Non-traditional HS options for ADHD 8th grader

[mrs.b]

What options does Ted and his family have?

1. Continue as-is. Public school does work for some people. Some of us that started out shy did eventually learn how to stand up for ourselves and be ourselves through the "sink or swim" environment. Some struggling learners eventually find their stride.
   
2. Request special needs assistance within the public school. It's the moderate ground between 1 and 3, where she'll still be in that environment but can have a buffer of protection, both educationally and socially. Now...given budgetary problems most districts are experiencing, this option may not be easy to access, and may not be effective if it is available to them.
   
3. Homeschool. It's the road we eventually chose and might seem daunting and overwhelming at first, but I can say that - in our experience at least - when we finally made the jump and got started, we all feel 10,982 pounds lighter. It's a bit of work, but if you consider the "work" involved in stress (both student and parents) when in a less-than-functional environment as well as the actual time learning/helping with homework/juggling the commitments that come with public school... I honestly feel, at this point, like homeschooling I less of a burden than public school was (for our family). We spend the same amount of time teaching now as we did helping him with homework. He gets "it" easier because we can tell immediately when he does not understand something, pause and rephrase or scratch out an example for a visual, then move on in a matter of a minute or two...versus public school where the teacher might not notice his look of confusion in the sea of faces, then he got home and we would have to a) figure out if he was actually struggling or being lazy, b) figure out what, exactly, she was trying to teach (not often easy), c) figure out how to supplement / rephrase without knowing her teaching style and what would just confuse him more, and d) if a-c went well, then finally get him moving on the actual homework. Financially, if you take into account all the random expenses that get wrapped into public school through the year, I find homeschooling to be less expensive (even with our decision to buy "grab and go" box curriulums. Stress-wise...my goodness, not even a question, though our kiddo was dealing with severe bullying, apathetic school system, in addition to a learning disability so HSing immediately removed 2 of those 3 major hurdles. We were told we needed to lower our expectations of our child's abilities due to his disabilities, and we do not push him for perfection by any means (a C is fantastic if he tried...we'll just do more review before moving on to new material); but since withdrawing him from public school, he went from a 4th grader who could only speak on and demonstrate knowledge on a 2nd grade level to what is now a 5th grader who can demonstrate knowledge on a 5th grade level in most cases and a 7th grade level in a handful of area (per standardized testing metrics) and he now gets excited to do MATH when he used to hate it. Again, we do not push for perfection but I think the immediate response to confusion goes a long way to heading off frustration and apathy.
   

HSLDA:
If homeschooling is a consideration, here's a third to Jennifer's HSLDA suggestion. Some people balk at the fact that it is a Christian organization, but the services they provide are legal and educational support and are available to homeschool families of any faith (or lack of), so do not be turned off by that. The membership fee covers legal defense if it is ever required (not common, but nice to have the insurance and attorneys are on-staff for each state). There is an entire team available to providing services for special needs children of any stripe, and there are no qualifications to get their help; you just say, "I need this" and they point you in the right direction. Ted can join before he makes the leap to have all his legal questions answered specific to his state requirements, and they can help put a game plan together so, when the time comes, it is a seamless transition for the family.


Time commitment:
I spoke to this a bit above but wanted to briefly touch on the assumption that homeschooling means one parent most be stay-at-home (no work). That is how most HS families function. In other cases, one parent works from home. My family has both of us working full-time outside the home and a family member provides daycare. We teach lessons evenings and on weekends, and still made up academic ground last year and find it easier than the stress-filled homework fests. That is not to say every lesson session is a bonding experience filled with family hugs and rainbows - we have our bad days, most definitely - but we have the freedom of recognizing a day is just not going to be productive (maybe due to his mood, maybe ours) and go light or skip a day so we can crank it out when moods are more open to both learning and teaching. It can present complications for socialization with HS families unless the daytime caregiver is willing to take them, but we asked and found a handful of families that love getting together on weekends. Heck, a lot of homeschool families leave the dads out of the equation so that request includes the working family member so it isn't just a "mom" or "dad" event on weekends.


Socialization:
Homeschooled children are not hermits by default. In fact, since we withdrew my son, the last year has shown him blossoming and coming out of his shell. When he was in school, he was bullied so much and the general environment was so intimidating (he's a gentle, quiet little soul) that he effectively shut down as soon as we pulled into the driveway and stayed catatonic for a while after coming home. Without the stress of that environment, he feels free to be his happy, funny, silly self wherever he is now.

Don't forget that friends she has now do not have to go away. It requires a bit more work to keep in touch but that's good practice for adult life. Unless friends work together, the artificial environment of school does not exist to allow forced interaction so we must all learn at a much later stage in life how work must be invested to socialize. In that regard, homeschooled children are ahead of the game.

We met other homeschool families - there are more than you might think - by searching for local Facebook communities and dabbling with some of the open invitation social events (field trips, park days, etc.) There are some little turd kids, but the proportion of jerks to awesome kids seems something like 1:15 in our homeschool community, where it was more like 15:1 in public school.


Standardized Testing:
Some states require it and others do not. For parents of special needs kids (any kids, IMO, but particularly struggling learners), I find it a fantastic tool and strongly recommend it. If questions ever come up, it's a standardized metric to show progression and effort. More than that, though, it's a powerful tool for the teacher to identify weaknesses, often before they're glaring issues, and helps identify if mom/dad is wearing rose-colored glasses where their sweet little snowflake is concerned (i.e., "my angel did great on the test I made up, so she's at the top of her class" when the test might have been accidentally geared specifically to that child's strengths instead of testing true knowledge). It helps show if a chosen curriculum is deficient in covering important areas. It helps show if the parent needs to maybe seek additional help teaching a subject outside his/her wheelhouse.

Anyone with a bachelors degree or higher can be authorized to proctor them through Bob Jones University, Abeka, and a few others. I proctor my son at our kitchen table just once a year (not twice, my state has no requirements so it is just my metric). We use the Stanford because it's untimed and I feel it provides more nitty gritty detail of specific areas.


Curriculums:
He'll need to look around, ask questions, use a bit of trial and error, etc. His daughter's learning style plays a huge role in what works best, and his/mom's teaching styles will be the other half of that. For us, I blew a ton of cash last year on eBay grabbing samples until I met more homeschool people (now if I want to sneak a peek at something, I post on the little FB community, find someone who uses it, and arrange to meet for coffee or lunch if we won't be getting our kiddos together any time soon). Last year, we used a number of curriculums that worked fine...but I felt we could do better. What we're using this year is almost exclusively Saxon curriculums. We use their math, Grammar & Writing, Science (horizons, not the insanely priced one), and history/social studies. Something about the way those programs are written hits home for my boy, and it's easy for us to teach...so that is win/win. We are using workbooks for reading (to teach the literary elements, but just library books to push reading in general), and found free online resources for a typing class we're doing with him, as well as Spanish (his 5th grade request was we all learn Spanish).



Hope something in there helps. We were in a similar state of uncertainty a little over a year ago, so I understand the stress and frustration your friend and his family must be feeling. There are options available. They just need to take a deep breath, determine the best course of action, and jump in.