I’m really struggling here.  I have never ever had to worry about what went on at school for The Boy.  I knew how lucky I was then, because I read horror stories of what goes on in most school districts, but we were fortunate enough to have a great program, and the absolute best teachers who fought on our side the very few times it was even necessary.

Here, I think I have sent 40 emails in the past week to The Boy’s school personnel.  In addition to three meetings.

And the hits just keep coming.  There is still no aide, although the county autism specialist sent a TA to the school in the mornings to assist.  But only for this week.  I had to walk him back into the school yesterday when I found all of the school supplies (you know, from the supply list that they make available in the summer?) still in his backpack — He’d been carrying them since the first day of school and I had asked multiple times for someone to assist him in getting those things into his locker.  He still has his PE policies parent-sing-page in his backpack, all filled out, but not getting to its destination, plus several random untitled assignments – not checked, unacknowledged.

Last night, he had written that he had science homework in his planner, but neither what it was nor was it on the correct day.  I was clueless, so I emailed the teacher, after checking her website and still being clueless.  She responded to explain the assignment, and I responded thank you and we-may-need-some-more-time-on-this.  No response.  (Mind you, the assignment was to make a list of the characteristics of a science teacher and then draw a rough sketch of a correlating picture, and they will do a final draft of the picture in class, the purpose of which is to supposedly give the teacher a sense of their “work ethic”…)

While checking websites, I checked his social studies teacher’s website.  I saw that the “hot dog foldable” had been due yesterday, again no explanation of what that was.  I remembered something floating around his backpack that seemed like it fit the bill, so I made sure he completed that last night.  I also noticed on her website that they were given a “research project” today.  I had no idea what that was, but knew I wouldn’t be able to get any more work out of him last evening, so I let it drop.  Then, I actually found the assignment in his binder this morning – it had an explanation and a rubric and everything!  The goal was to help foreign visitors understand the “key historic, geographic and economic features of a region” – The Boy’s region was apparently “London”.  They were supposed to write up a four day itinerary, and include a map, outlining the route.  Got this assignment yesterday, due today.

So on top of my son having needs that aren’t being addressed in class, due to a lack of an aide to help him attend to tasks at hand, he also has needs that aren’t being met in terms of his organizational skills, and no one helping him to keep track of assignments.  No one is modifying assignments to my knowledge.  And we have a range of assignments from drawing pictures to one-night research projects!

If The Boy didn’t love school so much, I would seriously be considering homeschooling right now.  It’s totally not out of the question…