DVCcurious
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2013
Just a quick update since I know there were some passionate responses to my thread earlier that has since been closed.
I told the new school about the abuse and what we'd been through very early (like September). I told them that we'd never agree to any services and the reason why. However the new school still called me to recommend we look into services several times between Sept-January and then they gave up. They started with the teacher, then the special ed people, and finally the principal called in January. I just kept saying "I can't sign anything because the last district filed a fraudulent PWN and when I took them to court they said that I gave up my parental rights when I signed the special education consent forms. So if you want to provide any service to my son I need a letter from the school district's attorney specifying that we will not be giving up our parental rights if we sign that form." Obviously a school district attorney would never ever give us that letter so eventually the school gave up. But they tried like 5 times.
John was doing below average (except spelling) from the beginning of the year through February or March. He'd get 60-70% on most tests, except spelling. This was due to his anxiety of school in general. He had pretty serious trust issues with the teacher (this is coming from the teacher when we talked in June) Eventually he started doing better and better.
I went to the parent-teacher conference in December and it was a terrible experience. The teacher asked me how I thought things were going and I said I thought they were great. Then she's like "I have serious concerns about your son". So I just restated that he was abused and it would take time to get over it. It was not a good experience. She didn't take the abuse claim seriously at all. I feel like her saying "I have serious concerns" was very insulting considering I'd already told her what he had gone through. For the spring parent-teacher conference I refused to attend. The Principal called me and asked why I didn't sign up for a time. I told her I didn't want to hear insults about my son so I wasn't going. So they kind of dropped it. This was like March right when he started doing better.
School ended like June 26. His lowest test score in June in any subject was 88%. His last three test scores were 95%, 96%, and 95%. In mid-June they had an open house type of thing. I took John near the end of the night (it was 5-8 and we went at 7:30) and we were the only people from his class. The teacher was there and we had, what you could call a mini-parent teacher conference. She apologized to me. Let me restate that because I am shocked as well. She apologized to me.
She said that she made assumptions about John based on his personality (introvert) and didn't fully consider that the abuse and mistreatment he suffered was real. In March John asked if he could be moved to the back of the class and she moved him. I told her that he was always forced to sit up front with his in-class aid at the last district so that's probably why he wanted to move. Anyway she noticed a pretty big change in him after she moved him back there. He began to trust her and open up a bit. That's when he went from 60-70% scores (except spelling) and started getting 80-90%. She told me that in her opinion, now that she got to actually know him as a person, John doesn't need special education services and that they were all wrong. She apologized for the school calling me recommending them over and over early in the year. She also said something like "I didn't believe you when you told me about what the school psychologist did to your son because I couldn't believe an elementary school staff member would do that. But now I'm convinced that something happened to him."
He got the top test scores in the class on the last thee tests of the year.
So now we get to start fourth grade. And (assuming the teacher told his new teacher about him) we won't have to be pestered for special ed services for our kid who never needed them in the first place. It's really the first time ever I can send him to school with a sense of happiness and not dread.
And as for the spelling (I kept saying "except spelling"). They had 15 spelling words each week. He missed one word on the spelling tests.
The entire school year.
I told the new school about the abuse and what we'd been through very early (like September). I told them that we'd never agree to any services and the reason why. However the new school still called me to recommend we look into services several times between Sept-January and then they gave up. They started with the teacher, then the special ed people, and finally the principal called in January. I just kept saying "I can't sign anything because the last district filed a fraudulent PWN and when I took them to court they said that I gave up my parental rights when I signed the special education consent forms. So if you want to provide any service to my son I need a letter from the school district's attorney specifying that we will not be giving up our parental rights if we sign that form." Obviously a school district attorney would never ever give us that letter so eventually the school gave up. But they tried like 5 times.
John was doing below average (except spelling) from the beginning of the year through February or March. He'd get 60-70% on most tests, except spelling. This was due to his anxiety of school in general. He had pretty serious trust issues with the teacher (this is coming from the teacher when we talked in June) Eventually he started doing better and better.
I went to the parent-teacher conference in December and it was a terrible experience. The teacher asked me how I thought things were going and I said I thought they were great. Then she's like "I have serious concerns about your son". So I just restated that he was abused and it would take time to get over it. It was not a good experience. She didn't take the abuse claim seriously at all. I feel like her saying "I have serious concerns" was very insulting considering I'd already told her what he had gone through. For the spring parent-teacher conference I refused to attend. The Principal called me and asked why I didn't sign up for a time. I told her I didn't want to hear insults about my son so I wasn't going. So they kind of dropped it. This was like March right when he started doing better.
School ended like June 26. His lowest test score in June in any subject was 88%. His last three test scores were 95%, 96%, and 95%. In mid-June they had an open house type of thing. I took John near the end of the night (it was 5-8 and we went at 7:30) and we were the only people from his class. The teacher was there and we had, what you could call a mini-parent teacher conference. She apologized to me. Let me restate that because I am shocked as well. She apologized to me.
She said that she made assumptions about John based on his personality (introvert) and didn't fully consider that the abuse and mistreatment he suffered was real. In March John asked if he could be moved to the back of the class and she moved him. I told her that he was always forced to sit up front with his in-class aid at the last district so that's probably why he wanted to move. Anyway she noticed a pretty big change in him after she moved him back there. He began to trust her and open up a bit. That's when he went from 60-70% scores (except spelling) and started getting 80-90%. She told me that in her opinion, now that she got to actually know him as a person, John doesn't need special education services and that they were all wrong. She apologized for the school calling me recommending them over and over early in the year. She also said something like "I didn't believe you when you told me about what the school psychologist did to your son because I couldn't believe an elementary school staff member would do that. But now I'm convinced that something happened to him."
He got the top test scores in the class on the last thee tests of the year.
So now we get to start fourth grade. And (assuming the teacher told his new teacher about him) we won't have to be pestered for special ed services for our kid who never needed them in the first place. It's really the first time ever I can send him to school with a sense of happiness and not dread.
And as for the spelling (I kept saying "except spelling"). They had 15 spelling words each week. He missed one word on the spelling tests.
The entire school year.
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