Applying to a private school is like shining an enormous spotlight on the problems with public school.
it is summer, and I don’t expect much from public school staff. But I need two completed teacher recommendation forms, and a transcript mailed to the private school. So I took all of the appropriate paperwork to the school and asked around to see what I could do.
The sole staff person on front office duty is a friendly, hardworking woman who gets paid nowhere near enough to do all she does. I realized this while I was talking to her, but it didn’t make her answers any easier to swallow.
“I need two teacher recommendations,” I said. “But since it’s summer, I have a list of ten teachers we might try to contact.”
“The teachers aren’t here,” she said. “It’s summer.”
“I know,” I said, “but I was hoping you could still contact them and see if there’s anything they could do. It should only take a minute to fill out the form.”
“Well, we can’t do that,” she said. “They are all on vacation. I guess you could email them.”
“Don’t you think they would respond more quickly if the email came from the school?” I asked.
“Oh no,” she said, as if the school has no influence whatsoever on the teachers. She fingered the neon green papers in my hand. “And I don’t know how you would get them these forms,” she added. “I guess you could come back in the third week of August.”
“But that’s too late for the application,” I said, whining a bit.
“Sorry,” she said, shrugging and smiling at me.
“Right,” I said, giving up. “So I will email the teachers and hope someone responds, and then I will try to figure out how to get these forms to them.”
“Okay,” she said, clearly pleased that I understood her utter helplessness.
“I also need a transcript mailed to the school,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, sighing. “That will cost $3.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And you will have to have that done through the counseling office.”
I went into the counseling office.
In the counseling office, I found another tremendously underpaid hardworking staff member, with the neatest, most organized desk I’d ever seen. She smiled at me as I explained my plight.
“It won’t go out until next week,” she said, disappointed in herself that she couldn’t do it more quickly. (More quickly, by the way, would have been mailing it within an hour of my request.)
This woman obviously had more power and ability to help than the other one. I gave her $3 for the transcript and said, as an afterthought, “And I just have to find two teachers in the middle of the summer who will answer emails.”
She looked at my list of teachers. “Oh, she lives in the neighborhood,” she said. “I could call her today. And he is easy to reach. Do you want me to get these to the teachers for you?”
I almost fell over with gratitude.
“That would be awesome,” I told her, giving her the forms and my contact information while thanking her profusely.
Then I headed out, thanking God and the great staffer for their hard work on our behalf, and went home to fill out Dylan’s application.
Now that it is summer, Dylan stays up very late. We’ve taken away his bedtime rule, allowing him to stay up as long as he likes. Bill and I often go to bed before Dylan now.
Shane, meanwhile, goes to bed at 9:00. If it’s a late evening for some reason, he doesn’t go to bed until 10:00. It doesn’t matter, though, because Shane wakes up at about 7:00 every, single day. Then he sits there, alone, reading, practicing magic tricks, and listening to Adventures in Odyssey – sometimes for two hours, before considering breakfast.
Shane adores this alone time.
But sometimes, I think, he doesn’t.
Yesterday, we were planning to take Shane along to do something that Dylan had to do. Shane’s job would have been to sit, for two hours, and wait.
“Do we have anything else to do tomorrow?” Shane asked.
“Well, Dylan has church,” I told him. Dylan’s youth group meets on Wednesday nights – and this week, they are watching a movie.
“Can I go?” Shane asked.
“Sorry,” I said, “it’s only for middle school kids. So, are you going to be okay sitting there for two hours tomorrow afternoon? You can bring a book or something.”
Shane nodded, not in a despairing way. But I caught a glimpse of something I hadn’t noticed before. He nodded … with some anxiety that I might notice his disappointment.
Shane didn’t want me to be angry that he didn’t want to sit there for two hours. So he gulped and nodded and I saw just a flicker of sadness.
When you’re a mom, you can see these things, clear as day, right in your child’s eyes.
I always wondered how my mom knew things that she couldn’t possibly have known – when I ate a cookie, for example, if she wasn’t even in the house when I did it. But she knew.
And now it’s so obvious. I just know.
So I picked up the phone and called my dad, who is the greatest grandfather in the whole world.
“Shane doesn’t have anybody to play with tomorrow,” I said.
“Well, I don’t have anyone to play with tomorrow either,” he said.
So Shane gets some time with Grandad now, instead of spending two hours just sitting there, waiting for Dylan.
And this evening, when Dylan is at church, watching a movie with his youth group, I plan on watching a movie, too, with Shane.
