Do you and your family move around a lot because of your job or because you are in the service? Do your kids have issues such as Aspergers Syndrome or Bipolar Disorder? In either case you have most likely found yourself pulling your kids out of one school and into another more often than you’d like to think about. You have found not all schools and teachers are created equal. Some are good and some are not so good. You have to keep very close eye to make sure your children are keeping up to their grade level so they’ll be able to move on to college and into adult life. This is the School Rollercoaster.
Most children have a set path. They start in preschool or kindergarten, move through grade school, on into middle school, and finish with high school before going on to college. They and their parents get to know the other families as they spend up to 14 years with them. They know what is being taught at the school and where their kids are going.
But unlike them the children on the school rollercoaster can slip back sometimes unnoticed into lower grade levels based on what they are being taught in the different schools they attend.
My son Max is 8 years old. Like other children his age he is in grade 3 this year. Unlike the other kids his education has not only moved progressively but also regressively. This has been a source of frustration for us because he is very smart. And it is even more frustrating for him when he finds he is being taught things he learned years before.
Preschool was the second school he was in; he started in a special needs school to help him with his motor skills. But preschool he loved; they played a lot and learned much more than how to count and say the alphabet. They covered most of the things that other children learn in kindergarten.
Kindergarten was more progressive as well. The teacher had been responsible for setting up programs for special needs kids in the district. This was a good thing because when Max was 5 his disabilities became more pronounced. She knew exactly what to do. She brought my wife and I in to create an IEP (Individualized Education Program). In those days we really knew nothing about them and she helped us through it.
She also believed in stretching the kids mentally. Max was learning first grade work that year. He knew how to add and subtract even before going into the next grade. She was the first to point out to us how intelligent he is (as if we didn’t know).
We will always be grateful Max started his schooling with her. Just the education alone would help him through the first grade; that year he was in 5 different schools, all with different ways of teaching:
- When he was promoted to the first grade we found that Max’s teacher had never taught before. Not only that she had not received any special needs training. The instruction he got was the exact same as in kindergarten. He was 6 and that year he was diagnosed with adhd, bipolar disorder, pdd or aspergers (the diagnosis changes depending on the psychiatrist), odd, ocd, and whatever else they could think of.
- He became completely uncontrollable and by Christmas was in a hospital. For the 8 days he was there they provided some form of education. Considering what he experienced I’m surprised he got any teaching at all.
- When he came out his former school did not want to deal with him so they sent him to a special needs school about an hour away for evaluation. During the testing they tried to determine how he would blend in with the other students. His course of study was on a first and second grade level.
- During the evaluation phase he again entered a hospital. For the next two weeks he became part of a one room school house type of environment. The program covered classes on the first through fifth grade levels so Max learned whatever they gave him.
- When he left the hospital he found himself back in the special school. They had determined that he should be moved up a grade level. So from April of that year through the following year when he was 7 he would be in grade 2. The school followed the second grade curriculum.
Third grade was another step back for Max. The teacher was yet another brand new one. Like his first grade teacher this one had just graduated from school and she didn’t have any special needs experience. We discovered that he was being taught all of the same things he learned back in second grade. Not only was he repeating the grade but he wasn’t learning anything new. The only good side was that the teacher realized that his reading abilities were beyond what she was teaching so he was placed in the fifth grade reading class.
We didn’t take this year lightly. We knew that he would be far behind other kids his age if things didn’t change. We discussed our concerns with the school principal and the guidance counselor. The week before February school vacation they informed us that when he came back to school he would be starting fifth grade. Why the big jump? Because this teacher has a lot of years teaching experience and she has her masters degree in special education. She teaches both the fourth and fifth grade levels so Max really wouldn’t be jumping two grades, only 1; and most important she has already knows Max from his fifth grade reading class.
This doesn’t mean he’ll be going into sixth grade next year. He will continue with this teacher at least one more year. But we will be able to breathe a little easier knowing that he is getting the education he needs.
The point of this story is that if we hadn’t kept track of what was happening Max would still be behind. It is not enough to assume that the schools are going to provide the right education you have to make sure. And lately if you’ve been watching the news you know that people that move around a lot or have special needs children are not the only ones that must stay alert; everyone has to. Schools are now firing their teaching staffs for poor quality performance. It started in Rhode Island and will be moving across the country. Just yesterday the government announced that it will be establishing countrywide educational standards.
Not just teachers but we, as parents, all need to make sure our kids are learning what they need to.
I haven’t even mentioned what the school rollercoaster does to our kids. The constant moves have been tough enough on Max as it is; but he also keeps losing the teachers he really likes. This has been very upsetting for him. On the positive side this most recent move will not only bring his grade level back up but he loves his new teacher.
For kids like Max this might not be their last move but if we keep track of what is going on we can attempt to make the moves less traumatic for them and be sure they are progressing as they should.
