Yes,

 First let me begin by making excuses.  I really enjoy this blog and look forward to the day that I can keep up with it. The past weeks have been filled trying to get my mother in law's online store up and running in time for holiday shopping. It has been a rewarding experience. She is truly talented and I have learned a lot about different aspects of her work. Someday I hope that maintaining her store will provide me with the piece of mind I need to stay home and take care of Lian and his needs. Then perhaps I will find that extra moment to update this blog more than once in a while

Anyone who has followed me here, on Facebook or on CafeMom, knows how hard we have tried to find help for my son.  He needs to be officially assessed, diagnosed, treated.  At the very least, he needs to be given the tools that will help him navigate through a neuro-typical world. It has been an ongoing circle of frustration. 

The pediatrician says he needs to be assessed by a therapist. The therapist says the school needs to make the assessment. The school, before we knew they had to help us, told us there is nothing wrong with him that a time out once in while wouldn't cure. After we pointed out that they have to test him based on state law, they told us that they could only test if he were at risk academically. It would seem that my son, who can barely read and write at grade level and state tests below basic, doesn't qualify. There have been a myriad of other excuses from these people as to why they won't assess him but long story made shorter. We finally just went to a different school.

We love Connections Academy it has provided Lian with the flexibility to learn and succeed at his own speed.  However, several times a week we run into extreme prejudice about our decision to put our son in a virtual school. I am always amazed at the misconceptions.  I keep joking about making a top ten most asked question flyer just to hand out to people. 

• Yes, he does go on field trips, more than your student probably does. Class picnics even.

• Yes, he uses all the same text books, workbooks and reads the same authors as your student probably does.

• Yes, he is required to take ALL the same state testing required each year and for graduation as your student does.

• Yes, he has access to great enrichment programs like, Study Island, Reading Eggs, Khan Academy, First in Math and many more. Just like your student hopefully does.

  

• Yes, he takes PE, he probably spends more minutes doing physical exercise as part of his curriculum than your student does. 

• Yes, when he graduates from high school he gets a real diploma, just like your student will. His school even has college visits week (for all grade levels)

• Yes, there are electives such as foreign languages and music available to all grade levels.

• Yes, they have honor roll. 

    

• Yes, there are fun clubs like robotics, chess, math, science, book club, photography, creative writing, school paper, service clubs and so on. Many are open to students in any grade, rather than just the upper grades.

        
 

• Yes, he does have a very real teacher. She teaches classes, monitors his progress, gives him extra tutoring, grades his papers, offers encouragement.

    
 




 

She also goes above and beyond. She was Lian's teacher last year as well. She has watched his progress carefully and always been there to offer advice and support. She is terrific at getting him to focus. She been amazing at giving him extra tools to get school done. 

Finally, we have been able to set in motion the needed testing to get Lian assessed.  She has kept track of the various things we have tried and the conferences we have had along the way and even offered to be available during my conference with the special ed resource teacher. I was pleasantly surprised, when talking to the special ed teacher, to find out she had already been brought up to speed by Lian's teacher and we were ready to proceed to the next steps. 

In the next couple of months we hope to be getting some answers. I could write a whole other post about how accommodating special ed at Connection Academy has been over the last few weeks(it would of course be as long as this post is). I don't know where this is going to lead, but I am truly appreciative so far. All I have ever wanted for my son was to know how to help him make the best of what he has been given.  I have nothing but respect for teachers in general, but I give kudos to Capistrano Connections Academy for having snatched up Mrs. Vazquez and having the foresight to make her a PACE teacher.  I know my son is a better student for it. I am certainly a less stressed mom.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

 This time of year always reminds me of the old office supplies commercial in which Mom and Dad are gleefully shopping aisle after aisle of school supplies while young Brother and Sister glumly follow behind. Back to school is coming soon. 