Sometimes I have to see past the acquiescence, and give him something really special: time.
My husband, Bill, is not excited about private school. He doesn’t talk about how wonderful it is, that we’ve finally found a place for Dylan to succeed. He doesn’t wake up every morning relieved, or excited, or even somewhat content.
He says things like, “You have to teach him to deal with the problem, not remove the problem completely.”
The problem to which he refers, of course, is public middle school.
“I totally disagree,” I say, continuing to research the school, the administration, the teachers and the Quakers – just so we can be as prepared as possible, should Dylan be accepted.
Bill is worried about the money. He is only worried about the money. With all that worry, there is no room for excitement.
It is, after all, a lot of money. And we don’t have a lot of money.
“We might be able to do it for one year,” he says. “But if he wants to go to private school all the way through high school, we just can’t afford it!”
“Why don’t we do this one year at a time?” I say. We might be eligible for financial aid next year. There are a handful of private high school scholarships, too.
Plus, maybe I will actually work enough to pay the tuition for Dylan.
I have recently been cleared to work in – ironically – the public school system, as a home and hospital teacher. I can make reasonable money, if I actually start teaching. It’s just that, so far, I haven’t taught anyone.
The public school system kind of forgot about me, and I didn’t call to remind them that I am available. But now… I have an opportunity and a reason to teach!
I do find it to be incredibly ironic, though, that I’ll be teaching for the public school system in order to pay for my son’s private school tuition.
And – oh yes – we have to wait and see if he’s accepted. Then we can panic.
We have found the school for Dylan.
We drove into the middle of nowhere to find this school. We went through miles and miles of farms and fields with birds drifting overhead. After about 45 minutes, we turned into the driveway of the school.
As I got out of the car and stepped into the quiet, Shane asked if he should take a book. (Shane came along for the tour.) I said almost without thinking, “You can come back and get it out of the car if you need it. We don’t need to lock the car here.”
It felt safe.
While there were no kids to meet, and only two adults to greet us, we gathered a lot of information from the grounds. The welcome sign said, “Seek and Speak Truth and Love.” The 54 acres showcased an enormous soccer field, a garden area, two tether ball poles (my kids’ favorite) and woods with a small stream running through. The small campus included only two major buildings – one for elementary ages, and one for middle and upper grades.
Inside the middle school, where Dylan would attend, artwork was everywhere. There was a small lunchroom for a population of around 50 students, with an adjacent kitchen. The library consists of two sofas and a huge shelf full of books. There’s a full-sized gymnasium with a regulation basketball court, and a theater with a stage where they do several dramatic productions each year.
There’s also a room with keyboards for music classes, and several student-art-enhanced classrooms. Even though we toured in summer, we could see the circular arrangement of the desks. The teacher is part of the circle, rather than a lecturer. Discussion is encouraged rather than forbidden, and the kids are all engaged in learning rather than being quieted while all facing forward.
We learned even more from talking with staff – and there is so, so, so much I could say about what I learned from this tour. But in trying to keep it short, I can say that this is an academically centered Quaker school. It is an environment of caring and kindness, while encouraging kids to find their place in the world – to develop their talents and strengths, while also learning the subject matter and study skills required to succeed in school and the real world.
And to make everything just a little bit better, the kids practice a brief morning routine where they reflect on a topic (“like courage,” said the headmaster) as they center themselves and get ready for their day. So Dylan would be able to learn the art of calming himself – something he needs maybe more than anything else – so that he can go forward from there and accept himself.
He could excel here, really excel – not just struggle through each day, fighting the cruelties and trying to wait until college. Dylan would be able to pull himself up and out of the dust, and go on to succeed beyond even his own dreams.
When we left the tiny campus after more than two hours, I was ready to start Dylan there tomorrow. But … I hadn’t asked Dylan what he thought of the place – and he had been exploring with Shane (on his own) for more than an hour.
“So,” I asked tentatively. “What did you think?”
“I want to go there,” he said.
And that was that.
In my quest for private schools, I found one for grades 6 through 12 that specializes in teaching students with “learning differences,” including processing disorders (Shane) and attention disorders (Dylan).
The website on this school was vague, so I scoured the web for more information, while I waited to go on my tour of the school. I found almost nothing, except one generic school site listing the population of students as 9.
That can’t be right, I thought. There can’t only be 9 students in the whole school!
But indeed, there are. Well, actually, two students just graduated so with Dylan, there would be 8.
The school is located inside a church that was having Vacation Bible School, so there weren’t any classrooms to tour. But I was able to sit with the school’s principal for an hour and get a good grasp on what the school is like.
