School Testing Updates

Let's update BoyTwo first because let's face it, he's always exciting:) We had paperwork done through the school to show if he has any tendencies toward certain behaviors (ADHD) because I know that if/when we go to a doctor, they'll want to see these results, or if they haven't been done, they will ask for them to be done. Surprise!!! BoyTwo tested '99% likely to have ADHD and ODD (oppositional defiance disorder)'. Shocking, I know. Didn't really need a piece of paper to tell me this, but like I said before, the doctor will want to see it. Although observing him for five minutes should suffice.

I also found out via BoyTwo bragging (hasn't figured out yet to NOT tell me these things, I'm grateful for this) that he is refusing to do any school work for his aides unless they give him candy or other treats. I call this the reverse dog training. He has trained them to do what he wants instead of the other way around. Needless to say I have been attending his aide time with him the past couple of weeks. I was already planning to do this as I have busted him in the halls waaaaaay too many times when he was supposed to be with his aides but instead was running all over the school and hiding from them. I was appalled the first day when I walked with him into his little classroom and he walked over to a tupperware full of treats and sat his sassy little butt down at the table and ripped that thing open and started chowing down on jelly beans and gummy worms like he had just won the freaking lottery while his aide patiently waited for him to 'be ready.' Um, no.

I'm suuuuuure you can picture what happened next.

1) treats were removed by me from the classroom,

2) BoyTwo apologized to aide(s) for being rude and disrespectful,

3) he sat down and did his work 'the best they've ever seen him do'.

All I have to do is sit there. If he even blinks his long, pretty eyelashes at the wrong nanosecond I just raise my left eyebrow and he stops. So, I guess that's progress, right?

If you are thinking that the aides allowed him to get away with way too much, let me defend them for a minute. These are the nicest women who truly care about this little kid. They have received minimal training for what they do. This is the child from hell to deal with and by bribing him with candy/treats he would sort of cooperate. One of his aides he has been working with for about a month had never even been able to get through a lesson even once. I was wondering why this was the first I was hearing about this, but I think that the school feels like if they are taking care of things it's all good and they already call me all the time as it is... I did tell them I want to know stat, but I so appreciate all that they do. I do NOT feel that it is their responsibility to continuously deal with his poor behavior. A little bit, yes. No child is perfect, but when he is so disruptive that he is not making it through a single lesson in a month?! Not acceptable. Time for Hitler, I mean me, to come to class with little buddy.

Moving on to Three. The school did their testing on her to see if she qualified for special ed intervention/services because she is not progressing. In fact, her test scores indicated that she was going backwards instead of forwards and at home I noticed this as well. The child cannot read. Cannot do it. It was easy to get her qualified for testing.

We met this past week as an IEP team to discuss her test results. She will receive speech therapy at school to help her with her receptive and expressive language skills. Basically they help her with using words to express her thoughts. (i.e. tell me about a truck? it drives is about all she can come up with. She cannot find the words to say things like it has wheels, doors, an engine, a key to start it, etc. Bad example, but hopefully you get what I mean. There's a lot of ummmm's and I don't know's, poor kid.) As a side bonus, they will also help her with pronouncing her 'R's. Next, we moved on to the academic test results.

Her IQ was average and she tested in the top 3% for math and in the top 25% for reading and therefore does not qualify for special services at this time.

WHAT?!

I may have asked for clarification that we were looking at the test results for Three and not another child. Don't get me wrong. I am glad that she is testing so well. I am baffled that she cannot read or do math to save her little life in any other setting.

So, I told the special ed teacher that I would please like to see all of the testing Three had completed because I did not think that this was at all possible. The principal asked the teacher if she felt the same way (we must have had the same look on our faces) and she said that she was quite surprised. Special ed teacher got out the testing. Three had done 18 math problems in three minutes, a mixture of addition and subtraction, and only missed 3. I asked if there was any way she could have been cheating. She assured me there was not. Same with reading. So, being the prepared parent I am, and the teacher being equally as prepared, we whipped out our data that we had been collecting the past couple of months. Incomplete work at all times. Like severely incomplete. Like three things out of twenty. Not a thing that she brings home is ever finished. When we do homework, same struggles. It takes an hour to write her spelling words (ten of them) three times each and do fifteen math problems.

What she is doing at home and in school do not match in any way shape or form to what she tested. The principal even said that in his x amount of years principal-ing and also teaching, he hadn't seen such contradicting data before. He approved one on one tutoring with the reading coach and an aide for math each day on the spot. How many principals do you know that would do that?! I was really surprised! And very grateful. We are guessing that the different setting and the one on one approach that she had during testing helped her to focus and took the anxiety and distractions away from her? Who really knows. Another theory I have is that now we are dairy free (with the exception of us making exceptions rarely, lol) her body is finally feeling well enough for her mind to be at school? Seriously, I have no idea how this is possible. I had her read to me the other day (I took a break from her reading to me and all other homework two weeks ago during the testing because I knew she was stressed and overwhelmed) and I about passed out. She read a book. It was a beginning kindergarten book, I had to help her, and she struggled through it, but she was sounding out words and not mixing stuff up as much as she usually does. I sent the book back to school and told the teacher to have her read it to her as well. It was a huge improvement. Anyhow, all that to say we don't know anything! I'm okay though, because the school is still doing a lot to try to help her. Were it not so, I don't think I'd be so chill about it all.

I was also advised by the special ed teacher to not make Three do her homework or read. When I asked for clarification on this, we further determined that she will only have three spelling words a week and only needs to do a minimal amount of math. As for reading? Evidently if I tell her every word she struggles with, this will help her the most. Really? (I said this) because that means that I will be telling her every word. But, I'm willing to try this. For a short time. I honestly do not see how not having her try to read will benefit her. But, I'll try it and be the first to tell you if it works. Promise.