# 4 questions, virginia, middle school and online school &asperger



## celina (Dec 29, 2005)

a) anyone homeschool in Virginia can i ask questions to?
b) anyone homeschool a middle schooler (i guess in virginia..since the states have indiv. requirements?
c)anyone do a virtual school like laurel springs or virtual virginia?
d) she is 11 and has aspergers..and as awesome as her current situation is at this elem. school....i'm not sure she can do well in middle school. she is having to be asked to leave classes due to the disruption... anyone have an aspie that tried middle school??? 


i've homeschooled her for grade 2, it was wonderful but do to diff. reasons we put her back in reg school. she misses homeschooling. she is brilliant and reads at a university level and understands most of it...

her issues arrise in , not respecting the authorities that she finds make "dumb" rules..., her not being interested in the material being taught, her seeing unfairness in how the teacher handles diff. kids...

I'm thinking an online course would be great, she powers through most things... and can then do indep. study on topics outside of the course work, history, science ...

she wants to be a zoologist, i'm being told my parents that if your kid doesn't have like a 4.2 (which we find weird since it's supposed to stop at 4.0) they won't look at you.... i find the school you have gone to here in the states vs canada...has a lot of weight....

anyhow....any have any comments, help, prayers...lol... thanks


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## celina (Dec 29, 2005)

i read the online school thread...but was wondering about middle school level..


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## bluemoonluck (Oct 28, 2008)

I have an 11 1/2 year old DD who is an Aspie, and she attends a public middle school here in VA. She's also gifted, which adds another layer!

Does your DD have an IEP? She should have accommodations for her Autism, and not be asked to leave the classroom for being disruptive.

My DD has a well-written IEP that I advocated hard for. She has a tendency to do things like tell classmates that their answer was stupid/dumb/etc and is never asked to leave the classroom - per her IEP the teachers will redirect the class away from her comment and continue on with the lesson. It takes the kids in her classes a few weeks typically to catch on, then they seem to do fine with her for the most part :shrug:. 

I can't help you from the homeschooling angle, though. Sorry!


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## celina (Dec 29, 2005)

she does have a fairly good iep...but has math and language arts with the resource teacher...language ARTS for enrichment....and math cause she can't focus in with the group..
she is very very high iq....but tests poorly..she missed gifted by the skin of her teeth ..(and being non compliant..lol) they tested her twice...and the results were all over...lol

i will speak with them tommorrow about leaving the class..i know they ask her to leave often...less than last yr..but she has a more patient teacher...

thanks for the info..i'm in a richmond, va suburb btw
is your dd in grade 6/middle school?


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## celina (Dec 29, 2005)

ok...sorry just printed off what you wrote and noticed it did say middle school...how is she adjusting


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## cindy-e (Feb 14, 2008)

I have an aspie who has always been homeschooled (so of course that would include jh.) He does great with it. He did a virtual school in JH and did fine with it. He does online college classes now and is doing fine. He is a senior in high school, fwiw. I can't speak to VA or their laws or their specific programs. But virtual school in JH worked for us with an aspie. 

FWIW,
Cindyc.


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## siberian (Aug 23, 2011)

Any school that is asking her to leave is setting themselves up for a major lawsuit. If you could show where the school makes this statement they could have to pay for transportation to another school, homeschooling expenses, and whatever it takes to meet the needs in the present school ......


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## PNWKatie (Aug 4, 2012)

I homeschooled my soon for 5/6 grades and enjoyed the freedom of it. I've been reading on one of my other forums about the online schools and middle school kids (figure we'll be there eventually), and it seems to work really well for those kids that are really ahead of the class in most things, which it sounds like your daughter is. You could at least inquire about it and go from there. If she's a real go getter and self motivated it might be a good move for her.


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## catknit (Feb 6, 2012)

bluemoonluck said:


> My DD has a well-written IEP that I advocated hard for. She has a tendency to do things like tell classmates that their answer was stupid/dumb/etc and is never asked to leave the classroom - per her IEP the teachers will redirect the class away from her comment and continue on with the lesson. It takes the kids in her classes a few weeks typically to catch on, then they seem to do fine with her for the most part :shrug:. /QUOTE]
> 
> This, to me, is pretty shocking. From a classroom management angle, how does a teacher redirect kids from noticing one child can call out another's answers as stupid or dumb? I'd think [especially in this age group] a whole lot of kids would test that boundary with the reasoning that "so and so is allowed to say that without getting in trouble, so why can't I?".
> 
> ...


