It sound kind of like my own thought process lately. I have also had
issues with our current school and picked a magnet school with a strong
emphasis on community and positive social skills for next year. I have
been told that one of the concerns with these types of schools is that they
do not offer enough structure for some asd kids. Have you met with the
resource room teacher? What did she tell you about the experiences with
asd kids at her school? What do they offer specifically for them - do they
have speech, O.T., social skills classes, buddy-system, teacher training...?
1300 seems a lot of kids but personally I love the K-12 concept. Do they
stagger lunches and recess, I would imagine.
If you like everything you see and hear and it seems like other asd kids
had success at the school, I'd say drive him the first year and if it still
seems like a good match for your kid think about a possible move next
year.
I am very excited about my ds's new school but I also know that there
won't be a miracle. There will be environments that will work better for
him than others but some core problems will just be there no matter
where we go.
Thanks, Micki. This school is brand new next year, so there are a lot of unknowns. From what I have read about their approach, I don't think structure will be an issue. However, I am not sure what they will offer. I imagine with that many kids they will have to have comprehensive special education services. (Next year, though, they will only have k-2 and then they will open their new facility with k-11 the following year.) We just found out about this so we need to get some specific answers soon. My son just has 30 minutes of speech 2x/week and a teacher come in to work with him 20 minutes/day 4 times per week. (This just started a couple of months ago.) We are thinking he will probably need more than this...
I have been following your posts, and I can't believe some of the things you have dealt with with your school system. I hope that this new school works out great for your son. It seems to have a great focus. I also know not to expect a miracle because of a different school, but I think we will go ahead and try it. I wouldn't if it were only through grade school, but I am willing to try it for K-12. We will see... Best wishes to you!
I have posted before how my son's school experience wasn't too positive this year. I think a lot of it had to do with the teacher, but there are also issues of overcrowding, etc. It also took 7+ months (and a lot of efforts on my part) to start getting him any services even though he was 'flagged' for evaluation the first day.
Well, I applied to all the charter schools within driving distance and just found out he got into one. (It is done by lottery; there are 800+ kids still on the waiting list for this school for k-2). The problem is that this school is about a 50+ minute drive from our house, so it would require moving if it works out well. (We are sooo not wanting to move again after moving from CA to ID to NC within the last couple of years.) It also will be a bigger school than I originally thought--eventually 1300 students from k-12. Since charters are publically funded, they do need to follow the IEP, but I'm not sure about the whole process yet.
What I would like for him is the consistency of going to the same school all those years. I'm hoping that by upper elementary & middle school, he will pretty much know most of the kids around his age and they will be used to him. I also hope that the school will be more motivated to help him with social skills if they know they will have him for 12 years (naive on my part?) My main concern for him isn't academics, but I do love the curriculum this school will use (Core Knowledge). He loves to learn, and I think some of the behavioral issues he had this year were due to boredom. The school also requires 40 hours of service learning for each student per year, art or music every year, etc.
Does it sound worth trying? Any advice?
Thanks!
Shannon