School Changes

For many months now I have dwelled on what school option would be best for Gwyneth: public, private, or home school.  At the end of Kindergarten in the public school last year, something seemed to be changing in her emotionally. She was having a lot of frustrated outbursts and didn't seem to be enjoying school anymore. She was acting out at times in school and also at home. I started to question if it was the right environment for her. Her learning seemed to stop and she made no progress on her academic goals through the spring.

Her school day was fairly chaotic with moving back and forth during the day from the Special Education homeroom to the General Ed Kindergarten, and being pulled out of class for various therapies. I think it was overwhelming for her to have such a random day. Also, I think she was noticing that she was somehow different from the "typical" Kindergarten kids. She was just a visitor to their class and not an equal member or someone that they could become friends with. She didn't eat lunch with them or go to recess with them. She was with them a couple times a week for Art or Music or PE as long as the schedule didn't conflict for her separate therapy sessions (Speech or OT or PT).

We knew she would need to repeat her Kindergarten year. I looked into a few private schools for her, but only one of the three would accept her as a student. The others explained that they would not have the resources available to accommodate her needs. Specifically, her needs include extra help with potty time and clothing, learning to write, draw, and cut, and extra time or modifications on school work. The very small private school that was willing to take her did not end up with enough Kindergarten age students signing up to form a younger class (and even if they had it would have been a struggle financially for us to afford that school.)

Over the summer I did a lot of research about her learning style and how Down syndrome would affect her accomplishments in Kindergarten subjects. I tried out some homeschooling and "unschooling" days and it seemed to go really well. She also seemed to come back to her generally happy self during the two summer months away from public school.

In July, we met with administrators, teachers, and therapists at the public school to talk about changing the school day for Gwyneth to include her more in Gen Ed. We were met with some resistance, but many of our requests were put into Gwyn's new IEP (Individual Education Plan). So on August 4, she started the new Kindergarten year. I went to the school to shadow her on two different days and observed some positive and some negative things. We had pushed for her to be included in the morning routine, recess, and lunch time with the regular Kindergarten class, and those were all positive changes for her. But she was still missing time in Kindergarten to be shuffled to other therapies or to the Special Ed room. I know that the school was really trying to do the best for Gwyn, but overall I still felt like she wasn't getting the right kind of instruction or schedule to benefit her learning. Also, some of her behavior problems from last spring were popping up again even in the first week of school. She was getting less sleep, acting more defiant and irritable, and wasn't communicating as well.

We made our final decision and withdrew Gwyneth from the school and began our "home study program" last week. The plan is that we will meet with the public school again in March to discuss the 2015-2016 school year and see what we can all agree on. In the meantime, I will work with her on her Kindergarten IEP goals and our schedule will be more flexible, allowing us to do outside therapies and activities. Ryker is in preschool 3 days a week so I have some time to focus on her academic goals on those days.

Here is our general home school weekly plan with activities:

Monday - Montessori/project-based learning

Tuesday - Reading/writing/math etc.

   - Story time at the library

   - Horseback riding lesson

Wednesday - Speech therapy

   - Occupational therapy

Thursday - Reading/writing/math etc.

Friday - Gymnastics class

   - Fine motor fun day

There are also two different nature-based science classes for young kids that we will try to sign up for that will take place in Oct/Nov/Dec. One is through the parks & rec department and the other is at a home school enrichment center. I'll try to keep up with my blog posts to document the fun we have and progress we make with home schooling!