An update about Fiddler on the Roof Jr. We just returned from the performance. There is a pub scene with drinking, and Tevye has a hangover the next day. And there is a scene with ghosts. These kind of things may or may not be issues with your group, so I thought I'd mention them.

I think waiting until May to tell him the internet consequence may not be the greatest idea. If he has to have a plan in place by May 7, but you don't spell out the consequences until May 1 or after, it leaves very little time for him to regroup, if necessary. If you set May 7 as the original deadline, it makes sense to stick with it, but I would lay out all of the requirements and consequences now. And if you mean he needs a plan by May 7, that is different than saying he needs a job by May 7. If he needs a job by May, he should be hunting now. So I think you need to make it very clear exactly what you mean by the deadlines and suggest steps he can take between now and then. Perhaps have another meeting with him in April to discuss his progress toward his goal, to make sure he is not leaving all decisions until the last minute.

We are heading out in a few minutes to watch DD12 in her school musical, which is Fiddler on the Roof Jr. Tevye is the biggest part, and there are many mid-sized roles for boys and girls. Her school production is for grades 6-12. I don't know how much they had to pay for the rights, etc. They borrowed costumes from another children's theater organization. It's been really nice and is age appropriate, as long as no one minds the religious (Jewish) parts of the story and the fact that most of the kids are playing adults who are figuring out who to marry (no kissing, some hand-holding in our production).

Have you checked with your county? Since he has a diagnosis, he may qualify for help from the department of vocational rehabilitation. This is exactly what they do -- help people train for and find jobs. The statistics for long term employment among those with autism are poor, and the things you describe are some of the reasons why. County services will understand this and have programs to help. Don't assume that he is too high functioning to qualify. If he cannot maintain employment, he is not too high functioning. Even though he has proven he CAN work, he needs help figuring it out, and that is extremely common with ASD.

Related to my previous post... Does he have a retirement account? Can he transfer his savings to one? You can teach him about compound interest, and that he can prepare for retirement (when he can't work) by dong that. And then he will not have access to that money now (when he can work). If he has to pay rent but has no savings to pull it from, he will need to get a job.

About six years ago, my niece stayed with a family for a summer. They charged her $100 a week, just to use a basement bedroom and bathroom. She did not share meals with them. So just for being there in the house, she had to pay $400 per month. If your son does not want to pay that much, you could tell him he can work some of it off. For each hour of chores, he can reduce it by $10. This may help make the association that if you don't work, you have to pay someone to do the work for you. Because he has asperger's, I think you have to expect this transition to not be easy. Meaning, he may not easily accept a new way of doing things. But don't give up. As long as he feels he has the option to live at home without having a job or contributing to the household, he does not have a reason to see a job as essential. I do think you may be able to find a different counselor who would be more helpful. Could you find or create a financial literacy class, so that he he can see how much it costs just to keep a roof over his head? And that he has to prepare for a day when he will need to live on his own? And that he needs to think ahead toward retirement? Somehow, he needs to gain a long-term perspective.

DD16's math teacher does grade homework, and I'm glad, because she is not the strongest math student and needs oversight. However, when I was in high school, my math teachers did not grade homework. I had one teacher two years in a row who didn't even look to see if we had done it. I know this, because years later I found my spiral math notebook, and most pages had the homework assignment written at the top of a blank page. I hadn't done the assignments. (I still did well in the class.) My senior year, I had a different teacher. He would walk up and down the rows of desks at the beginning of each class and mark in his book whether each person had completed the homework. We had to have it out on the desk, ready for him to check. I do think it's better for my particular children to have their homework checked, because we have some math weaknesses and disabilities. However, I think it must not be unusual for teachers to just make sure it has been done. You might tell the teacher that you think your son's work needs to be corrected and ask for suggestions.

:iagree: :iagree: :iagree:

You might decide that it is a good idea to give some general testing advice to the parents. Such as, have a good breakfast. Review with him what he should expect, but don't do it in a worried or concerned way. Don't let the child see any of your anxiety, if you feel it. Make sure he is prepared with his pencils, etc. This kind of thing may be obvious to the parent, or it may not.

