I spent over a year sitting in orientations, on the wait list, hoping to get lotteried in to this awesome school. Its public, but everyone wants their kid there because test scores are so high. Not long after she "won the lotto" we started meeting parents who had children who were asked to leave the school, told they were not a good fit for the school, etc. Too hyper, wouldn't pay attention, etc. Then one day when my daughter was in Kindergarten I overheard a school employee talking to parents, saying how hard everybody had to work because there were THREE boys in 5th grade with ADHD, and standardized testing was coming up, etc. For several weeks every day this same employee would be out, gabbing about these boys.I felt really bad for those boys, and thought I would never want anybody talking about my kid like that. Then I thought about it and wondered why there were ONLY 3 kids in 5th grade with ADHD, since according to NIH 9% of kids have ADHD???
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/1ADHD_CHILD.shtml
That means at a school of over 600 kids there should be about 55 kids in the school with ADHD, if they had a normal population. Thats almost 10 kids per grade level, not 3! But there are NO Kids in dds class with ADHD, although I suspect my daughter may have the inattentive form. SO it does seem that they weed out most kids they feel will ruin their 100% proficiency rating. And they do it by making the kids and parents so miserable that they voluntarily leave!
Anyway, a few weeks ago daughter was diagnosis with sensory processing disorder (SPD), mostly its her ears/hearing. She can't focus if there is noise or any distractions, says noise hurts her ears etc. Well now she comes home every day with sticky notes all over her papers "X didn't finish this, please complete and send back in", "X had plenty of time for this. We put her in the hallway where its quiet and she still didn't do it". According to daughter, the "quiet hallway" desk is next to a classroom door where they are very loud.
Well yesterday morning I was so tired and feeling at the end of my rope. I decided if anybody complained about my daughter today they would get kicked in the shins. I am just so fed up with hearing educators complain about her. Then last night we came home from gymnastics (we were told by Occupational Therapist (OT) to keep her in gymnastics no matter what because its good for her sensory processing disorder (SPD)) and I looked through her backpack. There was at least 1.5 hours of extra work in there that she didn't do at school. So what WAS she doing at school? Its 1st grade, and this was all stuff she KNOWS HOW TO DO. Like write the word turtle next to a picture of a turtle. I swear I just don't get it. But I do know I just about burst into tears last night. There was NO 1.5 hours of free time, what family has that after a long day? It was time for bath and bed with a half hour to study her spelling list and read to her.
So anyway her new school is rated an "8" on greatschools.org whereas the school we are leaving is a "10". Whatever. Maybe the 8 will have tolerance for a 6 year old? AT least we will get a 2nd opinion on her school performance.
If anybody wants to add their school stories or advice I would love to hear it. I know it was the 10's job to teach my daughter no matter what, but I could not bear the thought of anybody discussing my daughter like that, as if she were a hindrance/problem. I am so upset right now. I know I need to get her evaluated for a learning disability but I honestly want to see what a normal school has to say about her first. I just don't see how she can sit here and read the newspaper and national geographic magazine out loud to me like its nothing but then at school she cant write turtle.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/1ADHD_CHILD.shtml
That means at a school of over 600 kids there should be about 55 kids in the school with ADHD, if they had a normal population. Thats almost 10 kids per grade level, not 3! But there are NO Kids in dds class with ADHD, although I suspect my daughter may have the inattentive form. SO it does seem that they weed out most kids they feel will ruin their 100% proficiency rating. And they do it by making the kids and parents so miserable that they voluntarily leave!
Anyway, a few weeks ago daughter was diagnosis with sensory processing disorder (SPD), mostly its her ears/hearing. She can't focus if there is noise or any distractions, says noise hurts her ears etc. Well now she comes home every day with sticky notes all over her papers "X didn't finish this, please complete and send back in", "X had plenty of time for this. We put her in the hallway where its quiet and she still didn't do it". According to daughter, the "quiet hallway" desk is next to a classroom door where they are very loud.
Well yesterday morning I was so tired and feeling at the end of my rope. I decided if anybody complained about my daughter today they would get kicked in the shins. I am just so fed up with hearing educators complain about her. Then last night we came home from gymnastics (we were told by Occupational Therapist (OT) to keep her in gymnastics no matter what because its good for her sensory processing disorder (SPD)) and I looked through her backpack. There was at least 1.5 hours of extra work in there that she didn't do at school. So what WAS she doing at school? Its 1st grade, and this was all stuff she KNOWS HOW TO DO. Like write the word turtle next to a picture of a turtle. I swear I just don't get it. But I do know I just about burst into tears last night. There was NO 1.5 hours of free time, what family has that after a long day? It was time for bath and bed with a half hour to study her spelling list and read to her.
So anyway her new school is rated an "8" on greatschools.org whereas the school we are leaving is a "10". Whatever. Maybe the 8 will have tolerance for a 6 year old? AT least we will get a 2nd opinion on her school performance.
If anybody wants to add their school stories or advice I would love to hear it. I know it was the 10's job to teach my daughter no matter what, but I could not bear the thought of anybody discussing my daughter like that, as if she were a hindrance/problem. I am so upset right now. I know I need to get her evaluated for a learning disability but I honestly want to see what a normal school has to say about her first. I just don't see how she can sit here and read the newspaper and national geographic magazine out loud to me like its nothing but then at school she cant write turtle.
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