Tuesday, April 10, 2012

feeling vindicated

I am so over public school.  We had Drew in a class for ED (emotional disturbance).  Several years ago when we home schooled he was having lots of emotional issues.  WE found out later it was because of his age and not being able to verbalize what he was feeling so he acted out.  So we made the mistake of trusting public school.  The end of his second grade year all he did was sit in a class, play legos, color pictures and watch movies.  This year there has been more learning if you could call it that. The teachers did the work for him and he just copied what they wrote.  They claimed they talked about it with him and wrote what he said. UMMM no boss will ever do that.

I am now aware there are some kids in that class who have severe issues who should be in a different class.  But I have also found out my gut feeling about Drew is pretty spot on.  He can read and he can read well.  He doesn't like to but he can.  He can also comprehend what he is reading.  He can do math and do it at a 3-4 grade level.  right now I am working with him on learning to write a paragraph.  He did know how to do that before I turned him back over to public school but since it and other things were not used they were not retained so in many areas I am having to go back and reteach.  I have also discovered he can't think for himself.  I asked him to take his spelling words and make up a sentence about them.  He had no clue about how to do it.   So baby steps over the next few months to get him up to where he should be.

I am already seeing improvement in attitude since he is no longer in public school.  His fears have abated and he is sleeping in his room again.  The tourette's is still there but not at the intensity it was when he was subjected to daily bullying and fear.  The admin has chosen to ignore the issue. They say it would happen in a Gen Ed class as well and I have to just accept that is the way things go.  I will not accept it and it is not the way things go.  I don't home school because of religious beliefs I homeschool because California schools are broken and no one wants to fix them.