Thanks Kate. My son hasn't flipped desks or broken pencils yet, but who knows what's to come. I do know he is very frustrated and lacks the ability to appropriately handle frustration. The school is supposed to be working with him on this, but they are totally useless. The IEP is a joke (sorry g/t parents--an IEP is not the "golden ticket" you may think it is) and is only as good as the teachers and administrators implementing it. We are hiring a private science tutor for the summer just to keep my son happy, but as for the next school year ???
Your post is interesting, because I often dream about having a public school for gifted kids that would have no choice but to accept my child with special needs. But as I've learned over the past few years (my son was diagnosed with autism/HFA/AS at age 3), just because a school claims to serve gifted kids or autistic kids or any other special group does not mean it is any better than a plain old school that serves everybody. It all just depends on who is running the place and how good they are at serving the needs of the different students.
We live in the suburbs (moved out here "for the schools," of course. Ha!), but are now actually considering moving back into the city. We're hearing that some of the urban schools are doing a better job with kids who are "different" because they have a more diverse student population and are used to being flexible and adjusting as needed for particular kids (one class might have 3 English-language learners, two ASD, two g/t, two LD, etc.). Where we live the kids are all expected to be perfect. None of them are, of course, and mine gets to be the scapegoat because he has an IEP and a label. He is punished regularly and it sucks.
We are so close to just pulling up roots and moving to a better (hopefully!) state. It can't be any worse than it is here, school-wise. Although we'll be living in a homeless shelter in no time if we can't find jobs.
I appreciate your empathetic response. At least I'm not alone!