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## Veronica (Oct 31, 2008)

I homeschooled my dd from 2nd grade to high school graduation in Virginia. She didn't have aspergers so I can't help with that question though. The public school she was in questioned whether she had learning disabilities, but she didn't.
We didn't use a virtual school, though for 2 years in high school we used a school that was accredited. After that I decided to just finish on our own. She did great, has straight A's in college.
What did you need to know about homeschooling in Virginia? It wasn't hard.


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## bluemoonluck (Oct 28, 2008)

catknit said:


> This, to me, is pretty shocking. From a classroom management angle, how does a teacher redirect kids from noticing one child can call out another's answers as stupid or dumb? I'd think [especially in this age group] a whole lot of kids would test that boundary with the reasoning that "so and so is allowed to say that without getting in trouble, so why can't I?".
> 
> I was under the impression [which could be completely and utterly wrong] that the teacher can't discuss the whys and hows of another students IEP [confidentiality rules and such].
> 
> How does the teacher handle this type of situation?


Teachers cannot discuss my DD's IEP or her diagnoses with anyone. However it takes DD's classmates all of a minute or less of interacting with her to realize that she isn't a "normal" kid. And the teachers always make DD apologize during a down-time to the classmate she has insulted (even thou DD **hates** to do it, because in her mind she was being honest - the answer WAS stupid so she has nothing to apologize for. But part of her therapy is learning to follow social niceties and apologizing when you've hurt someone's feelings is part of that.)

The teachers DO remind DD that she isn't to shout things out - she has to raise her hand if she has a question. So she isn't constantly shouting out that people are stupid - it isn't a constant disruption.

DD is mainstreamed and she's in all upper-level / gifted classes. If a teacher were to send her out of the classroom instead of handling it as dictated in her IEP, they'd have to provide her with self-contained services that are EQUAL to what she gets in the regular classroom. My other DD is in some self-contained classes for her learning disabilities, and self-contained classes move at a slower pace than even the regular classes. So essentially they'd have to provide my Aspie DD with ONE ON ONE gifted-level instruction if they decided to remove her from mainstreaming. Or they'd have to pay to send her to the school for Autistic kids 50 miles away, including providing transportation to and from at the school system's expense.

My mother is a retired teacher and my sister has been a teacher for over a decade. I promise you that when the SPED director sits DD's teachers down at the beginning of the year and goes over her IEP with them, and makes it clear "This Mother (meaning ME) knows the system. If you kick this kid out of your classroom you better be VERY sure that it is for something NOT related to this IEP or the school is going to be paying for one-on-one teaching for this kid, and you will find yourself teaching your least favorite subject in the low-income school across the county," the teachers figure out very quickly how to make it work.

99% of the time after the first few weeks of school, which tend to be an adjustment for DD, the teachers, and DD's classmates, things go very smoothly. The other 1% of the time I email the SPED director for the school once....if that doesn't fix the problem I email the SPED director for the COUNTY and that solves it.

You have to be an advocate for your kid. I'm nice about it, and I always make sure my expectations are reasonable. I run things by friends of the family who are SPED teachers and my Mom/Sis, and as long as they agree that I'm asking for something that is reasonable I very nicely make myself the loudly squeaking wheel.


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## catknit (Feb 6, 2012)

bluemoonluck - That sounds like a great way to handle the situation! I figured there was something more that would handle the issue diplomatically. I've spent a lot of time in the classroom over the years including SPED, just not recently and state by state regs differ. Additionally, I've worked as a tutor with many kids in the "alphabet soup" as we'd call it.

My reading comprehension failure was thinking that the prohibition of taking your child out of class somehow also prohibited any type of correction [even if just in the name of diplomacy]. Hence, my thought of crazy-bedlam with a bunch of tweeners/pre-teens testing boundaries. And, my [albeit] limited classroom time just couldn't wrap my head around how that could work.

I completely agree you need to advocate for your own and the more you know about what needs to be done [legally] at your state and/or county level is beyond important. Unfortunately, many families don't know what can or should be done.


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## chamoisee (May 15, 2005)

I have Asperger's and two of my children (both boys) do as well. My youngest was in danger of being expelled or put into special ed due to his behavioral issues....because he is also ADHD, bad combo! 

So: what issues is your daughter having in terms of behavior and being asked to leave? Is it stimming (they need to deal with this and not discriminate against her as long as she isn't loud!), meltdowns (can they formulate a plan whereby if she begins to feel overwhelmed, she can defuse in a quiet, calm place or do something which will help her to feel OK?) or is it simply that she isn't willing to play dumb and gets bored (major issue for me in school!)?

They have to provide reasonable accommodations for your daughter. They cannot discriminate against her based on Asperger's related issues.


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