Non-traditional HS options for ADHD 8th grader

[JohnnyHeck]

My friend Ted needs starting advice on how to get his seriously impaired daughter through HS here in NC. For math I have turned him on to ALEKS. Is there a good forum for this issue? I know many great members here that might have some ideas from their own experience. Personally, I don't know anything about legal "go to school" reqs or how homeschooling might work. Are there other options? He' panicked and afraid for his daughter. She takes Adderall and sees a psychologist who might not be able to think outside the box on alternative education options. Thanks for any help.

[cookderosa]

My friend Ted needs starting advice on how to get his seriously impaired daughter through HS here in NC. For math I have turned him on to ALEKS. Is there a good forum for this issue? I know many great members here that might have some ideas from their own experience. Personally, I don't know anything about legal "go to school" reqs or how homeschooling might work. Are there other options? He' panicked and afraid for his daughter. She takes Adderall and sees a psychologist who might not be able to think outside the box on alternative education options. Thanks for any help.

North Carolina is a unique state in that there are more students homeschooling than enrolled in private school. If he is considering homeschooling high school, the resources and options in our state are astounding.

My first question, has he pulled her out of her school? If not, I'd suggest he continue until he's completed the 2 following steps. (If he has pulled her out, he'll need to get in gear ASAP. Homeschooling does have some rules, including registration and testing, which your friend will need to do in order to comply with state law.)

First, he'll have to register as a nonpublic school. Easy/free/fast. All that info is found here: DNPE Home Page

Secondly, or maybe more accurately, concurrently, Ted needs to register with Homeschool Legal Defense Association. This is not required, however it is a very inexpensive ($120/year) legal team that protects your family in EVERY instance necessary. They'll provide all of answers to all of the questions. I've been a member family for 19 years. I wouldn't homeschool for 5 minutes without them. It's like insurance. HSLDA: Homeschooling Advocates since 1983

At that point, it all boils down to curriculum, which was your initial question, but I'll throw out a few suggestions once I better understand the situation.

PS You're a great friend for helping.

[JohnnyHeck]

You are the greatest Jennifer! I told Ted about our forum and that there would be some saintly soul who would generously answer the call. I told Ted it would be you for sure, and you have not disappointed! I am passing the links on to Ted. I hope he will take my advice and trust this forum, join up, and speak for himself in future posts. My only issue for not showing this forum w/o at least one reply, was that I was not sure this was the right place for HS issues. But, in the case of ADHD, it does lead directly to the next issue of non-traditional college. I believe that his daughter, Anna, will hang in there to finish middle school. The greatest stumbling block I believe is the math for the 8th NC test. She goes to a public multilingual school with Chinese as her ethnic tongue. My guess is that her self-esteem is so fragile that she doesn't want to continue with the "educational experience", that's why I have immediately turned Ted onto ALEKS, as I am having great success with 2 math-phobic adult students. But what comes next? Perhaps complicating matters could be that Anna's mother is employed in Ed. field. I can almost palpably sense a big issue here. I know we can help Ted and Anna and her mother. Ted is an MBA from Chicago U. with discretionary time available, so the smarts and time side of this thing should be no problem. It's all going to be on the psychosocial side. As an engineer, I have to admit that this will be my weak spot on trying to be the most help. Although with an ADD son, I certainly can empathize, and I do have some real experience to bring to the table. Thanks again for jumping in!

[Lindagerr]

It sounds like Anna has more problems than just ADHD. I am not sure about NC but in most states ADHD is not an identified disability and thus does not qualify for special education assistance. I have 2 special Ed. children and I know that sometimes people with an education background are the first ones to say "I don't want my child labeled" I have a problem with that because what your child needs may require a label. If Anna has problems with math she may have a learning disability and if so she needs (and her parents can demand) additional assistance in or after class and maybe accommodations on the state test. Home schooling can be wonderful but if Anna has social problems it might just make it harder for her to adjust in adult life if she doesn't learn in high school. There are also special high schools for children with educational or social or emotional problems. Ted might have to look into these himself and find the best fit for his daughter, but a parent must be the advocate for their child. I have a friend that got the local school to pay for and transport to a special high school that we picked for her daughter. It was the best and only thing that would have gotten this girl through high school. I have had lots of experience advocating for sp. ed. children and the only way to do it is to know a parents rights and fight for your child.

