach him to be able to identify what type of settings will work to his best advantage and which ones he should avoid. He has learned to identify when he has truly not met up with his responsibilities and when it’s truly not his fault.
In the meantime, and in spite of all this drama with schooling, my son has grown into an extraordinary young man. He did not follow any of the high risk paths often associated with LD kids - he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t leave without telling me where he’s going or who he’s with, doesn’t do drugs. He’s never deliberately missed school and has rolled with every punch delivered. He discovered his musical talents and has developed into a rather talented percussionist. Not just his mother talking - he has the awards to prove it. He has a plan for his life and is looking forward to it.
Here’s the punch line. He failed History the first 2 quarters of Senior year. A good portion of the failure is due to him blowing it off and the rest is due to a class structure similar to junior year English. He did better in the 3rd quarter and the latest report is that he will pass the 4th quarter. [i]However[/i], it is quite possible that because of the 1st semester failure the two semester grades will average out to a failure as his final grade for the year. Therefore, he will not receive his diploma (okay) and he will have to attend summer school to remove the failure (okay) [b]and he will not be permitted to participate in any graduation ceremonies.[/b] :x
Obviously, the school is ashamed of my son for not passing History and for this he must be punished by being denied the only opportunity he will ever have to publicly celebrate finishing 12 years of schooling in the face of enormous odds.
There is still the slim possibility that he will pass because there is still the final exam left. Unfortunately, we are not sure what kind of score he has to get on the exam to pass for the year as no one seems to be inclined to share that information. If he needs a perfect score, we’re pretty much doomed.
Here’s my wish: I wish Richard LaVoie himself could come to my son’s school within the next week and explain to the school’s administration the part about the poker chips and how they have very successfully scooped up every last one my son ever had.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue lobbying the school in an attempt to get them to see how irrational this type of punitive measure really is.
Thanks for allowing the long vent. I’m pretty devastated by all of this and truly at a loss for how to deal with it. If anyone has any advice, tips, or strategies that might work at this late hour, I’m willing to listen to anything.
Re: Senior year and freaking out and I have a wish- (Long)
Oh, sorry, just saw the part about not being able to participate in the graduation ceremonies. That is simply gothic. At least now you know most high schools do not do it that way.
Nancy
Re: Senior year and freaking out and I have a wish- (Long)
I am so sorry that his has happened to your son.
As the other post says he should be able to participate in the
ceremony and then he can retake the class in summer school.
These kids are to be applauded for their resilence despite the ignorance they are constantly up against.
Thank you for advocating for your son. This not only helps him but also
educates peopel so that other students who come after hime may not have i this hard.
Congratulations to him and he has learned valuable skills that will help
him in his further studies.
Lou
Schools are moronic places. My own son refused to go to his high school graduation actually because of all the things they had done to him while in high school. He struggled to jump through their hoops and saw graduation as the one hoop they couldn’t make him jump through.
I did go to my other child’s graduation. It was oppressively hot and they had made no arrangments for the many very elderly people who were there other than to have an ambulance waiting in the background. No bathrooms, no water, no tent, no assistance to the people who were struggling to walk the long distance from the parking lot to the open spot in the sun where they decided to have it.
Schools are moronic places.
I’m so sorry for what they’re doing to your son.
soo sorry
I am truly sorry for what happened to your son. Could he get a certificate of completion? They used to do that when I was a school girl, I actually came damn close to getting one. That is just a thought of mine, I guess there is no harm in putting it out there. He could go to a junior college off of a certificate of completion. Hell, I got into a very well regarded community college off of a 1.7 gpa in high school. So do not knock a certificate of completion.
I agree with the one poster about going to junior college for that history credit. However, your child would still need to have that credit placed on his high school transcipt in order to get his actual diploma from the school he attended; in my home state that is how it works, you should call your school board. Actually you should physically go to your school board and bless them all out!
Why do you and your child not know what grade he needs to make on his final to pass? That is something the teacher should have sense enough to tell you.
Could he do a summers worth of study for that ap test I have heard about? He could study like hell on his history and then just go and take that test, that gives college credit for the high schoolers.
