It takes a few weeks for the charter homeschool paperwork to go through so we had Ryan’s annual IEP meeting at school followed by a meeting with a psychologist for the final report for Ryan to have a Therapeutic Support Service worker, which is amazing because we have gotten so far in the process.

Let’s start with the IEP meeting.  Ryan has come a long way in reading.  He started first grade at a Pre-K reading level and is now in 2nd grade functioning at a 1st grade 8 month level.  He has caught up quite a bit.  Ryan in math is functioning at a 3rd grade 8 month level.  I was blown away.  I knew he was very strong in math but not that strong.  For now Ryan gets pulled out of class for reading and they are trying to reward his positive behavior.  He will continue to see his therapist in school.  The school is going to support his deficits but because he is gifted in only math they will not support that, they would support him only if he tested overall gifted in school.  That, of course, did not sit right with me. After threatening the school with a special education lawyer they finally modified his homework by sending home a packet on Friday so we have seven days to complete the work.  The seven days of homework is great.  We can break the work down to small manageable goals.  The work gets done, the studying gets done, and the work is of high quality.

Then we went to the meeting with the psychologist.  She was awesome.  She  thought we were looking at more than ADHD with Ryan and gave an opinion that she thought he had Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), which puts Ryan on the Autism Spectrum.  She forthrightly said she thought Ryan needed a Therapeutic Support Person and was going to present the best report she could for him.  She is going to send me a referral to Drexel University to get formally diagnosed with PDD.  The PDD diagnosis will open up more services that we need including respite, which is something we need sometimes.  This diagnosis explains the quirky strange behavior Ryan has at times and the stimming he does when overtired.

Now, we have a decision to make.  Ryan’s gift in math makes me want to homeschool even more because his gift is not going to be recognized there.  Then again Ryan getting a one to one aid in school to help him navigate interpersonal relationships is huge. After the meeting we are reexamining our decision to homeschool.  Do we send him to school and support his math at home?  Do we homeschool and support his PDD and relationship issues with classes in socialization.  It is a big decision and one we are not taking lightly.  Internet this tangle of needs never stops getting more and more tangled.

Well, folks after two years of deliberation, soul searching, discussion, and heartache we have decided to enroll Ryan in a cyber charter school. (ducking bricks here)  I have never felt sure I could alone educate an ADHD child with learning disabilities so I think cyber charter school is a good idea for us to start.  It would allow Ryan to easily return to a brick and mortar school if we decide that is best, while easing us into our new world of homeschooling at the same time.

We came to this decision with the new changes the budget cuts in the schools have brought.  His teacher is not helpful when I reach out and his homework takes over three hours to finish properly. This is for an 8 year old kid.  The new special ed coordinator and I do not see eye to eye.  Last year I felt the classroom teacher and the special ed teacher were both on Ryan’s side wanting him to learn but cared about his happiness, well-being, and mental state.  They were flexible, reducing our homework and slowly adding homework till he was carrying a full load in December in both math and reading, even though he tested average in math, they recognized that his ADHD was overwhelmed by the math homework and there were other ways.  There are just so many reasons I made this decision this year.  Among the reasons was the special ed teacher claiming if my kid needed time to be a kid after 3.5 hours of homework I should, “put him to bed later.”  Too bad she is talking about a kid who functions much better on enough sleep and has had seizures triggered by lack of sleep in the past. Also Ryan is in a class full of kids bussed in from under performing schools who are either kids with IEP’s or are not performing at grade level.  I am not happy with this “special” class and Ryan, in his own words, misses his classmates.  Ryan performs at grade level in everything but reading and writing.  It bothers me for him to be labeled as “underachieving”.

I decided not to pull Aaron out of school yet.  Ryan is a kid who needs time to adjust.  Aaron is reacting horribly to me having so little time for him in my day.  For now, he is going to go to school so that I can dote on him when he gets home.  Aaron has the same amazing kindergarten teacher Ryan had, so I am comfortable for him to go to school. He does not share Ryan’s issues.

Ryan is very excited about homeschool.  For him it can’t come soon enough.  In typical boy fashion, he asked if he could do school work clad only in his underwear.  I said, of course. He is excited that he can again participate in swimming and other extra curricular programs in music and arts.  He wants to take a woodworking class for kids because he is obsessed with tools.

Onwards and upwards.