I don't know. Two of my kids have done very poorly on at least parts of standardized tests in the past. But it has never freaked them out. They just do the tests and get it over with. I have always emphasized that they should just do their best and not worry about scores. I've told them the tests are not like a grade and won't affect the other things that are happening for school, but are just to measure their current abilities. When we were homeschooling, I only gave them one standardized test, after our final year before enrolling in school. That year I also made sure they knew that there would be things on the test that we had never covered, and that they were not expected to know the answers to every question. They have had multiple tests since enrolling in school. I think the most you can do is give him positive thoughts ahead of time. Maybe teach or remind him that if he feels overwhelmed, he can pause for a minute and take some deep breaths. If the test he will do is timed, have him do a practice test for the exact amount of time, so he will not be surprised about how long it takes (or how quickly a session can go when it is timed). See if you can find out what kind of breaks will be offered, and tell him, so he knows what to expect. Tell him that he is likely to run out of time before answering all the questions, and that's okay, not to panic. Tell him whether to guess and fill in all the answers left when there are only a few minutes remaining, or whether to leave them blank (not sure which approach is best for that particular test). Basically, make sure he know what to expect and has some tools for responding well to things that might cause stress. Suggest to his mom that she should only be positive afterwards and maybe take him for ice cream or something. Prepare the mother for poor test scores. Tell her that she does not ever have to let him see the scores. I don't show scores to my kids, at this age anyway (except my high school student). Will the scores be reported to the school district? Will poor scores trigger some kind of oversight by the school?

I think that is a good start, actually. She really wouldn't have to agree to any testing until a month after receiving your request and then would have 60 days to do it. If you will get the testing done next month, you are shaving off a lot of time! She should send you the parent permission form to sign. The subtests of the IQ testing should reveal if there are issues with areas such as low processing or working memory, so you will gain more information than just the overall IQ. And by comparing those scores with achievement testing and teacher input, they can see if there is an academic learning disability. Other areas that you may want to consider testing in a second round are pragmatic language (social skills) and attention. The school can definitely test in those areas. The only thing to be cautious about, I think, is if the school looks at the initial score reports and decides that there is no reason to do further testing, because they don't indicate a disability. You will need to sign some documents at that point, so you may ask for a statement to be included that says that more testing may be done in the fall if the student continues to struggle. If they make an outright statement in the documents that testing shows there is no need for an IEP, that could make it more difficult to convince them to do more testing later. You can always go back to them later with new documentation from private testing that contains a diagnosis, however. Just so you are aware, there are different categories of disability that can qualify a student for an IEP. They are only doing the part that will test for Specific Learning Disability (SLD). A student without a SLD can still qualify for an IEP under other categories, such as Other Health Impairment (OHI) which covers many things and can include ADHD or anxiety. There is also an autism category (though not all students with autism qualify for that category on the IEP). You can look up the different IEP categories on the state department of education. It might just help you to be prepared to know what else they could test for if you decide further testing is needed later on. I highly recommend that you read this book before you have any meetings. The IEP process is complicated, and it's important for you to know your rights. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-IEP-Guide-Advocate-Special/dp/1413323855/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521233985&sr=8-1&keywords=nolo+special+education Great job being persistent!!

Will he drink milk? When you are visiting, you can buy him several crates of individual servings of chocolate, vanilla, or plain milk that are shelf stable. He can put a week's worth in the fridge at a time and have them ready to grab and go. Because they contain protein, they can be a good choice to supplement whatever else he might eat.

It sounds frustrating. I'm sorry. I think tutoring can be helpful. But if she is already doing tutoring, I think MORE tutoring is not necessarily the answer. You might point out that she has already been receiving this kind of help for years and ask why they think more of the same will make a difference. It sounds like the tutoring is mainly homework help??? Does this school offer any intervention services other than homework help tutoring? For some students, that might be enough of a boost, but others need help from an actual intervention teacher. What kind of credentials does the tutor have? At our private Christian school, there are certified intervention specialists who work with students who need extra help. They do more than homework assistance but will give extra teaching on difficult concepts. But in our area some/most private schools don't provide this. And some provide it but for extra fees. These are questions you might ask, if you don't already know.