While the small size concerned me, it was the principal’s comments that knocked me nearly across the room – and right out the door.
“We do have some gifted students,” she said, in response to Dylan’s brilliance. “It often boosts their self-esteem that, when they are done with their own work, they can help the students who are not as high-performing.”
I could imagine Dylan sitting with his three-day project finished in 20 minutes (although he probably forgot to put his name on it). Then I imagined him spending the next three days helping someone else finish that project.
Then there was the story of the incredibly gifted boy who, in spite of his learning differences, excelled in science.
“We had to buy him a new textbook,” the principal said, as if that would really help the gifted boy go far.
I pictured Dylan with his new textbook, bored to tears. Dylan wouldn’t ever open a new textbook, even if someone said it contained the secret to life itself.
But the creme de la creme – and the final straw – came when the principal said to me, “I noticed you mentioned Dylan wanting to go to MIT. You really shouldn’t do that.”
After some story about a kid who dropped out of high school because he couldn’t play college basketball, she said, “You don’t want to get his hopes up.”
I DON’T WANT TO GET HIS HOPES UP?!?
Actually, Miss Principal, I do want to get his hopes up. I am well aware of the MIT reputation for admissions – only 8.2% of applicants were accepted in 2014. But if Dylan wants to work toward the goal of acceptance by MIT (which he actually does not), then he has every right to do that – whether or not he has “learning differences.”
I expect great things from my boy – most especially happiness and the ability for him to do whatever the heck he wants to do. If the kid wants to go to MIT, he will apply to MIT. You will not squash his dreams – any dreams – even if his dream is to be a world-famous quarterback in the NFL, or a taco truck driver, or a heart surgeon or a ski instructor or a door-to-door lava lamp salesman!
So.
Dylan will NOT be going to school at Private School Option #1.
Unless, of course, he really wants to, because that would be his choice.
But, he says, he does not – and I didn’t even tell him about the whole MIT thing.
Dear Private School Admissions Person,
Thanks so much for your request for more information about Dylan. He’s a very bright boy, who had a wonderfully enthusiastic attitude about life for the first 12 years. He’s incredibly bouncy, which we attributed to boredom until 3rd grade. He had a teacher that year who refused to accommodate his inability to finish his work – and kept him out of recess, which he needed almost like he needed air. So we had him tested, and he was diagnosed with ADHD.
We started looking at private schools when we realized that he was going to struggle with sitting still – and with teachers like his 3rd grade teacher – but he was accepted into the Gifted & Talented program for 4th and 5th grades. He suddenly loved school, except for math and homework. He fell behind in math and was in four different math classes before finding one with a paraeducator who spent the entire class period saying, “Dylan, do your work. Dylan, do your work.” With her guidance, he was not only able to stay on task, but he could excel.
He still had a great deal of trouble staying focused. We tried all kinds of natural “cures” for him, eventually trying stimulants in 4th grade. They worked miracles, and we kept him on the same medication until the beginning of 7th grade. We never medicate him on weekends or over the summer because, quite frankly, he doesn’t need it if he’s not sitting still and trying to concentrate.
Classes that allow him to move – P.E., chorus and engineering – also allow him to succeed. When he’s interested in something – music and building particularly – he can focus for hours and hours and hours, and learn more about one subject than most people learn in a lifetime. He has an easy time in social studies and science, and is an excellent reader, and can be an excellent writer – as long as he has a computer. His handwriting is much like that of a kindergartener. He also struggles with capitalization and punctuation but is an excellent speller.
Dylan took algebra in 7th grade, but is required to repeat it because he didn’t get a B in the class. His grades suffered immensely because he was unable to complete and turn in his work on time. We tried every trick in the world – and he does have an IEP – but even when he would actually DO the work, he never seemed to know when it was due, or where it was in his binder, so that he could turn it in. He almost never turned in his homework – ever. We’re hoping he can learn in 8th grade how to study and be the brilliant guy we know he is.
Lately, we have also discovered that Dylan is being bullied by possibly every peer group in his school. He is an absolutely fantastic singer, and starred in the school musical. He also sang phenomenal solos in the school talent shows through the years. Among other interests, he has a deep love for the environment and once staged his own Save the Rainforest campaign.
But middle school has drained the life out of him. He is stunned by how heartless people can be, and even his friends from the GT program have deserted him. He has found a few friends from the school musical who are nice, but has also found some who have not been so nice. At this point, he is begging for anything other than 8th grade at that school – and is considering homeschooling, even though the thought of hanging with his mom all day makes him crazy.
