Two weeks ago, AJ was drawing on a notepad with flowers lightly printed on the paper. I said, "Oh! are you drawing a beautiful Garden?"
She said, "No, I'm drawing kinder"garden" because kinder"garden" is beautiful!
Wow, what pressure...to find her a beautiful kindergarten...here is the journey...
We want her to stay at the school she is in now...Oakwood, where she participates in the ese pre-K program. We have applied twice for first, a choice seat (denied) then a zoning exemption which is only for 1 year and you have to reapply each year (denied). Now I am appealing the denials but I realize I need to also explore my other options.I want her to stay at Oakwood because there is a multi-age class right next to her pre=K clasroom. The teacher is excellent and if A.J. were to be in that class she would have the same teacher for 3 years and be in the same environment. She does much better when she is not faced by change...which is pretty standard for kids on the spectrum. If we are denied again... the school we are zoned right down the street is an "A" school, but so is the crap elementary school I went to. I am afraid she will get lost in a large overcrowded classroom of overwhelming kids. I want A.J. to be in a calm environment where she can learn and not be sad. Thats all I want. I guess that is a lot.
Soooo.....in the interest of exploring options should we be denied Oakwood, rather than just accepting the school down the street (who won't give me a tour.) I went to visit Brently school today. Let me tell you about Brently. I have heard about it around town, it is one of the best little private schools. BUT last summer I talked to the parents of a child, Neil, who was in A.J.' class and who is on the spectrum, (now he is in kindergarten). They said that Brently turned Neil away because he wasn't "independent enough". I was furious that they would turn him away. He is remarkably gifted, sweet and such a wonderful little boy. It was nothing short of scary to me that Brently would deem him not good enough for their school. I had actually called Brently for a tour right before this conversation with Niel's parents. When Oakwood called me to set up the tour, I told them that I had just heard that they don't take kids on the spectrum so thanks but no thanks and hung up on him. That was last summer.
Now here I am...taking the tour this morning and there were flowers all over the window to the kindergarten classroom making it look like a kinder"garden".
I know that I should boycott their school. But....but...I can't bare for A.J. to end up in a regular kindergarten class where she will get lost in the shuffle. If she ends up at the school down the street, then she will need an aid, maybe. I do and don't want her to have an aid. I want her to have one so that she can be helped. I don't want her to have an aid because I don't want her to feel like she is different from the kids and that she can't take care of herself. I was hoping that Brently would be a good alternative.
Brently will accept take A.J. in their school as she is so much improved these days. I think that at Brently she would be OK without an aid because the classroom environment was so calm and positive. But then again, I don't know if I can bare to send her to the school that turned away a smart and sweet boy on the spectrum. Neil needs an aid and doesn't communicate verbally. But I strongly feel like there should be a way to provide him an aid at this Brently. I think that private schools should be legally bound to provide the same help to kids with disabilities, that the public schools are legally bound to provide. It should not be legal to discriminate "privately" Tuition here is $5450 a year. They can get an aid.
Oh, what to do.
I did look into a Montessouri school but they were full. I wrote an email pretty much pleading with them to take A.J. and they didn't answer it. I will post the email below.
me.
Dear Bridgett,
I am writing to you because I have heard wonderful things about your school and I want to introduce my child to you. A.J. is 5 and is currently in an ESE pre-K class at Oakwood Elementary. This is her second year of pre-K there and she will be going into kindergarten in the fall. Because she has been there for two years I applied for, first a choice seat then a zoning exemption for her to say there. I was interested in the multi age class that is offered, but now that we have been denied twice we are looking at other options.
Our options are not bad. We are zoned for DK Langly, which I'm told is an excellent school and is about a 2 minute walk for us, but I have decided to apply for a McKay scholarship for A.J., and let me tell you why...
When A.J. was born she was amazing. She liked to look at pictures on the wall at 3 days old and strangers would tell me that I had a "remarkable baby" People would say that "She just looks so intelligent, you can see it in her eyes." Avery went on to know her letters, letter sounds and numbers by 14 months and would say them for people who would look at her in shock. A.J. had a photographic memory and from doing a United States puzzle a few times, memorized all of the states and some of their capitals. At age 2, she started to go into her own little world, as you have probably guessed, the world of autism. But through intense early intervention, she is now 5 and most people can not even tell she is on the spectrum at all. She has friends and her classmates yell, "A.J.'s here!" and run up to her when she walks in the door.
She is in the ESE class but did not qualify for it. When she took the aptitude test she scored as average and above average for her age level and I was flat out told she did not qualify for special ed. Since she did not qualify for services, I needed the autism diagnoses to get her the services, and so she was granted them. The therapy helped to "bring her out of her world and into ours." She is a very very smart little girl. The autism is very mild, she is lucky in that sense. The only "problem" the autism presents now is that it makes it hard for her to express herself easily. She still talks a lot and holds conversations and even makes eye contact. She understands completely, others feelings and facial expressions. But she will not yell or argue. She is passive and sometimes it takes a few moments for her to "process" a request before she fulfills it. This processing time takes a while because she has so much going on in her head. Sometimes it is like trying to get the attention of someone who is typing an email. You just have to wait for a sec. She does not required extra attention and does not need extra help.
I want Avery to be in a school with a small classroom size. I want her around children who are intelligent and kind like she is, and I want her to be able to fit in with her eccentricities. She loves to sing and play her keyboard. She draws elaborate pictures for hours and tells me wonderful stories when I ask her about them. Today at the park she drew pictures in the sand and exclaimed, "Look Mom, Angels are hiding in the sand!" Kiwi fruit are called "fireworks" and clouds are many different wonderful creatures and animals.
I wanted to try the multi age class at Oakwood, but now that we have been denied twice, and I will have to change schools, I realize that I don't want her to get lost in a huge classroom where she will not be noticed. She is such a good and smart little girl that she could just float about a class all day without being spoken to by a teacher and she wouldn't have a problem with it. I don't want her to go unnoticed or unchallenged. I think that A.J. would be a wonderful fit for Sun Montessori. I am working on the McKay scholarship and would be such a happy and grateful parent if you as a school would be able to have A.J. as one of your own and embrace her for who she is. Avery loves to learn, but she has a lot to teach also.
Thank you for taking the time to read this email.
Shena Hays, mom to Avery Jane Hays.
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