SKL, I wonder if it would help for you to schedule a meeting at the school with the teacher and the principal and whoever would be doing the intervention with her (an intervention teacher?). You can ask questions about what they will plan to do for her and how long they plan to do it before agreeing that evaluations may be needed. You can point out that you would like to have support in place by seventh grade, because she has been struggling all year (or perhaps longer?) with the same issues. You can point out that you know you have the right to request that the public school consider evaluating her now, instead of waiting, and if you are going to agree to wait, you would like an acceptable time frame and plan in writing. You can express your frustration (nicely) that you have been bringing up these issues all year, but only now are these extra helps being proposed, and you can ask them to explain why you should be expected to wait even longer for things to be documented. You can point out that she will have new teachers at the beginning of next year (unless the same teachers teach all middle school grades?) and that you value the input of THIS year's teachers, because they know her so well. Express your concerns and see if their solutions are enough to satisfy you that your daughter will be supported appropriately. You can count 30 days from the end of the school year and tell them that you plan to submit your official request to evaluate by that date, so that the process for evaluating can be in effect before summer break begins. You can point out that the public school would then be required to complete the evaluations over the summer (the 60 days for doing the evaluation count summer days), which they will not be pleased about. You can point out that if you wait until the fall to submit the request, it can take half of seventh grade before your daughter will have a potential IEP or 504 in place, and that you don't think it is acceptable for them to ask you to wait through the next nine months before she is properly supported. You can ask if they would be willing to write a 504 for her now, since they want to wait on the IEP process. If they say they would need more information first, you can ask them to be specific about what they need and whether you would need to provide it (for example, a medical diagnosis of some sort) or what the school needs to do to document a need for a 504. You can point out that she has been receiving accommodations now that are found in 504s (extra time on tests, etc), and that a 504 would give you assurance that she could still receive those accommodations when she needs them without each teacher having to decide whether or not they will allow them. Be positive during this whole meeting and repeat the idea that you know you are all on the same team and want to help her. After a meeting such as that, you would write up an account of what was discussed and what was agreed upon, and email it to everyone at the meeting, as a written record. If nothing else, that meeting and written account can later serve as evidence that she has already accrued a history of needing help, by this point in time. I hope you figure out a plan that will help her.

I agree with all of this, except in our state, they have 30 calendar days to respond to the request for evaluations. I believe 30 days is the federal guideline for that part of the process. States can make their own state guidelines that make the time lines shorter for the evaluation process, but they can't make it longer.

Sorry I keep jumping in and out of this thread. I had to go out twice to pick up my children from two different schools. I just wanted to say that if you think that it may be valuable for your daughter to go through the intervention steps they are proposing first, before evaluations, it's okay for you to agree to delay the evaluations. The more the teachers know what helps your child and what she struggles with, the better input they will have during the evaluation process. Sometimes more time can be beneficial. But you need to think about whether it will be beneficial to your child, or only to the school. If it benefits the school only, and not your child, it may be worth pressing for evaluations sooner. But if you feel comfortable waiting, that's okay. When we requested evaluations, the school engaged in a delay tactic. It made us very angry. But we thought it through and decided that in our case, it was worthwhile for the school to have more time to get to know our children and their needs, because they were newly enrolled there (as in, it was the very first week of school). We knew some of their challenges could be hidden at first, and we wanted the teachers to be able to see what was going on with them. So we did not dispute the school's delay tactic. The school did, by the way, give us a formal written denial according to the law, so we would have had to appeal to the state board of education. We decided not to; our delay was only for one nine-week quarter, so we let it play out. All that to say, that while I am emphasizing the legal aspects in my posts to you, I know that families can have personal feelings for going along with what the school asks, when they want to delay. You just need to know and accept what you are doing. There is a benefit to not alienating the school, as well, since you are depending them to be on the team of people who will help your daughter, not only in the classroom, but also during any possible IEP meetings. There is a benefit to being someone the school thinks they can work with amicably, because animosity in those meetings can be ugly. However, there is also a benefit for the school to know that you are a parent who knows your legal rights and won't be a pushover. You have to be willing to be an advocate for your child, even when no one else is. Hopefully you can reach a place where everyone on the intervention team is an advocate of your child, but that does not always happen. Schools may have an agenda that does not always match what is best for your child. If you do decide to wait, you might send a letter to the teacher (copy the principal), saying that you understand you have the right to request evaluations now, but that you are willing to wait until X date (maybe a quarter or a semester, or a month, or whatever you choose) to do so, in order to give the school some extra time to work with her first. It would be worthwhile to ask for a meeting and/or a list in writing of all the things they plan to do for her.