ADHD is a real issue for him, but he is a great kid otherwise. It would be nice if he could learn how to manage his painful emotions without angry outbursts – although they are few and far between. Mostly, he sings ALL DAY LONG EVERY DAY when he’s not on medication. Even in 2nd grade, I remember his teacher saying he was fine, except that his humming was a bit distracting to the other students. And he doesn’t know how/when to turn in his work.
He needs some loving, caring teachers to get him through what has become the worst time in his life. Please let me know if you think we are looking in the right direction.
Sincerely,
Concerned Mom
Just for me, my dad recorded an episode of Our America with Lisa Ling called “ADHD Explosion.” Our America is an Oprah-network version of 60 Minutes – and this episode explored ADHD and its many facets.
When they got to the part about the Hunter School in New Hampshire, I started to cry.
At the Hunter School, kids are taught to self-regulate, self-advocate and be who they are. They not only learn to handle their emotions, but they learn how they learn and are able to take control over their own lives. Josh, the boy who resided at the Hunter School, went from being an incredibly obnoxious child on tons of medication to being polite, calm and responsible – and now lives entirely without medication.
Dylan needs that school so badly. He needs to learn how to self-regulate and self-advocate and handle his emotions and learn how he learns. He needs to take control over the way he does what he does.
Which is why I was crying.
I knew the school would cost more than I could afford. Plus, it is more than 500 miles away. (523 miles, or 543 miles, depending on which route you take. I checked.)
In looking at the school’s website after watching the show, I learned that Dylan would likely not be accepted into their program, even if I were willing to send him off to live in New Hampshire and sell my house to pay his tuition.
He still couldn’t go. Dylan isn’t enough of a “problem.” He isn’t disruptive enough in school. He is still succeeding – according to all standard standards – because he isn’t failing (enough) in school, using drugs, or trying to kill anyone.
So I started searching for other schools, closer to home. Again.
This is my fourth go-round looking for schools for Dylan. We started searching for private schools when Dylan was in third grade. We skipped a year, while he was in the GT program, because he thoroughly enjoyed school that year.
We actually applied to a private school for 6th grade, but Dylan was not “offered a place” at the school. Their reasoning for this was unclear, but it was obvious to me: we couldn’t afford to pay the $26,000 per year tuition.
Dylan didn’t want to go to school with a bunch of rich snobs anyway. I was glad we applied, to learn the valuable lesson that we do not want to be lumped into a group who cares more about money than educating my absolutely brilliant son.
So now, for this round, I am looking at high schools. I have discovered – again – that Dylan isn’t “bad enough” to get a free, public education at an alternative school. There are actually several free public alternative high schools. One of these is for middle schoolers only, and is almost walking distance from my house. (I had no idea it existed.)
However, the alternative schools are reserved for pregnant moms, drug abusers and severely emotionally troubled youth. The school has to recommend placement. But just in case he wanted to go, I asked Dylan about it.
Not surprisingly, Dylan decided he would rather not go to school with those kids – even if I fought to get him in.
So this time, we are looking at private schools with a religious component. Those are slightly (only slightly) cheaper than the snobby-rich, private schools. Better yet, they have the God Thing included, free of charge.
I have pegged three schools as possibilities for Dylan’s 8th grade. School is over, but we are going to talk to these folks and tour the facilities.
We shall see what happens.
Dylan has been out of school (and therefore, off of medication) for more than a week now.
He is doing great.
I don’t mean, he’s doing fine and he’s better than he was before. I mean, he’s doing great. He is happy. He hasn’t had a single bout of depression or rage. He’s been angry with me when I’ve imposed rules he didn’t like, but then he went back to being Happy Dylan.
He is bouncy, yes, but not so much that it’s interfering with his life. Dylan does a lot of ball-bouncing and singing, which gets louder as he gets more tired throughout the day. He’s been this way since he was old enough to sing and bounce balls. It can be aggravating if you’re trying to watch TV or talk on the phone, but mostly it is just fine.
This is the Dylan I have always adored. He is creative and funny and fun to be around. He is silly and great with Shane. He is caring and conscientious and brilliant. And he is really, really interesting.
This happens every summer – even before medication – that I rediscover Dylan’s beauty and uniqueness and awesomeness. When left to his own devices, and not forced to live in the box that is school, Dylan is perfect and wonderful and – most importantly – content.
I don’t want him to go back to school.
