Quote:
The middle school does this and it is a lifesaver! Alex never was more than 2 weeks behind (we'd catch him up whenever the teachers posted, some are better than others at posting). The elementary school does not do this. Luckily it is the last year of elementary school. No desks is a big help too - the lockers at the middle school are too narrow to even hang a backpack in, (good to hang a coat in, not much else). So, as long as Alex did not leave his papers in the classroom (which he does far too often), we will usually be able to find them at the bottom of his pack. For all my griping, Alex has become much more responsible. We did not hover over him this year as we did last, and though his grades slipped some and he skipped assignments, in many ways he is becoming more responsible. HW is not a daily battle anymore; several times a week, but no longer daily. He is also voluntarily working more around the house. Olivia, however, is now worse than Alex ever was, and she does not have Autism as an excuse! Maybe it is jealousy or lack of attention compared to her brother. She does not think it is fair that his IEP allows for dictation. I pretty much leave her on her own unless she asks for help, and she almost never does. She does not like to show me her work because I circle and make her correct all her spelling errors and make her re-write sloppy work even if it is correct.
Alex gets some assignments modified. He scores well in social studies when I study with him and drill him, but he can't do the writing in the workbook, and even when we do them by dictation, the workbook pages don't help him. Alex is a very visual learner. He reads the text out loud to me, and I write a summary as he reads and embelish it with drawings. The teacher yesterday asked how we study because Alex knows the material very well. Then he told me that since Alex has no work book pages turned in, he will need to turn in all the notes and drawings we have done in order to get credit for homework. I was not expecting this. I write on any old paper I find - backs of letters, old homework assignments, packing lists.... I also do stuff on there that is probably not appropriate but will help remember things. Alex needed to remember that King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta, he did not sign it because he was a nice guy who wanted to give people more rights. So whenever I wrote down King John, Alex would add "the Jack Ass" so he could remember he was a Jerk. We drew a man in the stocks to show how he treated people, and since people seldom bathed then, we drew flies buzzing around him. And Alex added garbage and other waste to the streets because that is how people got rid of their garbage and rats running around to remember the bubonic plague, and a bleeding guy with leaches over him and a Dr. holding and astrological chart to remember how medicine was practiced. I had not kept all the pages - most I shredded after the tests and they are now lining the chicken nest boxes, but I did still have the notes and drawings for the last 2 chapters. Next trimester he has to learn about the rise of Islam. That is a subject I never studied in school.
LWSD has an accelerated program where the kids are challenged and they are with kids just like them.
There is another private program in Bellevue.
Most of them will not sit still. LOL.
Drawback of a tiny school district - the schools here only have a gifted program for 4th and 5th grade and it is only a 3 hr per week pull-out program that neither of my kids qualified for because the kids not only need to be gifted, but self motivated. Alex could not do it due to his IEP allowing dictation (the teacher was a real snot when he was initially accepted and then saw Alex had an IEP. I did not fight to keep him in because with a such an uppity B#$(@ of a teacher like her, I fgured the program would do more harm thatn good). Olivia is just too disorganized. I heard that Issaquah public schools has a class just for kids like Alex - gifted but with disabilities. Our Middle School does not ave a gifted program at all, or at least they like to say that all kids are treated the same, but in fact they do. They have classes that run at different paces, so Alex is currently taking Algebra in 7th grade, and it is normally taught in 9th grade. They still have to do State Standards math, so they teach that as well. He is also in what I would consider to be a remedial writing class. They don't call it that. Last year they put all the kids with writing difficulties in one class. This year they broke it up and put the kids who just don't care in one class and high functioning kids with dyslexia in another. Alex is the only autistic kid in the writing class; but he likes this class much better than the class last year because all the kids in his current class want to learn, they just have difficulties. The class is taught with many more graphic organizers than a standard writing class. I'm happy with the middle school.