Some schools are willing to evaluate, and some balk, and I don't really know why. It may be that your private school prefers to handle things in house as much as possible, before involving the public school. It may be that they have a set system of intervention ideas that they like to try before doing evaluations. Some schools call this Response to Intervention (RTI) and some schools avoid using that name, but have a set approach they like to follow. But the federal government has decided that schools are NOT allowed to delay evaluations in order to conduct RTI (or similar). The school must do the intervention steps DURING the evaluation period, not before it, if an evaluation has been requested. http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/rti.index.htm https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/rti/understanding-response-to-intervention If you asked the teacher for his opinion, he is giving his opinion, and perhaps the principal's opinion. But their opinion is NOT the law. If you decide to press on this, you can submit your final copy of your letter to the principal of your school and to the special education department at the public school at the same time. And they they will HAVE to respond with legal notifications to you, instead of just opinions. When I requested evaluations from my children's private school, I found it confusing. I submitted the request to the private school and made sure I marked it TIME SENSITIVE etc. on the envelope. And they failed to forward it to the public school. There is a whole story here that I won't go into. However, the public school STILL had to respond to the request by the 30 day legal timeframe. Your public school person that you called may have been just someone who answers the phone, instead of a case manager. Or they may know that private school principals just forward those things on to them. But the private school principal does not have the legal right to refuse or delay evaluations. If you accept what they say, know that you are doing it out of agreement that they have other things to try with your daughter, and you are fine with that.

You will need to decide if you are okay with what you are offering, or if you want to push them to follow the federal law. Whom did you send the letter to? This is a key question. It should go to the PUBLIC school special education department, even though your children are enrolled in private school. It is the public school that has the federal mandate to evaluate for learning disabilities. A copy can be given to the private school, because they are involved. And it should not be the teacher who responded, but the case manager for the special education or intervention department. If you want to insist, you can follow up by saying that you understand the Child Find policy of the federal IDEA law (you can read all about this on the state department of education website) and that parents have the right to request evaluations conducted through the public school. And that you have therefore forwarded your request to the public school. The public school can decide that there is not enough evidence to evaluate. However, they must do so in writing on the proper legal form (called a Prior Written Notice), and they must consider your request thoroughly first. So you can accept what they have to say, or you can make sure that you are getting the request to the right people and see if you can move things forward.

It's hard to say what will help reading comprehension without knowing that the underlying cause is. In fact, even when the cause is known, it can be hard to tackle. One of my children has a reading comprehension disability. Has he been evaluated by the school for a reading disability? If he is two years behind, the school should be evaluating, and the parents can request that, if the school has not done so. Comprehension troubles can be due to lagging behind with reading in general and having trouble decoding. But comprehension difficulties can be related to other issues as well, such as lack of background knowledge, not understanding vocabulary, not understanding what antecedents the pronouns refer to, not grasping inference or figures of speech. And it can be related to other issues, such as social impairments and/or autism. For DS, his teachers (and us) work hard on comprehension from multiple angles every time he reads. We read things multiple times. We read them aloud instead of silently. We discuss the meaning line by line. We introduce missing background information. There is a great book that I recommend for this, but it is a book, not a program. https://www.amazon.com/Strategies-That-Work-Comprehension-Understanding/dp/1625310633/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1521002126&sr=8-2&keywords=strategies+that+work+teaching+comprehension+for+understanding&dpID=51nt-fC6L2L&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch If the comprehension issues are rooted in a lag in decoding or fluency, that would require a different approach.

I have seen some people on the boards here say that they do not reveal their child's diagnoses to the schools, out of privacy concerns or to keep their kid from being "labeled" or whatever. But I really don't get that at all. My kids need and deserve all the help they can get, and that is only possible if teachers understand their issues. I have had more than one teacher reach out to me in confusion or concern because of things they observed with my kids, and I totally welcome that. I don't want the teachers to be confused or not understand why my child is having trouble. I want the teachers to be fully informed, so that they can offer the most effective help. I consider the teachers to be on the same team with me, so I don't keep anything from them.

