SO FLIPPING FRUSTRATED
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| Tue, 09-12-2006 - 1:04am |
Just got the long awaited updated report from the school. Same crap, different day. Sure this one had more interpretations but when are they going to pull thier heads from thier rear ends? NEVER I TELL YOU!
Ok, First page has a paragraph where it basically says that although her non-verbal IQ scores dropped like 30 points, no fear. After all there can be some change in cognition and there are always standard error of measurement. BUT FROM 130 to 100? Common! Idiot!
Next, on the next page it says basically that her academic achievement scores dropped but so what. You shouldn't just use one thing to measure academic progress. You should look at her classwork, work samples and state testing. OK. Well they take her GPA from the first 3 weeks of this year and NEVER even mention her troubles from the end of last year. Hello, 3 weeks and Cait has a 3.28. NO KIDDING REALLY? Then it says that her state test scores are "proficient" but never mentions that they are just barely proficient or that both areas dropped and her language arts scores dropped 60 POINTS!
Skip down a few paragraphs and there is my favorite. Never worry if she dropped some cause she is AS and AS kids do that when they reach middle school so we just shouldn't expect them to do better. Ok I will quote it so I get it right "...and the fact that other students are beginning to catch up to Caitlin. This is often seen in students with AS who tend to score very well at a young age. As other students begin to aquire the same skills they become more competitive."
AAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Oh and it recomends she read nightly to help fluency. This is a kid who read over 2000 pages this summer. She isn't reading nightly now because she is so darn stressed and tired she doesn't have the strength.
Oh, and I just got to sit with her for 30 minutes while she cried over school frustrations and I got to hear about how her teacher (the AS support teacher) picked on her for not getting her work out of her backpack fast enough.
I have a call into a charter school. This crap has got to stop.
Renee


Dear Renee,
Excuses, excuses, excuses. I never before heard that at the change to middle school, AS kids automatically drop in cognition and ablity! UNBELIEVABLE!!! THey can quote the research backing this up?
Oh, I am so angry for you and Cait. What jerks! I am just flipped out these days about the state of education in this strange country of ours. EVERYONE HAS THEIR HEADS IN THEIR REAR ENDS!!!
Strange, weird times. Don't you have them doing an outside evaluation of Cait? Or was this it? Can't be, can it? That sounds like an INSIDER'S report, protect ourselves, circle them wagons, folks. What does your ds, the autism expert, have to say about the report?
YUK!!!
Sara
I'm so sorry, Renee. Are you thinking of doing the IEE now or just taking her out of there?
Hugs to you both,
Samantha
DH is pissing me off too. He couldn't be bothered to even listen when I was telling him about it and was reading and laughing at an email. Then was shocked when I got ticked with him. Later made a lame attempt at asking me about it but wasn't listening again. Then I tried sending him an email with the letter I am writing the school. I doubt he has even read it yet. He doesn't give a crap. Isn't that nice. Apples don't fall far from trees.
I ended up emailing my letter to my therapist who is also an autism specialist and the kids therapist. I felt bad because her ds (premie) is finally coming home this week. She emailed me back and had me send a copy of the report to her so she could read it. I am awaiting her response today.
I don't know what I am going to do about the IEE yet. If I go for it there is a good chance they will take me to due process just to prove thier point. Our district won a court case a while back so they are a bit high and mighty over this kind of thing. I just don't know if I have a due process in me at this time but I want a decent set of evals. DH had mentioned a while back perhaps getting evals done privately. We have some connections and likely could get them for a decent price, then making the district re-imburse if theirs are wrong. That may be the way to go but finances are a bit tight right now with my going back to school.
Definitely am researching other school options. I don't like it when my dd cries over school and one of the things she is crying about is because she felt her AS teacher was yelling at and teasing her. Cait may have misread the situation but I still don't like that. I guess the AS teacher made a crack yesterday about "lets see how fast Cait can get her stuff out today" in the study skill class and Cait felt put on the spot and that they were teasing her for being slow because she can't find what is in her backpack.
Renee
GRRRRRR
That AS teacher deserves a good caning. Unbefrickinlievable!
And all that stuff in the report is just old-fashioned CYA.
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
130 to 100 and that's...OK. WOW! Who's writing this stuff? It had better not be bonified professionals with actual credentials that are in charge of making important decisions affecting the futures of a vulnerable population...and stuff. That sucks.
Good luck with the charter school. Poor Caitlin.
Mary
Renee,
I'd be angry too. Your situation with Cait...the "we expect mediocrity, so it's okay" attitude is shameful. I have no direct experiece with middle school or high school (other than my own, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth) but my general feeling from what I see around me is that the older kids get, the less anyone give a hoot.
This stuff is making me think about something I heard at Back to School Night. Our principal was giving her little speech to the parents, and she told us of her own personal goal for this year. I quote, "My own personal goal for this year is that I may work with each teacher, to help each and every child SOAR TO EXCELLENCE, which is our school motto." As she talked about how she's ready to bend over backwards to help each child reach their highest potential, I thought about how we used to think that our child was such a genius, because of the amazing stuff he'd come up with at the age of 2 or 3. We've gotten so caught up in things like the fact that he follows us around, quoting scenes from Bionicle books ad nauseum, that we've kind of forgotten just how high his potential really is. If he *truly* has a team of educators on his side, who sincerely are ready to do whatever they can to help him "soar to excellence", then I'm ecstatic. But we'll see how "reality" stacks up next to the principal's enthusiastic first-week speech. So far I'm not seeing a whole lot of "soaring to excellence." What I'm seeing suggests that he spends most of his school time drawing Bionicles or copies of Dav Pilkey cartoons.
I hope someone at Cait's school gets their head back where it belongs.
Evelyn
Ok, I looked again and it was 130 to 110 (from MAT-EF to C-TONI - both nonverbal IQ scores) and it was 119 to 110 on the WJ-III to the WISC. However, the WJ-III wasn't really a true IQ score because they had to go with one section. She had a huge discrapancy on that test and one was a 119 and the other was like a 89.
Cait's IQ scores have always been all over the board, particularly regular IQ scores. She is a tough kid to test that way but her non-verbal was always consistent and high. Her full scale regular IQ has been anywhere from nearly 90 to 116 usually with huge monster discrepancies within the subtests. This time there wasnt as much but I chalk that up to practice. The girl has taken the WISC 6 times.
What REALLY really bugs me is the drops in academic achievement scores. That has always been one area she does well even if she has trouble in class due to her disability, the potential is always there if you can tap into it. She has always been near savant in her visual, memory and reading ability so on 1:1 evals she has always kicked tush.
How does a kid go from being like a 7-8th grade reading level in 4th grade to a 4th grade reading level in nearly 7th grade? Don't give me the tests are innaccurate BS. If they are then why the heck do you use them!
Ya know, it is ok though becuase the other kids are just catching up. That is why she is nearly 3 years behind grade level in reading suddenly. A hyperlexic kid who could read before she could follow directions or hold a conversation suddenly is behind in reading. Yup, that isn't a concern at all is it.
"I hope someone at Cait's school gets their head back where it belongs."
You mean extracted from thier posterior? It is going to take some grease and forceps.
Sorry, feeling snarky today and needed to laugh.
Thank you and thank all of you for the support and kind words. If not for this place to come to I would likely be a crazy person by now.