Ok, I am a little stressed but hopeful...after lots of talking, we have decided to give the local public school a chance. DS6 made up his own rating system of all the schools we visited (I about cracked up when he told me....the school got points from the way it looked on the outside to how he felt about the inside, the distance and activities they offered) and the public school ranked the highest on his list. His IEP (for speech and OT) that he has is not appropriate for a school based setting since we wrote the goals last year for homeschooling. The last IEP meeting, I was steamrolled so we have hired a local advocate who is highly recommended. She said she was going to meet with me and my husband- talking with her on the phone was like a breath of fresh air...she knew what dyspraxia was and ticked off a large list of accomodations that would be needed...she knew the term 2e and just seemed to know exactly what I was talking about and understood! She will then go with me to the IEP meeting that she is going to call for before school begins. I could have kissed her....I asked the school a few weeks ago about trying to get an IEP meeting before school started so everything would be in place before he started school and they said it wasn't possible...she said that was a bunch of hogwash and that she was going to get the ball rolling.
When I told her about the charter school we were looking at she told me to dig deeper on the school and that she really isn't allowed to offer her opinion on the schools but she did say that my son would be the only gifted child in the school and that they have a bit of a history of not being able to meet the needs of gifted children...I did some digging and it appears that the charter school is a last ditch effort for some children who have been suspended or have been behavior problems in other schools and they have been placed in the charter school to try to get their needs met. The school had over 12 incidents last year concerning fighting, stealing, battery on staff and bullying. eek! So the charter school was ruled out by us (and it scored very low on DS6's scoring)
So I am worried sick about whether this will work or not but I am hopeful with a trained advocate by my side and knowing that I can get his IEP all lined up with accomodations BEFORE school starts and with our gifted testing, he more than qualifies for their 1 day a week pull out gifted program. I pulled up the first grade spelling list and took a list from one of the last few weeks of school and he already knows all of them...so I can't wait for this meeting to see what is said. Keep your fingers crossed! I would probably prefer to just keep homeschooling him but when he asked about going to school, I want him to know that i support him when he wants to try new things. Oh boy!

Last edited by Belle; 07/22/09 08:34 AM.