DD13 just finished 7th grade. Many of you have followed our story for years - every possible LD and processing issue. She spent 4 years OOD in a special Ed school that did a great job remediating her dyslexia, barely touched her math disability and offered radical exceleration in her area of greatest strength. In addition to doing 8th grade English as 3rd grader and 1–1 HS English 4th-6th grade she also was able to choose an enrichment project each marking period in any topic of her choice. Usually she chose history but would occasionally do something in science. By 6th grade it became clear neither the peers nor the enrichment were appropriate and it was time to move on.
Last year she ended up with a combination program that included one day a week in the district TAG program, one day a week at a private that offers 1-1 classes, one day a week at a nature education program and 2 days a week with 1-1 services including speech, AT and targeted math intervention. It was awesome. The 1-1 classes included upper level HS English as well as history and science that was a MS/HS hybrid. Moving forward she will remain in the private with 1-1 classes. Since the processing issues and LDs make everything so much more time consuming for her I raised concern about her ability to carry a full course load through her high school years. Since she is taking high school level courses anyway I asked how we can make sure she is banking some of these credits so she can take a lower course load later if needed.
At our last IEP meeting our school district said she can't legally earn high school credits - regardless of the level of class she is taking - until she is enrolled as a 9th grader. They said a 7th grader taking an AP math or science class would not receive HS credit for the class. It would just be considered their 7th grade math or science class. They offered to accelerate DD that day from 7th to 9th grade if we wanted her to earn high school credits for the classes she was taking. I don't like to make any kind of decision without thinking about all possible ramifications so I declined.
The current plan, unless I uncover a down side, is to have her do fall semester of 8th grade with the same MS/HS combo with the intention of filling any gaps she may have. (Since the school is all 1-1 each class is designed and delivered at the level and with the format that each student needs.) Then in January excelerate her to 9th grade so she has a 1 semester head start on HS credits.
Is there a flaw in my plan? I'm not sure what, if anything, starting HS a semester early might cost her. She will still be able to enroll in the nature program as an 8th grader in the fall. Since the program goes by age I assume there's no problem for them if she does a mid year grade skip. Her speech, math and AT will still be provided 1-1 by the district so no problem there. She is a musical theater kid so may have to forego any K-8th grade shows that come up. Her summer arts camp offers a special program for high school students that she's been dying to do so she might get a head start on that.
I have a nagging feeling that I might be missing something though. Is there any reason NOT to do the mid year acceleration? Her math remains a combo of early elementary and algebra so she will continue to work 1-1 with a special Ed math specialist. I assume that should keep IEP eligibility a non-issue. And her processing issues make attending a large in-district high school pretty much impossible. My consultant raised the question of losing a year of services but the district didn't feel that was an issue - she would remain eligible for services until age 21. But then again I don't necessarily trust the district personnel. We want to be sure we aren't walking into a hornets nest...
