October 2012
11 posts
This placement is inappropriate for my son.
During the 2011-2012 school year Josh was in the fifth grade. When I attempted to register him, I was told by faculty that I could not enroll him at our local elementary school, because “he would be going to a different school”. They said it “has a great program for Josh”.
Now I didn’t know anything about these plans for a different school, but if it really had a great program then I...
Mr. Special Ed Teacher Belittled and Bullied Josh
This is part of fourth grade but I felt that it really deserved it’s own post.
So now we get to find out why Mr. Special Ed Teacher was mean. Mr. Special Ed Teacher belittled and bullied Josh by talking negatively about him, in front of him to his peers.
For example: Mr. Special Ed Teacher told other students during lunch in the cafeteria to ‘stay away from Josh because he is a...
They just completely ignored the private...
In response to an ever widening academic gap and an increasingly hostile school environment I withdrew Josh from public school in October 2010, to home school him and to obtain private evaluations.
My goal was to “get to the bottom of it and find out why Josh is having so many problems”. I paid out of pocket ($$$) for a private educational psych and Josh was diagnosed with Specific...
Third Grade: And then things started getting fishy...
Third grade sucked. But, it wasn’t the worst year. That was yet to come.
Josh was continuing to fall further behind academically.
Some of his disabilities were still unidentified (ADHD, PDD NOS, Speech Language) and the ones that were identified were not being properly treated.
Parents and teachers (teachers according to Josh, parents according to the school counselor) were telling other...
4 tags
Second Grade: "Why is everybody at school better...
So let’s stop here, just for a second, and reflect on what all ‘this’ might do to one’s self esteem and self worth. Josh starts second grade, three grade levels behind his peers yet he has an average IQ. He’s no dummy. In fact he’s smart. He feels like crap. Heart breaking things I have started to hear: “Why is everybody at school better than me at...
3 tags
First Grade: "He doesn't know how to write, spell...
First Grade was a better year emotionally for Josh. He had a lovely teacher that supported and understood him. He didn’t cry at drop off anymore! He also made some friends and was invited to a few birthday parties.
Josh’s academic issues however were getting increasingly critical. I went to open house night and noticed that Josh’s last name was spelled incorrectly, by accident,...
3 tags
Kindergarten x2: Notes from a school conference...
Josh repeated kindergarten the next school year. Once again he cried everyday at drop off. He was so far behind academically it was starting to feel desperate.
I was still a student and could not afford a full blown educational-psych but I manged to get together some money and took Josh to a developmental optometrist for a private evaluation. The developmental optometrist identified...
4 tags
Kindergarten: Scores from the speech evaluation...
Pre-K had been rough but I was hopeful that Josh would have a better year in kindergarten. Unfortunately he cried again, everyday when I dropped him off. Now some people might say “well then why did you keep sending him?” To be perfectly honest I didn’t know what else to do.
Once again conferences with the teacher validated my concerns with Josh’s speech and now with...
4 tags
Pre-K: Where it all began.
In August 2004 Josh began pre-kindergarten in public school. He cried every single day that I dropped him off. I kept thinking that he would “get use to it”. He had no identified disabilities at this time, although I did suspect something was wrong, maybe a speech problem. After conferences with the teacher, Josh was referred to the Student Support Team (SST). The pre-k teacher noted...
3 tags
Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) →
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects the rights of individuals with disabilities in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance, including federal funds. Section 504 provides that: “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States … shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be...
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