Junior has had a lot of moves in his short life. He had numerous foster families before we found each other. He had three different schools between kindergarten and 1st grade. We've moved twice in the last year as a family. We were looking forward to him finally having continuity for the first time. We bought a house to be closer to his school.
The school year was not easy for Junior. We had an IEP that worked in Colorado. Seattle was unable to provide the same supports he had there.We saw a great deal of regression in his behavior at school and some pretty severe PTSD episodes. At home and in karate he was a different person. I dreaded answering the phone whenever I saw the school was calling.
Unfortunately after a lot of soul searching we admitted we needed to find a new school. We made the difficult decision to enroll Junior in a Montessori based private school. It has much smaller class sizes, allows kids to work at their pace on topics that interest them and incorporates frequent movement breaks.
I never thought I would send my kids to private school; Dave & I both went to public schools, our parents were teachers, I was a teacher. If Junior had been able to get the supports he needed we wouldn't be making this change. There are no guarantees he will do better here, but we can't have another school year like last year and this gives us a chance for success. Fingers crossed we have made the right decision.
3 comments:
Cool. I suspect you've made a great decision. I can't speak from experience, but based on what I understand about Montessori schools, perhaps all children should be enrolled in Montessori programs, at least for some portion of their schooling. Let everyone be original, different, special, and authentic. Let children explore and follow their interests.
Your commitment and trying what may or may not work is alwaysadmirable!!!
Brace yourself. Hope for the best.
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