[blindkid] Support needed, dual enrollment

[Richard Holloway]

Stacy,

We had a great first year in private (Montessori) school, followed by  
a pretty miserable second year. One issue after another.  Same school,  
same teacher &  staff. We never did figure out what happened-- not  
even looking back from three years later.

The third year (pre-k) we changed to public school. Same TVI, Same O&M  
instructor, and life was good again. Public School Kindergarten went  
well too and now we are settling into a productive year in first  
grade. Every situation is unique but there do seem to be a great many  
challenges with private schools and vision issues.

Sounds like this is beyond informal "chats", so the first thing to do  
is probably to request a meeting. You might try an informal one if  
that seems an option, but it may well be IEP time. Changing schools  
abruptly is going to be complicated. Even if the public school wants  
to work effectively with you (hopefully the case) the logistics may  
take a while to get in place, so weigh that against what you're having  
to deal with now.

Do try your best not to let your anger come through in the meetings  
and negotiations. That seems to shut people down faster than anything.  
Believe me, I understand how upsetting all this can be, but we always  
make every effort to let the people working with us feel appreciated  
and to offer to work with them however we can.

In our case, by the latter part of year two in Monessori school we  
were quite frustrated with things but we decided that a smooth  
transition over the summer was best, but we were pretty far into the  
year before we had decided our situation was not repairable.

Richard




On Oct 23, 2009, at 3:08 PM, Stacy Lemmon wrote:

> Okay...I know many of you told me I'd be sorry if I enrolled Adison  
> in a private kindergarten.  Well....you told me so. We love her  
> school, the 11 kids in her class, the teacher, the works. Our school  
> district sucks. I agreed to dual enrollment, I agreed to bring her  
> to the public school for services twice weekly. I did NOT however,  
> agree to substandard services.  I don't know whether to pull her out  
> now and transfer her, or complete the year. I am very angry about  
> our treatment. Apparently the school is involved with the school  
> district over another matter and I think we've been caught in the  
> middle. The refused to allow the vision teacher even a one time  
> visit to help me set up her CCTV.   I was in tears yesterday after  
> vision support, they put us in an office to work and Adison had to  
> sort of 'squat' on the chair to reach the table to work. Usually we  
> have access to a conference room where the vision teacher piles  
> books up for her to sit on and reach the table....but there was a  
> party in there.
>
> Help!  Any support or guidance would be appreciated.
>
> Stacy
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