I'm sorry that you feel overwhelmed. Maybe it will help you to know that that is 100% normal. When I enrolled my kids in school, they were the same age as your daughter. Two of them were 10, and one was 11. They started in school without their IEPs in place yet, but I placed my request for evaluations right away. They were in school for part (most) of the year before their IEPs were in place, and the adjustment was hard for them. And I found the IEP process stressful, and things did not go exactly as I expected. But hey, we survived that period of time without the IEPs in place!! Now my kids have been getting intervention for three years, and they are still only in middle school. So getting this whole thing going at age 10 or even 11 still gives you plenty of time before graduation for the school to work with her. We have found that the more that the teachers get to know my kids, the better input they have in the IEP process. My son had a teacher for the second year in a row this year, and she saw so much more in him this second year than she did the first. PeterPan is right that the IEP is a living document that can be revised as needed. In fact, it is required by law to be reviewed and revised annually. All that to say, if you don't get that request in before she starts school, it is not the end of the world. Do what you can. Really. But you can, if you wish (and it would give your daughter the most support) go ahead and request them to evaluate her now, while you are still homeschooling. To do that, write a letter saying that she has a diagnosed disability that is affecting her ability to access her education and that you are requesting evaluations from the school under the Child Find law (you can google this; it is a section of the federal law that requires schools to identify children with disabilities). Go ahead and use those exact words! Submit it to the special education department of your local public school, and include a copy of the letter containing the diagnosis. It is best to hand deliver it, or if you cannot, take it to the post office and ask them to send it certified mail, so that you get a receipt when the school receives it. This is because the date that the school receives your letter is the date that the clock starts ticking for them to start the process. How do you know she is two years behind in math? Is she working in a program that is two grades below peers? Or is that from standardized testing? In any case, in addition to the autism diagnosis, state in your letter that you suspect a math disability. You don't have to figure out everything at once. You can just start by submitting that letter. Then you will probably have a 30 day wait time, which you can use to prepare for the meeting with the school, at which you will present all of your concerns (writing them down is best, as I mentioned in a previous post). And you can also read about the IEP process during that time and make sure you know what your rights are. It's a lot to take in. But you can do it in steps. Don't be discouraged!! Ask here for advice on any of it, and we can try to help.

I think the state testing issue is that regular school pretty much stops for a week at a time, while the students sit silently, filling out bubble sheets. It's not a great time for a new student to join a class. But you should be able to ask the school the dates for the testing, and if you want to avoid it but enroll her this spring, just have her start the week after testing is over.

When homeschooling, I was teaching four children, two with some severe LDs and two with academic weaknesses, and three with attitude issues :glare:. I floundered a lot. But I agree with OneStep about having a lot of resources for independent work and organizing them. I had a lot of resources, but I bogged down on being organized enough to facilitate their independent work well. So I bought great things, and then we didn't use many of them. I think if you can make work boxes work for your family, they could be really helpful in that way. I don't think anyone else has mentioned this yet, but I would try to combine them in any way that you can. It's harder with the age gap that you have, of course. But your son is still young enough that if you combine him in your daughter for history and science, you can make those subjects light and fun, to balance out the rigors of the other academics and remediation. It's okay, for example, if science consists of watching Bill Nye the Science Guy or Magic School Bus. We bought the entire MSB set on DVD. (Family confession -- today I asked them to clean out videos they don't want any more, and they aren't ready to part with MSB yet, though they are teens now.) We got Bill Nye from the library. There are plenty of years ahead to dig into science and history in a deeper way. The same if you do art. Do projects that both of them can do. Also if you do read alouds, pick books that they both will enjoy listening to. If one of your kids has a special interest in an area where you plan to combine them, you can always throw in some mini lessons at a deeper level. Or assign them to research something during their independent time and give them a graphic organizer to fill in with information (so they can collect information without having to take standard notes). In fifth grade, DS12's teacher had Genius Hour on Fridays, where the kids got to research any topic they wanted. And when they had collected enough facts, they could present to the class by making a poster board or giving a little talk, or whatever else they wanted to do to show off what they had learned. Perhaps you could have your son working on a Genius Hour project for part of the time, while you work with your daughter. I used to start each day with all of us together at the table, doing the subjects that we combined. Then I would send them to their individual desks with their independent work and would call them over one by one to work with me privately.

She just walked in, so I asked. She said they also do a daily writing warm up where they have to find the spelling and punctuation errors in a provided passage of text. They will have mini lessons, such as when to use "ck" instead of "k" and so on.

We didn't use Barton. DD12 is in a private dyslexia school. Now that she is past the intense OG remediation period, they incorporate spelling into the writing class. So they will review certain phonograms and tell them their goal is to edit that day's writing to find and correct any mistakes. I am not in the class with her, so I don't know more details. Just that they put the OG into the writing practice. Which makes sense, because in real life, the need to spell correctly is when we are writing sentence and paragraphs, and not just when we are writing words in isolation.