We don't go back until the end of August but I just got two emails from Connections Academy saying that supplies have been shipped. The house is buzzing with excitement. My grumpy son who will announce loud and rude how much he detests school of any sort is excited to see his new books. He has an extra social studies course this semester and he can't wait to see what his course book will be. I remember last summer, which devolved into tears and lamenting over a loss of summer due to extensive tutoring.  I was sad that his summer couldn't be school free but his lack of grade level work demanded extra help. He was ready to drop out  completely before third grade. Still, when his third grade books arrived he couldn't wait to shoot a video for his blog bragging that he had graduated to a big kid bound math text instead of the rip out work books he had used since kindergarten (I love Connections Academy!). He had already bookmarked all the best maps in his social study book before he had it an hour. This summer I expect will be much the same. While he hasn't been exactly volunteering to do his summer tutoring, he has been doing it every day with minimal whining and stellar retention. I have no doubt that he will be better prepared to  meet this school year and I know he will have all the best parts of text books picked out long before the semester begins.

  For the first time since before kindergarten, we are both actually looking forward to the new school year. More proof, if any were actually needed, that we made the correct choice in enrolling Lian into this virtual school.  He is ready to face the challenges the new school year will bring. 

This is not what I signed up for!

My son has a myriad of social and sensory issues that make life difficult for him.

Of all of them, I hate dyslexia the most. I watched my mother's heart break when she was told that at the age eight her son couldn't read. I watched as she dragged out my kindergarten homework, lovingly saved through the years, and used it to write a series of phonically based stories. I watched as she did what teachers over four grades had failed to do, teach my brother how to decipher the alphabet soup he saw and learn to read.  I don't blame the teachers for failing, from personal experience, I know it's difficult to teach around dyslexia. I blame them for advancing him to the next grade when it was obvious he wasn't ready.  I wasn't prepared when my son's school did the same to him in kindergarten. 

Taking a page out of Mom's book I took my son's education into my own hands and found him a school that would help him work through his issues. We enrolled him into a, thankfully free (though we would have paid millions), national online charter school, Connections Academy. There we found teachers with great advice. A curriculum not too different from the one he used in public school and motivation in the form of clubs and electives to encourage him to want to learn after the wars of kindergarten made him no longer willing to even try. He had the flexibility to excel in the areas he could and still take extra time for the lessons he needed extra help in. Finally, after beating my head against a wall for more than a year I had teachers who not only listened, but had the ability to act on my concerns. Let me be straight up here. My son's kindergarten teacher was a gem. She did the best she could with him and the restrictions her direct supervisors and school admin put on her. My issue with "them" is a story for another time.

After two years at CA we are making headway. He is still below grade level in reading and especially writing. His math skills are amazing, in his head. The moment he has to work through a problem on paper from beginning to end he forgets everything he knows about math. The numbers and concepts he knows so intimately in his head are a jumble to his eyes.  I know he has an uphill struggle but he is climbing far more often than he is sliding these days. Being his learning coach is not easy and gives me a profound appreciation for the people who choose to teach as a profession. It has caused gray hairs and anxiety attacks, there have even been tears, he cries sometimes too. We push on because I have seen what else is out there and I, like my mom before me, am my son's best advocate. He wants to learn everything there is to know. It's my job to help him find the tools to do so.

The truth about schooling at home...

... you are going to have to get your hands dirty

We got to spend an afternoon up to our elbows in clay. Not that sissy modeling clay that is basically just a step above play doh. The cool stuff that leaves mud under your finger nails no matter how careful you are. That was after spending the morning in the park collecting rocks and leaf specimens. The lesson for the day was making leaf fossils and the boy picked out some great leaves to work with.  Science was never this fun at my school.

Now, if I only knew what kind of trees we got the leaves from.

What is fossil hunting without some dinosaurs?

This week we get to finish up Lian's big social studies project, designing and making a model of his very own country. He has named it Mongoria and it has a little bit of everything. He already has made the sheep to live in the plains and trees for the forests. I guess our hands are going to get a little dirty again.