This blog is my place to vent and share resources with other parents of children of trauma. I try to be open and honest about my feelings in order to help others know they are not alone. Therapeutic parenting of adopted teenagers with RAD and other severe mental illnesses and issues (plus "neurotypical" teens) , is not easy, and there are time when I say what I feel... at the moment. We're all human!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Private School


The girls attend an accredited private school that uses Accelerated Christian Education . The program can be used for homeschooling as well. It does primarily work with a workbook system (although in the older grades some of the lessons can be done with the computer - Bob is doing her Pre-Algebra this way).

All of their learning is done in the workbooks except for PE, chapel and Latin which are done as a class. They've offered things like Drama in the past, but not this year. The children can move at their own pace and everyone can be working on something different. The teachers are there to help the students individually with concepts they are having trouble with.

Even the younger students get Latin. It is a big help when it comes to building vocabulary (you can use root words to figure out words you don't know), and the high school students need 2-3 years of language as part of their curriculum. I admit it doesn't make sense for Kitty, but it is part of credits she needs to be promoted (they have to complete a certain number of books/classes each semester). I am still hoping that they will drop it for her.

You would think that their kids with ADHD and other attention issues would have a major problem with sitting and working on workbooks, but apparently being able to switch subjects often, and breaks and PE is enough - most of the time.

Denise, I love your idea of the obnoxiously colored note in the kitchen. Will have to figure out what I can do that would be noticeable (it's a little cluttered in there) and not instantly covered in milk, mayonnaise, peanut butter...

Still not sure about what to do about public vs private school. I think we have finally decided to approach the local public school and ask them to do a full assessment of Kitty. Once we have a service plan we can decide where to put Kitty. My best guess is that even if the public school offers to put her in an enclosed classroom at first they will be constantly pressuring us to mainstream her - which will not work for her.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the explanation, Mary. I will explore the website you linked when I have more time.

As for the Foreign Language, at my dd's private Catholic school, the kids with special needs get excused from the Spanish program and use that time to work with private tutors on their core curriculum subjects.

Torina said...

In both of the public schools that we used for Tara, they did not pressure us to mainstream her. The second one did push it a little but I explained that for Tara, a mainstream classrom was not a Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) because of her attention deficits. It actually impaired her. Plus, she is SO far behind her peers that it was simply cruel.

I don't know how far Kitty is behind, but if your public school has a solid special education program that will meet her needs that would be awesome. Good luck!!!