There's a flaw in the testing system

I had butterflies in my stomach, and couldn't sleep Sunday night. I had an appointment early yesterday morning to receive the results of Orion's learning disability tests. They performed quite a few tests, and I knew it could go one of 2 ways. Keep in mind, that we had a VERY horribly experience with this school district last year, which is the main reason I pulled my children from public school in the first place. Let me give you a brief rundown of our history with the district. Since my oldest is an Aspie with ADHD, and ODD being their main concern, we HAD to medicate him in order for them to be able to handle him in the classroom.  We've switched between 2 schools, and I spent a year (the year I was pregnant with my daughter), walking back and forth to the school to talk my son down from social situations. He was made aware that he even had any of these "disorders" by a substitute, and was constantly in trouble. Orion has always been Mr. Popular, but when he started picking fights, I knew something was wrong. His first grade teacher kept insisting he was so smart, but wanted to hold him back a year (in first grade). Homework was never sent home, because they both did it in an afterschool program and were able to leave it at school. Orion was then sexually assaulted by another little boy, during recess in the boys bathroom. Because of their age, only a police report was filed. I was mortified that they still expected my son to share a classroom with this other child, and was told by the school psychologist that he would "get over it", and to just not mention it. I pulled my boys out of school the next day.

Fast forward to present day. As soon as I started working with my son, I noticed that there was a problem. He can not spell, sound out, and struggles reading. Yes he is very bright, but needs a lot of help with his work. Dyslexia runs in my husbands family, so I looked up the warning signs and he exhibits about 3/4 of them. Sitting in the meeting yesterday, and hearing the word average keep coming up upset me. They showed me the questions Orion was asked, and his answers. They showed me what he scored, and I'm appalled that scoring below your grade level is deemed "average". Shouldn't these tests let them see the students who are struggling and intervene? I was so angry, I stood up and told them how all I wanted was help for my son, and all they've done is destroy his self esteem, and deny me any type of help. I'll spare you the longer version of what else I told them, but I went into details about how I'm glad were now homeschooling, and how I should have never trusted any of those people with any of my childrens well being or education because it's clear why their there, and it isn't to help children.

I'll now be seeking out a diagnosis out of our own pocket, because sadly our state does not have clear dyslexia laws, and medical insurance does not cover educational issues :(

Evaluation for learning disabilities

Last Thursday I submitted a formal letter to our local public school, requesting an evaluation for learning disabilities. I was told (when I called the school district, to ask about the process), that they cannot test for specific learning disabilities (like dyslexia), so I had to state what my concerns where in the letter. I don't know if all states have the same rules as California, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, if he doesn't have dyslexia (or if there are other disabilities), I'll finally know. On the other hand, it leaves me wondering how "spot on" this test will be, since it's not specific.I plan on blogging about our journey through this process, and hopefully someone will find this information useful.

I got the call today (from the school psychologist), that our SST (student success team) appointment is scheduled for next Tuesday. In California, the school district has 15 days upon receipt of a request for evaluation to schedule the initial SST meeting. If anyone wants, I can share the letter that I turned in requesting our evaluation. I was told that since I am homeschooling, I need to bring with me:

All of the curriculum my son is using
Samples of his work
My grading system
Any other methods that we have tried

That list leaves me a bit nervous, since I have no real grading system (except a pass/no pass), I teach green (we don't always do work on paper), and I use a lot of different internet resources. So, what's a concerned parent to do? I've decided I'm going to bring in every last book my son has used/is using/supplements from, bring in the science journal I've been making using all of his observation pages (they include writing and drawing), I will type out my pass/no pass grading system, type out a list of the different websites I pull resources from, and I'm bringing in our file folder games.

I'm hoping that they will view all of the above, as the different methods I have tried to help my son succeed. I am also making a chart, listing my concerns and how they impact him in different educational areas. My goal is to provide the school with a copy of my chart, and to remind myself of things I want to address. I can post the blank chart here also, for anyone interested. The psychologist informed me that, at this meeting the SST members will determine whether or not to proceed with evaluation, based on the information I provide. Maybe I'm being a bit excessive, but you can't take chances when it comes to your child's success :)

Learning Disabilities, or Learning Abled?

The more time I spend teaching my children, the more I've begun to notice things. I always had my suspicions, and I always do plenty of research before jumping to conclusions. I never diagnose my own kids either, and I always seek a medical opinion (or 5 lol). Even with the diagnosis' we have on our kids, I prefer to think of them as learning abled, rather than learning disabled. My children are just a different type of learners, and that's how I try my best to teach them.

I believe my soon to be 7 year old has dyslexia. Dyslexia runs in my husbands family, so I know that makes my sons chances of having it go higher. And I don't really understand the correlation, but there's a lot of left handed in his family also. But the red flag for me, is the difficulties my son has reading and writing. He has a hard time with the sounds letters make, differentiating between wh words (who, what, why, when, where), rhyming, memorization, and patterns.

I have a stack of papers on my desk about dyslexia, recommended reading books, and excerpts about disability laws. I'm going to be going through these papers and books, and trying to piece together the best way to teach my son. I have reached out and contacted a few people/organizations and am still deciding what to do with this. Testing for dyslexia is pretty costly around here, so I'm going to try to go through our school district. I know the district won't provide services though, so that's the part I'm trying to figure out. I'm off to read about Idea and section 504, and see what it means to us.