The word of the day is "compliance."

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Is there any benefit to him staying until the end of school -- such as completing the FBA, or getting the issues documented? Is he actually learning anything right now? If not, and you've decided you're sure you're going to homeschool next year, I would recommend just pulling him out and "unschooling" for a few weeks. Take him with you to the library to get books and videos, find some math online, and let him decompress.

You know, Zette, I don't know, other than I don't feel ready to home-school on 2nd grade curriculum. I am not even done planning my third grade material that I am kind of cobbling together. Also my son and I are both "finish what I am doing" kind of people who crave a natural stopping point and the end of the year seems natural to me, and I don't know how he would like me actually pulling him out this close to the end. I kind of felt like it would be hard enough to explain this during the summer and that was when I was more unsure than I am now, that he will need to be pulled.

I would like the results of the FBA, if possible. He gets pulled out intermittently, now for discipline issues. He is getting some work done, and I do know what they are working on somewhat based on homework, and whatever classwork I get back, so the last week or so, I have been supplementing it, just assuming there are big gaps. The educational diagnostician was not pulled in until Monday, so she has not had time to do much of her particular brand of damage, yet. I also wanted to gather info here, to make sure I am not losing perspective. I am sure I am wording things in a biased way, and as unscrewed as my head is now, objective advice makes a difference. I plan on getting information today on what protocol is currently being put into place, which I am going to document through email. Friday should be a "fun day" which I will be there for, which I think will be valuable to observe.

But yeah, part of me does really want to pull him now and at the very least I am going to verify the paperwork I will need and make sure I have what I need in reserve.

I am trying really hard to be objective (I doubt it looks that way from my posts) and give what they are doing a chance to work. It just does not seem sensible to me. I am not trying to say what my son is doing is OK. I just really do believe they are making it worse.

I would pull him out. Homeschooling isn't as hard as you think. You dint need to be super planned and have a curriculum for every day worked out before you homeschool. Sounds like your son is being ABUSED in that school, and id rather my child sit at home and we wing it the rest of the school year, then let him be abused any longer. I understand your hesitance, it sounds overwhelming, but really it isn't.

What does your son think about this? My son is in 2nd grade too, and we deal a lot with non compliance. I feel for you...

When people tell him contradictory things, he is supposed to listen to me(and my husband.) That is what I tell him, as it is the only safe thing to tell him.

I sent an email to the teacher letting her know that I think the 100% compliance thing that crazy woman proposed is unrealistic, and so I have my objections in writing. Tomorrow I will be up there all day, for a school function and I will see what I can find out. I told him to be careful not to provoke anyone by being violent, but I do not know if he can follow my directive. I do not think he feels in control of himself.

I do feel that this feels abusive, but on the other hand he is lashing out physically, which he should not be doing. I don't know how to get them to prioritize calmness over compliance, and the FBA is going to take too long.

Thanks, MMJMOM!

It'a hard for me to read this thread because every time I try, I get lost in memories of my own schooling and become enraged.

I have zero tolerance for authority-mad teachers who demand "100% compliance" from students. The goal of any educational institution should be to instill knowledge and skills in the students. Period. Full Stop. If a pedagogical strategy is effective in furthering these goals, then apply it with vigor, if it is not, consign it to the dustbin. If a teacher does not understand this, then that person has no business being anywhere near a classroom.

School as prep for victorian factories is over. The future demands people who can be creative and think for themselves. If there is any aspect of a schools curriculum that looks like obedience training for dogs, something is very, very, very wrong.

I ran into this kind of nonsense and it almost always came down to the same thing: there is a kind of person who craves power and seeks employment in schools in order to have access to groups of situationally powerless people. They engage in a kind of systematic psychological abuse that is extremely damaging. When I remember the times that I was exposed to such teachers, I am filled with such rage that I shake, though decades have passed since those abusers had me in their power.

I realize that not all "100% compliance" seekers fit this profile, but a lot of them do and I believe there is a spectrum for those kind of power-seekers as well, with "because I said so and you have to do what I say, no matter how irrational my demands" at one end and profound physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the other. Watch these people like hawks, they do not have your child's interests at heart. They want to use your children as props in their own psychodramas for their personal gratification.

Better yet, get your child the hell out of there, if you possibly can. Another school or another class may make a huge difference.

An excessive concern by teachers with "compliance" by my children is, to borrow a phrase from the President, a "Red Line" issue for me. I am fully prepared to go to war with the school district over this if it happens and will not relent until there is unconditional surrender or my lawyers have forced them to pay for education at an alternative school of my choice.

Bastards. (Where is the camouflaged and ready for combat emoticon when you need it?)

[edited to fix some bad punctuation that took advantage of my emotional state]

Adamantium: To this day, I can't hear "Life's not fair." as anything other than code for, "I am about to be horrible to you, because I can and there's nothing you can do about it. Enjoy!"


ASDMommy: It is pretty commonly said in homschooling groups that the first several months after pulling out of school, that a child coming out of a bad school situation will need to decompress. Not necessarily doing nothing, but definitely not doing heavy duty lesson plans either. The idea of unschooling for a few weeks or even for the entire summer is not a bad one.