[cookderosa]

[B][quote=JohnnyHeck]You are the greatest Jennifer! I told Ted about our forum and that there would be some saintly soul who would generously answer the call. I told Ted it would be you for sure, and you have not disappointed! >>[/B]

That's a tough call to live up to lol, but I will help in any way I can.


I am passing the links on to Ted. I hope he will take my advice and trust this forum, join up, and speak for himself in future posts. My only issue for not showing this forum w/o at least one reply, was that I was not sure this was the right place for HS issues. But, in the case of ADHD, it does lead directly to the next issue of non-traditional college. I believe that his daughter, Anna, will hang in there to finish middle school. The greatest stumbling block I believe is the math for the 8th NC test.

In public school maybe, but not homeschool. In NC, you can choose your test (I suggest CAT as an excellent in-home, affordable test. It's also somewhat self paced, open book, and done WHENEVER they want) and you don't submit your scores. You (Ted) simply must have them. There is no progress required. Before you freak out, yes- there are probably kids that slip through the cracks. A sincere parent, however, wouldn't allow that any more than they'd allow their kids to not brush their teeth or shower. Good parents care. Good parents don't neglect their kids. Bad /uncaring / apathetic parents are not prevented by more laws or rules (which is why we have social services, jails, etc.!) so the fewer laws, the more control your friend has over her success and direction. That's a good thing. If your friend is concerned, you have to trust that he will improve her situation. So, if she's in 8th grade and has to take her test, so be it. <shrug> Next year, new school (homeschool), new rules.

She goes to a public multilingual school with Chinese as her ethnic tongue. My[B] guess is that her self-esteem is so fragile that she doesn't want to continue with the "educational experience", that's why I have immediately turned Ted onto ALEKS, as I am having great success with 2 math-phobic adult students. But what comes next? Perhaps complicating matters could be that Anna's mother is employed in Ed. field. I can almost palpably sense a big issue here. I know we can help Ted and Anna and her mother. Ted is an MBA from Chicago U. with discretionary time available, so the smarts and time side of this thing should be no problem. It's all going to be on the psychosocial side. As an engineer, I have to admit that this will be my weak spot on trying to be the most help. Although with an ADD son, I certainly can empathize, and I do have some real experience to bring to the table. Thanks again for jumping in![/B]

My only comment here, is that I wouldn't suggest homeschooling unless both parents are on board. It WILL be a lifestyle decision. It WILL change everyone's schedule. It WILL change their finances. It WILL bring them under scrutiny from family, neighbors, the mailman and his brother. It will be stressful. It will be hard. It will be DIFFERENT for everyone- including the daughter. If they're unsure, they should do some more research and wait until they can be united. I've HEARD that homeschooling is all lovely...that's a fantasy. It's going to be something more like a bipolar experience with "super awesome great days" spaced between "terrible send your kids to live in Alaska days." When a bad day hits, the last thing anyone needs is "I told you so."

Curriculum- I don't love ALEKS for anyone who isn't a strong self teacher. I strongly suggest a more traditional approach. Big brands are tried and true. I love Saxon, but Math U See is a popular alternative. There are many....the point isn't so much the college planning, it's the adaptation of Dad as teacher. I'd suggest phasing in. Phase 1- a schedule that works for everyone in a consistent way (eg. M-F 8-2 or similar) that is written down very much like she's always known (Math from 8-9, English 9-10, History 11-12, Lunch 12-1.....) agree to do it for 90 days as written, and then make a plan for phase 2. You don't even know what she doesn't know. You don't know how she learns. No one has done this before. Don't reinvent the wheel. KISS
Phase 2- tweak it. Make it fun, make it practical, make a long term decision about whether or not to continue. Decide if you need to explore other subjects, participate in extracurriculars, find other homeschool teens, join a co-op or support group, get into a sport, sign up for music lessons, etc.

Hope that's a good start. I look forward to Ted joining us!