Lastly, have you ever figured on just sitting down with the high school principal and giving him/her the what for?
These are just thoughts that I hope you deem to be helpful.
Re: Senior year and freaking out and I have a wish- (Long)
I’m afraid that I’m with the “moronic places” poster though I’m not going to be an institutionalist (sort of like a racist — assuming that because it’s an institution it embodies a certain set up negative stereotypical characteristics) -when I asked to have an English credit transferred back from college I was told fine, but I wasn’t permitted to participate in graduation ceremonies… as if I would have wanted to. In hindsight, perhaps it really was a blessing — there might have been the odd relative who thought it should happen.
I donned cap & gown, kidnapped my brother and a friend, drove the VW bus out to the school and played Pomp and Circumstance on the kazoo as we marched into the guidance office. I don’t remember whether the staff cracked a smile or not (it was a moronic place).
So how important is the ceremony to him? What’s next on his agenda of life?
He has the profile of the students who do immensely better in a college setting, especially if they have (even very general) a sense of purpose for being there. Is he burnt out as far as schooling goes? (I know a year of “grunt-level” employment sometimes inspires people, especially when you get to see what the heavy partiers are living like 15-20 years later.) He may even enjoy academic subjects that were taught horrendously in high school (and gosh, are you in PG county MD?… tho’ the down-the-tubes-by-secondary profile is all too common) if he’ll find the *good* college teachers and can learn by listening. Often there is support if you know how to find it (much better than most work settings), though of course I’d say that since that’s what I do :-)
Re: Senior year and freaking out and I have a wish- (Long)
Thanks everyone!
I appreciate all the good thoughts.
Here’s the latest:
Rec’d an e-mail from his teacher with reiterated that my son would “have to do well” and that it was due to his lack of effort in the first semester that he had to work this hard now. (no kidding)
Replied that I needed to know what “do well” specifically meant. A perfect score? Reiterated that I was not complaining about the grade, but about the punitive consequences.
Sent another e-mail this morning asking if my son could listen to his headphones while taking the exam - a common remedy for ADHD kids to help them concentrate on the task at hand.
Rec’d teacher’s reply - No, he doesn’t need a perfect score on the exam (well that’s something anyway) and no, he can’t wear the headphones.
Began writing an editorial for the paper (I’ve been published there before) with 2 different endings depending on whether or not he gets to graduate.
Spoke to a lawyer about the discriminatory practice of not allowing students who have not earned all credits to attend graduation when there is no second, equal ceremony held at the end of summer school. Turns out he’s a friend of the principal, understood that this was a hill I was willing to die for and asked for 24 hours to see what he could do.
Have determined that regardless of the outcome, I am now taking it on as a personal mission to have this archaic, draconian “rule” overturned so that no other family has to go through this trauma ever again.
This is a Catholic high school. I don’t know what it’s like for other schools, but in my area in the Catholic schools, there is no such thing as not showing up for your graduation. Everyone goes. It’s all anyone talks about for the last month of school. Being banned is a very big deal and a source of huge embarrassment for the students involved.
It’s also a big deal to us, his family. After watching him struggle so much and all the hard work put into this, it’s heartbreaking to see it just fizzle out. I had t-shirts made with his graduation picture on them. One for me, one for his grandmother, and one for his father. We plan on surprising him by wearing them to the graduation.
So, I have a little more hope now than I did when I first posted. We’ll see what happens. The exam is tomorrow (today?) morning.
Re: Senior year and freaking out and I have a wish- (Long)
I also agree absolutely with the “moronic” part. (Very funny about the kazoo. I would have loved to have seen that)
The history I have with one of the Vice Principals at this school is the argument we had over the switch from summer to winter uniforms.
I have no problem with uniforms. Love the things. However, the day the students were supposed to start wearing their winter uniforms (long sleeved shirts topped with a pullover sweater), it was 83 degrees outside. The school is not air conditioned. I told my son he was not wearing the winter uniform that day. It was a health hazard.
He was so concerned about getting into trouble for not having the right uniform that I sent him in with a note that said he wasn’t wearing it because I forbid it due to the very warm weather.
