Schools - I don't know what to do

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I don't know what to do anymore. I feel completely overwhealmed.

Typical story, my 17 year old daughter is not having her needs met at school. Every day she comes home and screams and shouts and cries because of problems at school. I contact the school who act all sympathetic and understanding and make promises they don't keep. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

She has a special needs plan which details what they need to do. But they don't do it. Or they do it half-heartedly. Habilitering (hospital psychologists) have gone into the school to educate them about Asperger's and try to get them on side. All the teachers come to the meetings but even habilitering say they got the impression it was all too much bother.

I lodged a complaint with the head but it's had no effect.

She has a special needs coordinator in the school who is supposed to be her point of contact and help and everything, but she only works 2 days a week and so can only give my daughter half an hour. This is supposed to be to go over the coming week and make sure she is prepared for everything, The teachers are supposed to inform this person of everything that's coming up. Most of the time she has nothing from them.

An example, my daughter heard from a classmate that lessons were cancelled on the Friday before last, something to do with a really important workshop on their courses and assessments. But she didn't really know. She hadn't been told anything. She asked her coordinator who knew nothing about it. She rang the head of year who also knew nothing about it. Daughter was told to go to lessons as normal unless she received a text to say otherwise. She goes to her lessons and of course nobody is there. She then wanders around the school like a lost puppy getting more and more upset because she can't find her class. 2 hours later she rings me in floods of tears and I tell her to come home. To date, nobody has questioned where she was, why she didn't know about it or what they are going to do to fill the gap. It's like she's invisible.

It's reached the point where the schools own special needs coordinator is suggesting I send her to another school. She even made an appointment for us to visit it today and came with us to the meeting.

In theory, this new school is fantastic. They are specially geared up to deal with teenagers with Aspergers. They stay in the same classroom, have their own cubicle with computer with a big table in the middle for lessons. They have more structure and organisation than me . It's a residential school where the students live in supported accommadation. They learn to do their laundy, cook, shop, clean etc. Each year they can get a bit more independence based on individual needs. Potentially the last year could be pretty much independent living. And of course being Sweden, the kommun will pay for it all.

Here's the problem. daughter is absolutely adamant that she isn't going. Her lessons are currently in English, they will be in Swedish at the new school. She went to a Swedish speaking school before and failed everything and is convinced the same will happen here. She doesn't want to go away from home. At the moment home is her escape, she won't have an escape if she's at school 24/7. She can't take her cat. She can't take her boyfriend. Basically she sees it like going to prison.

I don't want her to go away either. I want her current school to do their jobs. I just don't know what to do anymore.

I thought I'd better add a history of the disaster that has been her education since coming to Sweden so that you can better understand my now complete inability to know what to do.

We moved to Sweden in 2007. Up until then her reports and grades were excellent. She managed to secure a place at an international English speaking school near my husband's place of work. She couldn't come straight home after school because of transport problems. She had to go to husband's work for a couple of hours and come home with him. Instead she started hanging out with unsavory characters and being led astray. I started getting phone calls from police warning me about the company she was keeping.

The only option we had was to move her to the local Swedish school after 1 term. The kommun would only pay for transport to and from that one. She got no language support so sat in class and played games on her mobile phone the whole time. I didn't know this until at the end of the year when she failed every single subject.

So we moved her again to a Swedish school that offered half the tuition in English. In order to deal with the transport problem we actually had to sell our home and move too. At 16 she passed all subjects with good grades.

Then she had to move school again because everyone has to here when then finish compulsory school at 16. Which is where she is at now.

In other words, she's already on her 5th school in 4 years.

Have you tried contacting the local newspaper to cover a story on how badly the school is responding to her needs? Maybe that's evil, but I've found that threatening public exposure works wonders when you aren't getting what you've been promised. In any case, I'm sorry because that all sounds awful. Is homeschooling an option?

Sad to say this, but threatening to go to the media may be the only option on this one. Heck I wouldn't even bother to threaten, just go to the media and let the school deal with a public relations fiasco.

I definitely would not send her away. You have no idea of how much stress that is on someone with AS. Don't take away her safe places. You can't make someone with AS adjust if they are not willing. There is no such thing as making her do this, she will fail. Tell her you won't make her go if she can show she can sort out this school...give it all she has. Don't expect uneventful but don't set up an implosion.

Hello there

For starters, school sucks regardless of what country you happen to live in. So I don't think the problem is with this particular school, but more so human society and the western educational system in general. That being said, I do have a simple question... How close is this boarding school that you are looking into? Is it within a reasonable driving distance of your house? And to that end could your daughter attend classes there, and still come home at night? And furthermore, does she speak Swedish well enough to understand what is going on in class, or is her Swedish still broken? Because if she doesn't understand the language, then no amount of nice people is really going to help her learn.

I agree with others who say that she NEEDS!! !! ! to have an escape. As I said, school sucks, and you need a way to get away from it. Now if this boarding house is set up properly, and the students are given a fair amount of down time, then she can find an escape on campus. But if the school isn't set up properly (I.E. forced extra curricular activities, shared rooms, too many scheduled events) then she wont have the quiet down time she needs, and she is just going to go insane. Furthermore, she has already found a safe spot at home with her cat. Trying to get her out of her safe spot when she is already under a great deal of stress isn't likely going to be a fun thing for her.

Of course you probably don't just want to hear bad news, so I will try and help out. For starters, is home schooling an option? Since your daughter is 17, you really wouldn't be doing the teaching. She would just have to enroll in a online high school, where classes would be taught over the internet (web cams are wonderful things). That way she could stay home during the day, and still get her state mandated education. It probably wouldn't be ideal, but it is better then what she is dealing with now. It would at least give her some time to get emotionally stable, and also learn how to deal with assignments, and other things which will be useful when she goes off to college in a year (assuming that is the plan)

Option #2, would she be willing to consider a part time stay at this boarding house? By that I mean having her spend monday through friday there, and spend the weekends at home. Assuming that it is too far for a daily commute, this may be a reasonable compromise. However, if you go this route, I must point out that it is IMPERATIVE!! ! that she be willing to go along with it. Trying to force her there against her will is not going to be successful. It will just be traumatic and unpleasant. But given the current situation that she is in, she may be willing to try a part time attempt (at least a trial run for a few weeks) to see how it goes. It can't be much worse. However, if you go this route, make sure you contact the school, and find out exactly what is involved, what your daughter will be expected to do, how much freedom she will have, and all the details you can think of. Then give all this information to your daughter and make sure she is fine with it. If she isn't fine with it, then try to see what you can do to modify the plan. If this school is as fantastic as you say, then they should be willing to recognize your child as an individual and make adjustments accordingly.