Homeschooling

Have you gone to your local public school for services?

We have our daughter almost signed up to go for therapies at the school I pulled my son out of last year to homeschool, but I'm finding the main lady in charge difficult to deal with and feel frustrated already. We won't actually have to deal with that lady, but still.

My daughter is 3 and has a few needs so she qualifies for speech, physical and occupational therapies.

What would you do?

We did the same thing. My son was moved to the neighborhood school for speech the end of the year when he was 4. That summer I decided to remove my daughter from school so that she could have an education that was better than what the school offered. I was going to have my son do Kinder, but they gave him the same teacher that his sister had, the one who told the boy in speech therapy to not talk like a baby. In that state the kids don't have to start school until 6, so I pulled him when the principal said she wouldn't move him. So he just got speech. I would sit in the car with my daughter or we would play in a field away from the other kids. We went to the book fairs, and I always pointed out how I wanted the money to go to the local school rather than a chain book store. (Our friends went to school there - I wanted them to have a good library!)

We have since moved, to a colder climate - they won't let us sit in the library because there are kids in there (so they say, but I haven't seen any yet when we go back to meet with the therapist. We can't play on the playground. I like that our speech therapist gives us stuff to work on at home - most parents don't get that and I don't think my son would have done as well if I hadn't practiced at home. I do have to convince our new OT of that - she DOES NOT give homework. I just want some exercises, reminders of how to hold the pencil when he forgets (because I don't always see it) and stuff like that. I think that we are her first homeschool family, so I think we will work it out.

If they give you too much grief, remind them they HAVE to give services, or pay for you to go elsewhere. If they send you to another public school, then they have to pay mileage, at the current federal rate, (.58 cents per mile) for you to transport your child there. I suspect that if you threaten to bill them for services that they could provide, then they will back down fast. We (my 9 year old and 4 year old) sit in the school lobby and do school work while my son gets his services. I bring crayons, books, paper and the whole bit.