I also forgot to mention how we handled this when we withdrew our ds. As I've mentioned in the past, we were also in an unworkable school situation, at the point at which legal action was recommended to us but we use weren't up for that battle and wanted to pull ds and focus my time/energy on supporting him instead of fighting a battle. So I was *very* battle weary and not at all happy with his school. We'd battled through the stage where ds had an IEP but he wasn't getting the help outlined in the IEP and he was also bored to tears with the level of challenge and classroom discussion in the areas of academics that weren't a 2e issue. Combining that with the 3 years I'd already invested in attempting to work with the school that had been beyond frustrating, I had a lot I would have *loved* to say to the school. I didn't think I could write a letter as briefly and succinctly and without emotion as you have, so I chose not to write anything at all. I also said nothing to anyone at the time, we simply took ds out of school and switched him to a private school.
I "wrote" my letter in my head several times over that next year listing out the reasons we pulled ds from school and listing all the things that went right at our next school. I still occasionally rewrite the letter in my head anytime I drive past his old school lol. But I am glad (for me) that I never sent it, because I know for sure there is nothing in writing anywhere that could have accidentally burned a bridge. I also know my ds has no intentions of ever returning to the school and my dds have now also moved on and will most likely never return there. I do suspect that at least some of my kids will return to public school elsewhere in our district at some point in time, and I have seen over the years that teachers (here) move frequently, and that teacher that ds had way back when he was first diagnosed who felt so antagonistic to us - she's gone on to become a principal, and principals move around even more than most classroom teachers. So - there's a good chance that someday, somewhere, at some school, one of my kids may be taught by someone who knew us way back "when".
The other thing is that there was something missing in that letter that I didn't write that was really what it was all about - my ds' voice. He was too young to write the letter himself at the time and too challenged re expressive language to have told a teacher how he really felt about everything. I could have told the school those things for him in my letter, but the bottom line is schools see what parents say as coming from the parent, not the student. Now that a few years have passed and ds is able to express himself, we sat down together this summer and talked through what those years in the classroom were like for him, and we are putting together a small record of it that, combined with my recollections, I am considering sharing with the school district's gifted department to help advocate for the 2e kids who might be in early elementary now. I don't think anything I could have said back then at his old school would have changed anything fundamental in the way the school approached student situations like ds'. But *now* I think that ds and I have the hindsight and calm that comes with working through a situation to be able to take what was negative energy and use it (hopefully) in a small, positive way.
One other thing - after ds' first year at his new school, we ran into the teacher he had during his last two years at the school we left. She'd been there through all the IEP eligibility process etc and was the teacher who wasn't helping, even though I do believe that at heart she's a good person who wanted to help. DS, however, saw her as a teacher who simply didn't care and he'd become very angry at her by the time we withdrew him from the school. She ran into ds and my dh first, and talked to them for awhile, then I saw her (without ds) later on at the same event. When I saw her, she told me how different ds appeared - how he looked so *happy*. And he is (was) happy - and that wasn't something she'd ever seen in her classroom situation. I replied that he liked his new school, that the school had given him the opportunity to work with the accommodations and writing instruction he needed while at the same time allowing him to subject accelerate and encouraged him to be intellectually challenged, and that combination really worked for him.
That was all I said. It's the truth. Did it change anything when she teaches, or at his previous school? I don't know about the teacher, I suspect she'd retained enough memories of those 2 years of his schooling to realize that what I was saying was - y'all didn't provide the few simple easy things he needed, we found someone that did, and it worked. I'm sure it didn't change anything at the school. But I had a chance to say it, at a time when I'd moved past the emotion.
We've recently had a chance to say it again - to the infamous early elementary teacher, when ds and dh ran into her at a different event. So she knows now - in a small way - that ds wasn't just a lazy dumb kid with ADHD (that was her take on him) - and that dh and I weren't just whiny helicopter parents. It's given me more satisfaction for her to have seen ds now than it ever would have given me to have written a letter before. But that's just me.
I suspect that it's going to be such a relief to you to homeschool and be far removed from the previous school environment. Enjoy being with your ds! Those early elementary years fly by so quickly - have fun with them
Best wishes,
polarbear
