I'm finally changing schools, yay!! !!

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After battling it out for 5 years now at our current school, I've finally done it and enrolled J in a new school for next year. Already what a difference.

At our old school the autism resource worker had been going backwards and forwards since J's dx at the end of last year, offering support and suggestions to the school. The school would appear to be on board whilst the resource worker was there but then nothing ever changed. I was told by the school psycologist that J was manipulating me when I told them just how bad his anxiety and stress levels were getting. I was told by the vp that J has lots of friends and doesn't have any issues in the playground at all. The resource worker went out to observe J during lunchtime recesse (she told the school it was to put my mind at rest, but we both knew better) and sure enough J was struggling and being inappropriate, she even asked the sports teacher who was on yard duty that day what J was usually like at lunch time play. He informed her that he is usually on his own, he wanders around talking to himself and he is very sad.
The resource worker reported all this back to the school, but still nothing ever changed.

So we will be moving him. I couldn't get him in any sooner, trust me I tried. But already there have been behind the scences meetings with the new school vp, their school psycologist, the resource worker and teachers. J has been attending the new school for the last 4-5 weeks for an hour a week, for a slow transition. Within the first week kids were saying hello to him and werent flinching from his odd behaviour. This school has approx 6 other aspies, so they are very aware, all aspies are different and present different, have different needs and interests. J doesnt have any school funding, but he has already had more support from this new school than he ever got from his last one.
I am so excited for him.

*Cheers*

I'm so happy for you!

I hope J enjoys his new school!

Regards
GM

so glad he'll be changing schools......hopefully the rest of this year will go ok

GOOD. I am so glad this is finally going to work out. Fingers crossed, anyway.

It is a shame that not all schools can provide the same support and environment, but it is what it is and a lot of schools seem to refuse to get it. A school that does get it will make all the difference. And, I believe, it isn't even just for our kids. The same attitude that makes a school better for our kids is also going to make it better for every child who isn't an exact cookie cutter kid - and THAT is 99% of all kids.

Best of luck!

Great, hopefully things will get better for him. I remember things got a lot better for me when my parents took me out of public school after eight degrading and tormenting years and put me in a school for learning disabled kids (it was still better educationally than public school though so it's not like I dropped down a peg in that regard). The difference in my social life was night and day. I went from having my entire middle school save for one girl teasing/bullying me, to being on good terms with all my classmates and made a few good friends as well.

I'm hoping the change will work out as well. I made many school changes and sadly, most of them didn't work out for me.

In one school, I was picked on for not being an athlete, in another, for not being a hoodlum, another for having a deep voice, and another for simply not having gone there they year before.

High school was pretty bad that respect. I went to denominational Christian high school where everyone had either gone to one of a few churches, or a few elementary schools of that same denomination, and since I was neither, I was pretty much outcasted the day I walked in. Then I refused to participate in a degrading, humiliating hazing week known as "Freshman Hell Week," which pushed me further away.

Even when my parents finally figured this out, they refused to transfer me to another school. Only when my math teacher took up for me and told them how the school was and how biased towards certain kids they were did my parents consider it, but they still left me there all the same because by then, my senior year was about to start. If they had listened to me sooner, perhaps they could have transferred me to another high school. Whether it would have been better or worse, I don't know, but there at least would have been hope.