Your post reminded me of when my son started Midschool, HappilyMom.
He was going to a new school, had recently graduated from special education pull outs, occupational and speech therapy, and we decided that a new school was a good time to start with a clean slate. Sixth grade turned out to be his worst year, and much of it was because we chose to not be proactive about sharing his challenges and needs with the teachers. He barely passed sixth grade because of zeros. It was awful for him, me, his teachers and the administration. There was a lot of anger to go around and a lot of misperceptions and assumptions that filled in the gaps where no information had been provided up front.
Seventh has been a total opposite - and excellent year. Not perfect but oh, so much better. I sent a Welcome To My Kid letter to every teacher and the special Ed chair and principal the week before school started, including things that didn't work last year, what did work, how I could support them at home, and even what I recommended as ways to deal with him under certain certain situations. I felt like a Helicopter Mom on steroids, and it was hard to do. But armed with knowledge and an open line of communication, we've been able to nip most problems in the bud and prevent a lot of the problems we had last year.
Not always, but sometimes a clean slate is not as useful as it first appears.
