As an intro, I have a ds in high school who is dysgraphic and struggles with expressive language (difficulty putting thoughts into words, hence difficulties talking to teachers). We've had a similar struggle with a particular teacher. My advice, at this point, is to talk to your school's 504 coordinator rather than pursuing this with the teacher at this point. You can start by emailing the 504 coordinator, briefly state what you think is happening that is a potential 504 violation, and then ask that they look into it. At my ds' school, this would generate a conversation between the 504 coordinator and the teacher. If this didn't resolve the issue, you can call a 504 team meeting, with the geometry teacher in attendance. It's possible you may need to request to add something to the 504 re communication if there's nothing in the 504 at this point that accommodates for a situation like this where your ds needs to communicate with a teacher but his ability to communicate is limited due to his disability (anxiety and/or other).
I struggle with fighting for my son and being the helicopter parent that ultimately hurts him.
I think many of us who are parenting children with disabilities (and even nt kids) feel this way at times. For me, it helps to reframe how you look at and approach what you are doing for your ds. When you advocate, you are teaching him how to stand up and advocate for himself, which he will need to do someday, when he's ready, and when he's prepared. There are things that the school can do for our kids, accommodations and remediation, but there is nothing more powerful in a child's life than the lesson they learn when they see their parent stand up and advocate for them. When you speak up for your ds, you are showing him how to speak up for himself, and, added bonus, you are showing him that you believe in him and that he's worth standing up for. So throw away the worries about helicoptering - that's not what you are doing here.
A few other thoughts - fwiw. This teacher has a mindset that he isn't going to bend for your ds. He may very well treat other students this way too. Have you heard anything about him from other parents? Not that that will help with the issue for your ds, but it may give some perspective on his personality. Another thing - quite a few of my ds' high school teachers do *not* send graded homework and tests home - ever. The reason? They reuse the same tests/assignments year after year. This caused an issue for our ds in a few of his classes the first year both due to him not being able to review what was marked off on writing assignments in a way that allowed him to try to improve his work the next assignment, and also it made it impossible for me to ever have a clue if his 504 was being followed re spelling/etc accommodations. We were advised to ask for an accommodation that specifies all graded classwork will come home for one night, and then be returned to class, to be sure that parents saw it and that our ds has a chance to review the graded work.
Best wishes,
polarbear
