IEP, Public School and Home School

So today was the IEP meeting for Chenoa and Hunter. Both of which do attend Public school right now. At this point i am home schooling Cherokee & Shawnee, who are both in 7th grade. Chenoa will join the home school bunch at the end of this year when she enters her 7th grade year. There are various reason that I have chosen to do things this way. The main reason being, I need to be able to transition into having more in the home school class. Anyways, today was the yearly IEP meeting for Chenoa and Hunter. To see what progress they have made in the public school system, etc. Can't say that I am impressed by any means. In the grand scheme of things, they are doing "okay" but I feel they would benefit more from home school. Mainly due to the fact that with home school, they would get the one on one instruction that they desperately need. As well as the fact that they would learn at their own pace. Chenoa is doing much better than Hunter is at this point. She is bringing in A's and B's. Which in itself is remarkable given the fact she is 95% deaf, and she gets no special aids to help her in that department. I have always been of the mind that A). Yes she is hearing impaired. B). She does require more patience and understanding, as well as some additional help. However, I chose to raise her no differently than my other children. For the simple fact that I don't want her to use her disability as an excuse, or a "crutch". I think that because of the way I have raised her thus far, she is more adjusted and more aware of her surroundings as a result. She knows she is legally deaf. But she doesn't use it as a means to slack off or get what she wants. She doesn't use her disability as an excuse. Chenoa was born at 31 weeks. She weighed in at 3lbs and was 15 inches long. She didn't cry until she was 6-8 months old. Up until that age, all she had was what sounded like a weak newborn kitten mew. She didn't roll over until she was a year old. She didn't meet the normal milestones that other babies meet. She was delayed due to her premature birth. She held her head up when she was 11 months old, and walked at 24 months. Her delay in walking was not due to just her premature birth. She also had a congenital birth defect that affects her hips, femurs and tibial bones.  At the age of 6, she finally had surgery on the femur and tibia that were the worst out of the two. She was in a hip to toe cast for 4 months. The surgeon was shocked at the amount of damage to her femur and tibia on that leg. He said that had the surgery been done when she was just a few months old, it wouldn't have been near as bad. She has a 8 inch incision scar on that leg. As well as plates, screws and pins. She will always have to be very careful with impact sports and even normal running or jumping. Despite these issues, you would never know that she was a 31 week preemie, unless I told you her story. At 12 yrs old she is healthy and vibrant.

Now for Hunter, he isn't doing as well in school. He has moderate to severe dyslexia, ADHD and ODD.  He is constantly bullied at school because of his dyslexia. I can't count how many times Daniel and I have had to go up and talk to the principal about this. It is horrible to be called "retard", "stupid" and other derogatory terms. He used to love school, but has come to dread it. The last conversation that I had with the school about this, was not a good one. I was livid. Fuming, t-total ****** off. When I got to the school, the principal refused to even speak to me. Until I stopped being polite and got rude. I had no choice but to cause a "scene". I stopped speaking in a low, polite voice and got rude and loud. I stated that as principal it is his JOB to talk to concerned parents, and that he is going to do his darn job whether he likes it or not. Needless to say, he chose to speak to me at that point. Hunter has 3 F's at this point and that shouldn't be happening IF the IEP is being followed. As it turns out, the teacher was grading him on the normal standard scale instead of the IEP scale. She has since started using the IEP modified scale. I told Daniel and Hunter's teacher that if this continued, I would pull him from public school early, and home school him so that I could make sure he was getting the one on one instruction that his IEP mandates he have. The school didn't like that much. Considering they want as many students enrolled as possible, because the more they have enrolled...the more money they get.   And right now, that factor is very important to them since the funding they wanted, was lost and went to home school programs instead.

Irregardless, the meeting was pretty uneventful in my opinion. Pretty darn boring. I wasn't impressed. I taught 2nd grade for a time, so I know how stressed and overworked the teachers are. They have 20-28 students and are spread thin as can be. It's hard being a teacher. You get little pay for a lot of work.