Exactly.............Right on! Jackie, if your daughter wasn't doing well with her current accomondations, and you wanted CART b/c she could do better we would be behind you 100%. So you're involved with your daughter's education........so what? Most parents SHOULD be involved with their kids' educations. She is doing FINE with the notetaking and the normal parental involvment. She's even doing fine compared to HEARING kids. Why does she need an accomondation that won't even help her improve her grades?
And jillo is 100% right. Oral-only advocates imply that kids don't need as much accomondations. If that's true, then how come you feel she needs this accomondation? And why such an expensive accomondation? Why not just have the teacher change seating arrangements? That could really help just as much, b/c then she could follow the discussions easier. .
Because her grades are good she should continue to struggle understanding what's going on when someone speaks softly. OOoKKKK.
The thing about seating arrangements is there are always those kids you can't understand unless they sit right next to you. In Hs kids don't really like to have seating arrangements and many of the teachers don't either. At least that was my experience.
Oh and I find that VERY offensive that you suggest that my friends do not know how to get accomondations. Accomondations and advocates are all well and good, but trust me..........it is NO match for teachers (including so called sped teachers) who have NO clue about how to educate kids like us. It is no match for sped programs where the unspoken attitude is that if wittle Smashlie can't acheive with minimal accomondations, they're never going to college or anything like that. If your daughter didn't get such good grades, I think you'd experiance a completly different mentality. The attitude is that if you can't acheive with generic accomondations you're never going to get anywhere. Trust me...............I know. .
I didn't say they don't know how to get accomodations, I'm saying if they can't get what is appropriate for their child and they really think it is appropriate rather then complain they should begin using the system established to get the accomodation that is appropriate for their child, or quit complaining. Usually things turn around when you begin to ask for things like rejection in writing. But if you know that something would help the child are you willing like Jackie to try to change the status quo by filing due process? Are your friends?
I live in a small school district, I knew all the kids in sped. My youngest was the only one in the school for a couple years with significant delays who was mostly contained and only mainstreamed in the classes like art, music etc, but all breaks and play time were with her peers and she wasn't treated like ar 'retard', even tho she is mentally retarded. I will agree that the staff was more of a problem with her. But the point is my daugter who's hoh/deaf would have still been treated like she was regardless. And alot of it was her attitude.
And jag, no that's not how government thinks. I mean god our government is the type of government that takes away welfare benifits b/c of a few "urban legend" welfare queens. If they hear about Jackie the thinking is that "Oh all sped kids are just trying to work the system to get advantages. They can learn with just minimal accomondations. Anything else is just a case of yuppie overacheiver parents trying to make sure wittle Smashlie gets into Harvard. " Hey, that attidue is rampent with ADD kids.
There are welfare queens. I don't come here to discuss my opinion of people like the young mom with 2 kids who was taking classes to be a photographer (easy classes btw) who was given money for day care so she could attend school, who never showed up for school because she was tired or whatever and who somehow while not having any money and needing my tax money to go to school and pay her rent has the money to go to FL and take her kids to disney during the school year when she's supposed to be attending classes. While my kids attend classes they had to work to pay for? Nope this isn't the place for that discussion. BTW, studies done have shown that the kids of the moms who went to work actually are doing better then those who's moms are still on welfare 10 yrs after the 'reform' that was to get them off their butts and into the workforce.
Oh and Harvard is sooooo overrated, but if someone wants to overpay to get Smashie into Harvard let them, it's their money. But in a public school if you can get better accomodations or are willing to go for it, good luck I hope you win and change things for those coming behind you. My youngest would have had to go to a school about 20 miles from her rather then in her home district if people had not been willing to fight the status quo. <let me add this, we have a neighbor who's severely disabled daughter was my 29 yo's age, so we're talking early 80's, they decided that the school in the county seat wasn't the correct place for her when she could travel 20 mile instead of 35 or so to the larger city who's school system had been taking kids like her for years. In the end they won their transfer out of this county but I believe they ended up paying for transportation at first. That to had to be changed and has changed. Without parents running into the obsticles and getting changes things will stay the same>
Yes there are some accomodations that seem excessive (like the hiring of a nurse for one child) but in the end the kid needs to go somewhere and his parents were willing to fight to keep him with his peers where he would have gone if he hadn't had medical problems. If Jackie can win her due process then things can begin to gradually change for kids who do better but could still use some accomodation.
