OK, before my son started kindergarten my husband and I had talked about homeschooling him but we decided to give the public school a chance. Even though his preschool said he was ready to start kindergarten in the fall of 2008, we decided he wasn't ready for several reasons, one of which was that he was only 4 and wouldn't turn 5 until a couple of months into kindergarten. The school district really put the pressure on us to start him but we held our ground and he started one year later in August of 2009. I had just
gotten my first taste of how controlling public schools can be; especially when you have a special needs child.
We had an inkling that things weren't going well at school but we were constantly reassured that he was "doing great" and "had lots of friends" by his teacher and all of the members of his IEP team. I had some doubts because of little things that he said but when I asked his teacher or anyone at the school, they brushed off my concerns and made me feel like I was wrong to even question them.
At one point, my son was coming home every day in tears and saying that kids were being mean to him. I asked the teacher what was going on; of course she said nothing was wrong-he was doing great and always happy. The school had the school psychologist talk to him to try to find out what was going on-without my knowledge. The psychologist called my home and left a message on my machine in which she said she couldn't understand what he was saying but she told him that it "makes her sad when he goes home from school and cries". I thought about pulling him out of school then but we waited since we knew we were moving!
Just before we moved I met with his IEP team and that is when they decided to tell me that there were issues with him at school but "he was ready to go to 1st grade". Then we moved....
Two weeks after being at his new school, the school called an IEP meeting to "update" his IEP. Wow, was I blindsided!! They told me among other things that he wasn't "mature" enough to go to 1st grade, he couldn't follow 2 step directions, he didn't know all his letters, he couldn't count to 20 and he needed to repeat kindergarten.
I was speechless because this was completely opposite of what my husband and I had been told for the past two years. According to the system, he had been ready for kindergarten for 2 years and now he isn't ready at all?!
Now my question is what to do? Should I homeschool him or give the school another chance? I so confused by the system-it doesn't make any sense and my son is the one who is losing here!
So today I will try and decide what the best option for him is. There are a couple of other issues and I will go into those tomorrow.