[Hometeacher628]

So I thought I'd add my 2 bits here. Both of my daughters have been diagnosed with ADD. When my oldest was in 6th grade she took a few classes at the jr high (algebra and orchestra) and by October parent teacher conferences, was written up by a team of teachers for a 504 program. "She didn't take good notes and had terrible handwriting", so was claimed. The 504 exemption allowed for the girl with beautiful frilly handwriting in the class to take her notes on 3copy NCR paper, and one set of her notes went home with my daughter. Naturally, I still required my DD to take the notes, and we would compare them later that night. This DD is the girl I taught to read, while she was hanging upside down on the couch when she was three. She has always been a spinning tornado through her life. As a parent, I've just been the bumpers! Homeschooling has been a Godsend for our family, in so many ways. It is perfect for ADD kids, well, it's perfect for our kids. Look at my signature, she has made progress. She will be fine in life, but she may find she needs an occasional secretary!

[Hometeacher628]

I second joining HSLDA. They were very helpful getting the school in our state to pay for the dual enrolled classes she wanted to take when the High school required us to "exhaust their curriculum" at the public school first. On-line classes have worked well for her so far this year, as she's not running to 3 different schools, just changing websites. For my 7th grader everything in life is too big of a "marshmallow" for her, and she fails the marshmallow test every time! We have her computer locked down to just the 2 sites she needs. No social media, no search engines etc. TV is in the living room, in an armoire with pocket doors, with a zip tie on it to keep accountability for the closed doors. Luckily she is a voracious reader, and she loves to listen to audiobooks daily as well. Most of her work I put in packet style so she sees exactly what is required everyday. Both girls have planners and checklists. Both of us work. I don't try to duplicate a classroom in our home school. We go year round and we are working above grade level now in most subjects. It wasn't always above level, but slowly and surely I make sure they work to mastery and you eventually get there.

[JohnnyHeck]

Hello Hometeacher628 - Rather than 2 cents, your words of encouragement and advice are worth closer to a million dollars!

[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.

[Lindagerr]

I did not mean to imply anything against home schooling. i wish I could have done it, but I knew I didn't have the patients to teach my Learning Disabled son and my other son was advanced and I wished I could home school him. I know home school communities have many opportunities for social interaction of children, I had HS friends over 20 years ago that taught me that. I am just saying a child that prefers not to socialize with other children can do that more in a HS environment. I know public school environments are not always good for "different" children, but if the mother will not agree to Home schooling I would look for ways to engage teachers in watching out for this child in school.

I have also done lots of teaching with special education and children with social or emotional problems, I am always watching out for these kids and they know I will stand up for them and not allowed them to be bullied or blamed when the bully gets in trouble. I know it can be very hard to get things from the public school and they will always try to blame their inabilities to provide services on the budget constraints, but these obstacles can be overcome with knowing your rights and persisting. When my son started Kindergarten in a very small school district they did not provide bussing for any in district students. My son needed the busing so I got Drs. notes and made an appeal, the school still said no. So I appealed to the state, they sent an arbitrator who listened to us for 10 minutes and told the school they were wrong. It didn't matter if they did not have the budget or offered it to anyone else, my son required busing for the least restrictive environment and they had to provide. So know your rights and fight for them. I have done similar things with other parents in NJ and other states. Some districts will tell you it is not possible because they can get away with it. When someone fights them and wins they find a way.

I am not saying Homeschooling will not be great for this child, but if the mother is an educator she might have major problems with that answer. If she is against it I would think it would be difficult for the family. In that case again I suggest a High School that is a better fit. It was not easy for my friend to research alternative high Schools and decide which would be best for her daughter, and once she had done her part she still had to fight and push the regular school district to send her daughter there. Recently her daughter turned 27 she still is not the best emotionally, but she has finished a medical assistant certification and is gainfully employed. Sometimes these children are not meant to go to college, at least for a couple of years after High School a good technical school or certification program can be the perfect fit for a while.

One other point if Anna is taking Adderall who prescribes it and how long has she been on it. in my personal experience when a child has been on one medication for a long time a different one can make a difference. A Dr who works with many ADHD kids and knows the new medications might also be a good idea.

Just my 2 cents based on too many years working with and against public school special education.