To be honest, my kids have so much trouble with written work that we've only ever really managed to complete grammar and math as actual lesson plans. We've done a bit of science and history here and there. They just finished their testing today. We used the private testing this time, and it included all the subtests. Both of them tested highest in history and science. We've watched lots and lots of documentaries and visited museums and looked things up when they were interested. I am moving them into a formal program this next year for 7th grade. That's always sort of been the cutoff in my mind between the floating of grade school and the big time of grades that really count. Probably because that was where kids moved up to the junior high building in my school when I was a kid.

Something that is just really lovely, are the Holling C. Holling books: Paddle to the Sea, Pagoo, Seabird, and Minn of the Mississippi along with the Beautiful Feet study guide and maps to be filled in. Even my work avoidant children have really enjoyed these and learned a lot. These might be something that would be nice to start at the end of the year or in the summer, just to ease into schooling. The Beautiful Feet guide is written to do all the books in one year, but if you really go into the extended activities it is a very gentle and informative geography program to do them one per semester or one per year.

http://bfbooks.com/Geography-Through-Li ... tegory=860 Here's a link.

I'm with MiahClone, stop the abuse and pull the poor guy out.

Think about your reasons for not pulling him out now. You said you aren't ready, and you and he crave a natural stopping point. Well, he is not being educated right now, he's in too much emotional stress. They have already stopped educating him, and they are making everything worse. This would be the right stopping point. Remember the hippocratic oath: first do no harm. They aren't educating him, they are harming him.

As for you not being ready, I understand your discomfort, but don't put your comfort at a higher priority than your son. Here's what I would do. Set up some school work he could do for these remaining weeks where he needs minimal attention from you while you continue to get ready for third grade. Maybe have him work only in the morning. MiahClone's idea of giving him books to read is a sound one. I still highly recommend Time4Learning. T4L would give you lots of time for yourself, it takes little time to get it started, it's cheap and flexible. I would start him at third grade in T4L, except maybe 4th grade for math. Then if you find the level is too high, take it down a notch. I used T4L as a stop-gap for a few months and my kids still remember what they learned there.

in reference to unschooling and learning to think (which I think gets lost in public school these days with their piles of worksheets):

there are great free science resources at egfi-k12 org.... It is a STEM (science tech engineering and math) cite and has great lessons linked to real world (sometimes with video of whatever science in action) and at home science experiments... it really stresses thinking through problems, which is a great skill for our kids and is very hands on for the worksheet haters....the online (no need to order) magazine is great for inspiring kids... the website is a little hard to navigate... go to the "for teachers" part at the top and go into lesson plans to see if anything there might interest your son and then you should be good... you can also go to what's new in the home page and just find interesting science tidbits for kids to read...what I like is that kids gain a lot of confidence knowing that they just did something that engineers are getting paid to do right now and if their experiment fails, then it is good for them to know that the professionals have failures every day and they just keep trying....and if they go on a tangent because the experiment reminds them of something entirely different... well, it's important to be creative in science too...

Thanks for the additional responses. Kcal, that sounds like a great resource. I have been doing kind of an unschooling thing to supplement, but I don't think I am going to go 100% unschooling if we pull him. I do think he needs to tolerate structure to some degree for college and work. I will just be more flexible in that I will probably give him choices along the way. In a perfect world unschooling would be great, but it is not the world we live in, and I do not think he will have the ability to adjust to it all of a sudden. He has had enough trouble going through to 2nd grade. Even minor adjustments are a big deal to him/

I agree. My son is also having trouble in 2nd grade. I sent my aba therapist and found that they were making about 25 transitions in the morning, all before lunch.... The teacher was doing a good job with a visual schedule but 25 transitions between workstations would be hard for me to handle.... My son definitely does better in a structured environment and the unstructured workstations were definitely where he was having his issues. However very structured work product (fill in this blank on the worksheet) is very hard for him (we are working on how to approach a worksheet at home) even though he could explain something just as well using his own words so he sometimes needs to be allowed to produce an unstructured product (but still with guidance)... Sometimes it seems like school has just become a worksheet factory in order to practice for standardized tests rather than a place to think...Both things are important in the real world. And even cafeteria smells have been known to set him off...There are so many things that could be triggering him in the school setting that it would hard to figure out unless you sent one of your own therapists or you yourself because I have found no one in the school to be an expert in my son, even those who really care and try to help sometimes can't figure him out and misinterpret things and start fixing issues he doesn't even have..so my big answer to compliance is just that it depends... One way I can tell if he is just being stubborn is to tell him that unfinished work will be sent home... Also we have also tried SCHEDULED breaks and allowing him quieter time instead of chaotic lunch and gym class... The aba therapist can figure out what may be the real issue by looking for his body to tense up or more stimming.... His compliance is better now with lots of supports in place.. I would have never figured out any of this without my aba therapist observing in school.... all this yet I still think we are headed toward homeschool being best for him...

By the way they did a behavioral assessment with the help of my aba therapist (no doubt they would have unintentionally gotten a lot of things wrong without her) and came up with a long list of things that sounded great but would have been impossible for the teacher to implement and would have led to more issues for them to use against me.... When I pointed this out to them they still refused to put an aide in the room... I think They were just trying to make it sound good and cover themselves in case I consulted an attorney... It's a shame because his teacher is awesome and he is making progress, it's just the system that sucks