You're right, it sucks. I had some thoughts while reading your post. The first is that the school may feel as if there is some policy requirement that an anxiety disorder has to be called ED in order for him to qualify for services. Maybe somebody told them that and they don't know enough to know that that's not accurate. But, I think you did the right thing in refusing to label him ED and in insisting that anything they "diagnose" him with is accurate. Also, I wonder if the difference in how your son is perceived by his teachers is purely a result of him having been at different schools over the years. Perhaps, and I don't know the specifics of your schools, the student populations at the schools are very different and at, say, the Montessori school, they are much less likely to see a wide range of behaviors and so your DS sticks out more. I know that with one of my DSs, the teacher each year had a huge impact on how my DS was described. One year a teacher actually told me he wasn't good at anything, while the next year the teacher told me he was one of the top students in the class.
I think trying to find a non-school psych to go to would be a very good idea.
I forget if you said this earlier, but what was the reason you decided to stop homeschooling after having tried it? Is hsing an option again?
