Well we are gonna homeschool.(Rant warning)

[kdddav'swife]

Hubby and I went to a staff meeting last Thursday. All this school year my youngest daughter, who is severely autistic, has had an intense fear of getting on the bus. She would scream in terror while holding her hands over her ears. the behavioral therapists actually came out to our home to see if they could get her on the bus. They did all the things that I tried to get her to board the bus. They too failed.In total she has been to school for about six weeks this school year.

During the staff meeting we were basically told that we were "encouraging" said daughter to stay home.They kept telling us that we need to "force the issue" with her to get her on the bus. They believe that she is screaming to "get her way" She is a nonverbal autistic.

We were presented with a list of things they are going to "try" with approval they got from her pediatrician (we did give them permission to talk to him.) Our daughter does self injurous behavior when she is stressed. She picks at her arms and draws blood. She now has many scars on her arms from where she picked at them. Since she has been home with us she has stopped picking at them and her arms have healed. We told the staff that she does this more when we try to force her to get on the bus. In fact at one point her self inflicted wounds got really infected and she had to take antibiotics.

The school staff told us to try putting her in gloves and long sleeves. We have ALREADY tried that and IT DID NOT WORK! My child is autistic not stupid. She knows how to remove such things.
Not to mention the fact that this is Florida and I am NOT going to make her wear long sleeves in warm weather.

My husband kdddav found out that here 30 days notice is required when you decide to start homeschooling. So he will call today to try and find out about submitting our written intent to homeschool. We have had it with the school here. They have basically ignored our initial request that she be exempted from school for the remainder of the school year. That btw is perfectly legal for the school superintendent to do and the exemption would only be good until the end of the school year. We requested this because we wanted to give her a break from all the stress this has caused her to experience.

I guess we are gearing up for more trouble from them, but I am sick of dealing with people who think that they know my child better than we do. Last year her teachers wanted us to make her wear panties all the time at home as well as send her on a 45 minute bus ride with no toilet to school wearing panties ( this was before she became so afraid to get on the bus. She wears Depend like garments when we go out Changes in routine can cause her to develope new fears among other things.)They refused to listen when we explained WHY we did not want to do that They kept saying "We want what is best for ______________"

My husband and I both think that what they really want is the money that a special needs child like ours brings in when they figure their budget.

[Frustrated]

I would suggest you to contact Homeschool Association where they can give you advice on how to get document proof so they can't claim "Educational Neglect". Maybe try get a tutor to come to your home and teach your child. or just document everything to be sure she has been schooled at home. You have the Right to make decisions whether you want to homeschool or not. They can't take that Right away from you.
Sure they will come and torture you making more allegations or even force you into it. Be sure you have all the resources to back it up. Contact the Family Homeschool Association, they will help you out.

[kdddav'swife]

We have already been accepted by the Home school Legal Defense Association. We are learning about the record keeping thing and are currently looking for an appropriate curriculum for a low functioning autistic. We would rather teach her ourselves than have a tutor which we cannot afford anyway. Our mobile home is a definite fixer-upper and it still needs quite a few repairs that my husband can no longer do because of his disability. I am learning to fix some things but it is a slow process. We are just afraid that if we start letting too many of these people in our home he way it is currently we might get reported again. I know that CPS is supposed to "offer" services like home repair or relocation but we do not want help that kind of help.

[Momoffor]

I am at a loss to help suggest things for you to try with her. My son wasnt that bad. He is high fucntioning autistic so Im out of my league on this one.

By law however, the school still has to give your daughter the special needs services that she needs,...AKA speech ect. even if she is not attending the school. Perhaps you could look into driving her to school however many days a week it is for speech and then just wait for her to be done? Thats what I did for my son when he was in private school. Its usually only about 30 min-1 hour a few days a week, depending on the IEP

I guess I should feel lucky that everytime I have made a stink and a stand against the school and what was going on they never reported me, but I would get my way.
But at the time we lived in Chicago and there were much bigger fish to fry for them there. Plus everyone there knew the schools were screwed, and the school that my kids were bused to was in the projects ..(We lived in military housing and part of the diversity there was to spread out the federal kids dollars all over the place...yay for diversity and yay for my kids going to school amoungst drug dealers and shoot outs).

[kdddav'swife]

We live near a small town that is nearly an hour away from her school. We wanted to get her moved to one of our local schools that are much closer but we are told that hers is the closest one for grade school age children. We tried for a mackay scholarship to get her to the only other public school in the county with a program for autistic children and were told no. We let it go when we found out that she was getting a new teacher since at that time our main problem was with her ex teacher. I actually liked the teacher she had while she was in school this year. I am at a loss to explain why she is so fearfull of the bus this year when she never was before. She would just clamp her hands over her ears. I believe it is sensory related and that is why I did want them to try headphones.

She is already getting private therapy thanks to her medicaid 3x a week. PT, OT and ST.

[fightingfor3]

This is a wonderful site: http://conductdisorders.com It helped me tremendously with my daughter who has bipolar. Do you have an IEP? Some parents have been able to have the schools pay for tutors ect. It is the school's responsibility to provide the education, an IEP secures her rights to that education as well as the accommodations needed to obtain it.

[LindaJM]

I homeschooled my daughter who had similar problems, and who had bus issues. Homeschooling took a lot of the pressure off our family and made everyone happy for a long time.

Linda

[kdddav'swife]

fightingfor3. She DID have an IEP but we had it canceled after the last staff meeting went so badly with them telling us that they were going to "force the issue" of her getting on the bus while screaming in terror. Since before we officially began to home school she has been receiving private therapy. She is now starting to learn to read simple words which she never did at school.

[Bridgette]

My nephew was in the same perdicament he was bused for over an hour with normal kids and he is very noise sensitive he will scream and cry if something is to loud. Now my mom moved to a different school system and she drives him to school everyday. But she went to walmart and found a pair head phones in the archery section which is really good you can barley hear with them on. Hope this helps god bless and goodluck

[kdddav'swife]

I went to Walmart today and priced the headphones in the sporting goods section. The more expensive lighter weight headphones were about $14. I will be getting her some pretty soon.