8th grade, straight F's, to smart for RSP, tests well

My son was placed in special education in 3rd grade because he still couldn’t read and tested in the 9th % for auditory memory processing disorder.

He does extremely well in small groups, and so his first year in RSP he learned to read at grade level. He was allowed to go on to the next grade because he was making great progress, although his grades were all Failing and unsatisfactory. Once he learned to read, he tested above grade level on his Stat 9 and other standardize tests they gave him.

6th grade he finished the year with strait F’s again, although he did fine on statewide testing standards. His biggest challange is staying focused in a large group setting, and ORGANIZATION. His backpack was knicknamed the black hole, and his teacher turned his desk around so he couldn’t keep anything in his desk after we found months worth of assignments partially done that he never turned in stuffed in it. He had to take everything home daily so he wouldn’t have any excuses (this was the teachers idea, not mine). Nothing changed, he still lost things and never had the right materials for homework. I asked the RSP to work on organizational skills with him, using calendars, checking his Minder Binder daily to make sure he wrote down what the homework was correctly, verifying if he turned in homework was also important.

This was never done regularly, even thought the IEP stated it would be. My son has never had the chance to learn, get used to, organizational tools that would help him because no one has ever showed him how effectively on a regular basis for longer than a few days.

He was promoted to 7th grade despite his failing grades, now we have multiplied our dilemna. The junior high school teachers state that they do not have time to remind my son to turn in homework, or check if he has the assignments written down correctly. We tried daily progress reports, but my son forgets to have of his teachers fill them out, and the teachers will not help him get into the habit even if only for two weeks until it becomes natural for him. He tends to forget what he needs to do and so he needs help developing a system using check lists.. whatever works for him. He cannot come up with these tools alone, and needs regular reminders for a couple of weeks, maybe a month, max two months, and he will remember on his own.

The school year is over half way done, and he is still getting all F’s. I am getting upset because the school is diligent about following up on detentions for tardies, but can’t help remind my son to have his progress report filled out. My son was late one time to PE and got a detention. Well he forgot to go to detention after school, and went home. This doubled his detetion. We are currently on the 8th detention stemming from the original tardy. He kept forgetting to go to detention and it was doubling.

I get calls weekly, sometimes daily, telling me that he has to stay after school for forgeting detention or forgeting assignments or supplies. WED he had to serve detention, the final one for forgetting the first one. Well he had gotten a TEACHER DETENTION also for not having his assignment and supplies for class scheduled WED also. My son went to the general detention (after eight times he finally remembered to go, which should have been praised). But yesterday when he got to history class, his teacher gave him an in school detention because he should have informed him that he had a detention conflict. An in school detention means he was immediately sent to detention and MISSED CLASS.

This is the last straw. I’ve had it. I’ve had advocates from SELPA helping me but this school isn’t willing to put any effort in even if temporary. Time is ticking, my son is not learning anything but that he’s incompetent and school sucks.

I need to do something now. I’ve given these schools four years, and I need to stop letting this go on. I don’t know what I need to do that is aggressive enough to gaurantee my son get some guidence in school to develop good study and homework skills.

Legally, they have failed to show progress on his IEP and have not dealt with the LD’s dx at his Triannual assessment in 5/03. I just don’t know how to proceed from here in a way that will give us the quickest response.

Any advice, suggestions will be greately appreciated. I am in Alta Loma, CA (if that matters legally).