The idea was that he was supposed to hold onto that note and use it only IF someone made a fuss over the uniform. My son, being who he is, couldn’t take the suspense of waiting for someone to stop him, so he took the note into the Vice Principal’s office and handed it over. (I hope he never turns to a life of crime. He’d turn himself in the very first day)
I got a call from a very angry VP who thought I was undermining the school’s authority and what was that teaching my son? I said it was teaching him common sense and not blind obedience. In any event, the VP sees me as a troublemaker with authority problems.
Kinder words have never been said to me. :twisted:
Re: Senior year and freaking out and I have a wish- (Long)
I can understand it being important — sounds like it really is a coming of age ceremony. In general, that “he’s got to do really well” teacher sounds like the common type who’s not going to say anything to take the pressure off, but probably has every intention of passing him if she feels like he’s kept his attitude facing the right direction. (Sigh, or she could be simply a stickler… and averages are averages… ) Hey, hopefully your high school is slightly less moronic than mine :)
Graduation
Is this a Catholic high school under the archdiocese? I would see what your lawyer friend can come up with. If he doesn’t succeed, you should consider telling the school you plan to appeal to the archdiocese education office because despite heroic efforts, LD has kept your child from finishing just one class and excluding him from the graduation ceremony is discriminatory. Schools don’t much like this kind of complaint being made to the archdiocese. In my area, the archdiocese has, in the past few years, made a big deal about doing more to reach out to kids with LDs so I think they would give at least some kind of consideration to kind of discrimination complaint.
(P.S. A Catholic school that doesn’t care about spelling? What has the world come to?)
Graduation
Is this a Catholic high school under the archdiocese? I would see what your lawyer friend can come up with. If he doesn’t succeed, you should consider telling the school you plan to appeal to the archdiocese education office because despite heroic efforts, LD has kept your child from finishing just one class and excluding him from the graduation ceremony is discriminatory. Schools don’t much like this kind of complaint being made to the archdiocese. In my area, the archdiocese has, in the past few years, made a big deal about doing more to reach out to kids with LDs so I think they would give at least some consideration to this kind of discrimination complaint.
(P.S. A Catholic school that doesn’t care about spelling? What has the world come to?)
Re: Senior year and freaking out and I have a wish- (Long)
The very, VERY good news of the day is that my son did manage to pass his final History exam with enough points to pass for the year except that I still don’t know how many points that might have been since his actual exam score has not been disclosed.
(Has anyone considered putting Catholic school administrators in charge of national security because these guys are NOT talking about anything. You could rest assured that nothing got leaked out of anyone’s office if they were in charge.)
So he was given his cap and gown today and needless to say, there is much rejoicing in Mudville.
However, I will still pursue the validity and worth of this policy with the archdiocese. The letter writing campaign starts the day after graduation and will not stop until this is abolished.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts.
Mariedc, I can’t even begin to tell you the disappointment I have with the quality of some of the teachers in Catholic schools these days. I’ve gotten more notes where the teacher can’t spell, has poor grammar skills, and I can run rings around them in the vocabulary department. The even sadder thing is that as their quality has declined, the public schools are declining as well at an even pace. One more generation of this and we will have a nation of illiterates with degrees.
Okay, I sense another soap-box moment coming on. Thanks again.
Re: Senior year and freaking out and I have a wish- (Long)
Yay! You Go Girl!
(Okay, he should be proud too :) :) :))
Good education has to go underground — the illiterates who sincerely believe that illiteracy is just fine (because a good sales pitch is all you need) are out teaching in force and in farce.
The Blue Robe School for Cosmic Enlightenment and Good Grammar will be an online refuge for logic and love, where imperfections will be embraced…
Ah, well, I better get back to work figuring out how to help the college kids here who can’t read or spell…
He should be able to participate in the graduation ceremony even if he doesn’t have enough credits for a diploma. He can then take a junior college course in history, provide the high school with a certified copy of his passing grade, and have the high school apply that course as credit towards his diploma. He would then receive the actual diploma in the mail.
This is pretty standard in most states, I think. There are always students who are a few credits short of the requirements for a diploma. I think all you need to do is talk to a high school counselor.
Nancy