It Was Nice of the School to Offer.
Today I had a meeting at Dylan’s public high school, to see what we need to do in order to have him succeed in 9th grade. This is assuming that he passes 8th grade, which he seems to be on track to do.
The man with whom I met is designated on the school website as “RTSE.” I haven’t the slightest idea what that means, except that “SE” sounds like “Special Education” to me. After emailing a number of random people, this is the man who got in touch.
He is wonderful.
He introduced me to Dylan’s possible future guidance counselor, who was also wonderful (but stayed only briefly). We talked about Algebra I and Physics, and how to make sure the credits transfer from private school. We talked about the requirements for high school graduation, and what’s expected if we’re looking for a four-year university. We talked about the variety of math options for Dylan, whose struggles do seem somehow centered in math class – now that he mentioned it.
We put together a service plan which, surprisingly, designates that we are allowed to have Dylan attend one public school period per day, should we choose to follow that path.
I imagined, quite briefly, driving Dylan 45 minutes to school, driving 45 minutes home, taking Shane to school, then driving back up to Dylan’s school, bringing him back (another 45 minutes) to his public school, letting him work for one period at that school, then driving him 45 minutes back to his own school – then just sitting there for an hour while Dylan finishes his day at the private school, then driving him home.
It took longer to type the scenario than it did to deny it emphatically in my head.
But it was nice of the school to offer (as required by state law, apparently).
So we set up a plan, and we talked about registration options, and we looked a bit at Dylan’s old plan and his test scores and discussed the foreign language options in his case.
My job now – which is so funny, because I am already on it – is to contact them in January about how and when to register Dylan officially for 9th grade. And – my favorite thing! – to find out which colleges accept sign language as a foreign language requirement.
Given that he has an IEP, I learned today, Dylan doesn’t have to take any foreign language requirement – something that would have been nice to know when I was arguing with the school over the Spanish requirement at his current school.
Dylan, by the way, is getting an A in Spanish, in spite of the fact that he doesn’t know one single word in Spanish after two months.
Anyway, some of the class options for graduation are theater, piano, chorus, horticulture, forensics… I can hardly wait to see a full class description booklet. Dylan’s going to have a blast in high school.
Well, except that it will still be school.