A few houses down the street lives a boy in a wheelchair. He is a teenager, like Dylan, but that’s where the outward similarity stops.
The other boy has short, dark hair. He’s very thin, and his bony legs protrude from under the blanket or coat that his parents have thrown over him as he’s wheeled outside. His head hangs down and to the left, as if he is checking his blanket, but his eyes are vacant. His stick-like arms are stuck in an upright position, crooked like tree branches, wrists limp.
The other boy always looks like he is reaching for something, but he never is.
Sometimes I come racing home from dropping off Dylan at school, worried about Dylan and his social issues and his grades and his rude behavior, and I am abruptly stopped by the school bus sitting outside the other boy’s house.
The bus sits there for so long, preparing the wheelchair ramp, getting the boy inside and into the right place on the bus. For one second, I am irritated that I have to stop driving. And then I remember.
The other boy’s dad pushes the wheelchair outside. Sometimes Dad goes back inside, hurrying to be where it’s warm and dry. Sometimes he stays outside just long enough to check the mail. He doesn’t talk to the bus driver, or wave to the cars who are waiting.
He doesn’t sit with the boy, or say “goodbye.” He doesn’t give him a hug or a pat or even a nod. The other boy’s head doesn’t look up, or acknowledge Dad. He just sits in the wheelchair, arms and legs poking wherever they will, no words uttered on either end.
On days that I am stopped by the school bus – and sometimes on days that I am not – I think about the other boy. I don’t know whether he was born like this, or if an accident or illness caused it.
But I always think about that day when I was pregnant.
After an ultrasound in month four, the doctor said, “We found a spot on your baby’s brain. We don’t know what it is, but you might want to have an amnio so that you can be prepared.”
I remember sitting with Bill and wondering: Would we still have this baby if he had special needs?
We deliberated for awhile. Bill logically decided that we should wait until we knew the extent of the baby’s special needs before making any decision.
After several agonizing days, we found out that our baby probably didn’t have any of the genetic disorders normally found on the amniocentesis. We all breathed a huge sigh of relief.
I called my parents from the doctor’s office. “We’re naming him Dylan Keith, after you,” I told my dad.
I think now about Dylan’s ADHD, his special needs. Every day is fraught with some new challenge – which is, apparently, the case with all parenting. I think about the many, many friends I have with loving, wonderful, special needs children – some like mine, some not. I think about how difficult – and how rewarding – it can be to deal with Dylan.
Then, and again, I think about the other boy.
On the last day of school, Dylan was invited to go ziplining with a friend. The night before, I was still awake at midnight – panicked.
What if my son doesn’t keep his carabineer hooks latched? I thought. What if he wants to stand on one of those tiny ledges, 200 feet off the ground, just for one second? What if he is tapped just slightly during that nanosecond and falls to his death?
These are the thoughts I have at midnight.
I could see the headline: BOY, 13, FALLS TO DEATH FROM ZIPLINE. I could see the lifeless body of my teenaged redhead, sprawled in the dirt. And in spite of my anxiety challenge and all the faith I could muster, I couldn’t think of anything else.
I decided to read my daily affirmation from my nightstand book, Each Day a New Beginning, one day early. Technically, it was after midnight, so I wasn’t really cheating. Plus, I needed some wisdom desperately, or I wasn’t going to sleep at all.
The wisdom from the book went something like this: If you act like everything is going to be okay, maybe everything will be okay.
So I said another prayer. I reminded myself to give Dylan a kind reminder the next morning about not dancing around on any tiny ledges in the trees. Then I acted as if everything were going to be all right, and I went to sleep.
And of course, everything was all right. Dylan not only survived the zipline course, but he had a wonderful time. His friend had a wonderful time. The rain even stopped just before they embarked on their tree-climbing adventure (causing me to briefly worry about slipping, but not for long.)
Everyone enjoyed the day. And all I had to do was pretend that I thought everything would be fine.
I am really trying not to worry. I mean, what control do I have? NONE.
The only control I have is control over my attitude – which is a reflection of my thoughts – which are usually worries.
If I worry, my attitude is one of fear. If I act like everything is going to be okay, my attitude is one of confidence.
I wish I knew what is holding me back from maintaining an attitude of confidence. My life is absolutely glorious. I have been blessed with gifts – especially friends and family – beyond my wildest dreams. Yet, the fears keep me up at night, still – as if worrying will keep bad things from happening.
And as much as I know that isn’t true, I can’t train my thoughts to go in any other direction. But I am trying. God knows, I am still trying.
