Thank you.
My son doesn't want to go back to school full time and at this point I am only interested in some kind of part time arrangement which the superintendent told me a couple of years ago they can't do.
I am hoping that our state can change this policy. My son wants to write a letter to his state senator asking that our laws be changed to allow part time school for 2E kids.
My husband talked to a state senator, who happened to be a former teacher, about this last year and she said she was all for part time school but homeschoolers in our state are against it. I posted a message on our homeschool message board and several people said "they don't want the government involved in their children's educations." In our state we are not required to test and can do what we want as far as homeschooling. They are afraid if part time school is allowed that will all change.
At that time I worried that people in our small town would be mad at us. But you know, I am not close friends with any of the homeschoolers anyway. I have not seen any other gifted kids in our local group. I don't feel like I belong. The few friends I have here are teachers, one a special ed teacher. They both have gifted kids. The special ed teacher believes my son would be better off with some kind of part time arrangement so he could be around other kids.
In my opinion, all that should matter is that a child gets what he needs. The fact that it might, in the future, make it inconvenient for some homeschooling parents is not something I am going to worry about. My child getting what he needs is more important.
The school would not even allow my son to play on the playground during school hours because of liability reasons. There are no kids near us for him to play with. There are no sports that he can really do because he is not coordinated enough. He spends way too much time on video games when he really needs to be more physically active. He is in musical theater which includes dance (which he has a tough time with) and piano. We can't really afford anything else and then gas is so expensive. We live in a rural area and have to do a lot of driving to get anywhere.
I would be happy if they would just let him play on the playground with other kids during school hours, let him attend the gifted class (I think it is just a once a week pull out) and maybe attend the music class.
One of the things that I hate is that gifted kids at our public school are bullied. Two of my son's 13-year old gifted friends had problems with this. I asked one of them if he thought my son would also have a problem with bullies and he said yes. I think it would be even harder for my son because he is 2E. I think he would be miserable if he had to go full time.
We did talk to a special ed parent advocate after my son was tested at the developmental pediatrician's office and he said that I needed to send any correspondence to the school by certified mail and to get everything in writing to keep them from blowing me off. I wish I had talked to him before we had the meeting with the special ed director. I asked the special ed director to put something in writing at our meeting but he didn't even call me back.
The parent advocate even said I might have to have my son in school full time for a while before they tested him and my son does not want to do this, probably because of the bully problem and I can't blame him. So we just let the matter drop for a while.
I am waiting for a reply from our state gifted coordinator before doing anything else.
