I’m in Third Grade!

A forty-six year old adult in third grade! Oh, and a nine year old, too.

Wesley started school in ECOT last week. So far he says he "loves" it. 🙂 It’s amazing how different he is with the ECOT from what I observed of his behavior when I spent a day with him at the local school. He still rocks back and forth and acts like a goof at times but his attention is much more focused. What I love about the program is that most of the work the children do is through live sessions with their teacher and the classmates using an interactive program that allows them to manipulate certain tools that are set up on the screen. If you’re familiar with the paint program on your computer, it’s a little like that with the difference being that whatever Wesley types, draws or clicks, his teacher is able to see it on her own screen, like sharing a whiteboard. She keeps his attention through prompts that allow him to answer questions and once he answers it, he has to click a small icon indicating that he’s finished. There’s NO being ignored this way. It’s kind of like being the only child in the classroom that’s always being called on to answer a question. MUCH different than being in a local school classroom where only the aggressive and attentive children answer questions while the quiet and shy children say nothing and are ignored.

Wesley can be in a classroom of 25 students and still get the individual attention he needs. After about 20 minutes of instruction from their classroom teacher, each child is broke up into several groups where they spend time with another teacher who focuses in on their individual needs. Since it feels a lot like playing an interactive game, Wesley is very engaged. The only thing I still have a problem with is getting him to write when he doesn’t want to. In Science and Social Studies, he’s given some instructions to read each day and then on Friday he can print out a worksheet to complete, scan and send back to his teacher. He gets extra credit if he does science experiments at home and then writes about them. He uses other online programs to help him study, too, like "Study Island" and "XtraMath." At the end of each day or week, the parents can access the children’s grade books to see how well they’re doing and so far Wesley is getting all A’s. I’m SO glad Hubby and I decided to go with ECOT.

The only drawback? I’M in school with him all morning long. I can’t leave him by himself for even a minute or he’ll find a way to distract himself. Learning how to navigate the website and all the manipulatives was a bit of a challenge but I think I finally know how to use them all.

Wesley received his ECOT computer last Wednesday. We’re still using our home computer, however, until we can obtain an Ethernet Cable to hook his computer up to Cathy’s router which is upstairs. And, since our computer isn’t equipped with PowerPoint, which is used for most of his assignments that need to be printed, I have to access them through Cathy’s computer in the evenings – after she’s finished with school. It’s a pain in the butt but it works to keep him from falling behind until we can get that cable. The good thing is that the teachers have all the assignments for the whole week posted in their classroom a week in advance. This enables me to work a day or two ahead of his schedule to make sure he has everything he needs by the time he attends class.

Not all problems have been eliminated. He still hates being woke up in the mornings, he still wants to give me a hard time about doing things his way instead of how he’s supposed to do them, he still thinks that since he’s in ECOT now instead of a brick and mortar school, he can do what he wants, but, it’s only been a week and I think that as long as I stay on top of him and keep working with him, he’ll eventually get over most, if not all, of his hang-ups and fall into the new routine I’ve set up for him.

Oh, and get this. After fighting that darn school he was in for TWO years to give my son an IEP, after being ignored, pushed aside and failed by them, after even the attempt they made at "throwing him away" because "they couldn’t accommodate him," they STILL had the nerve to report to the school board that they believed I WAS NEGLECTING MY SON!!!!!

I received a phone call from Children’s Services demanding an explanation from me why my son wasn’t in school and telling me that they were given reports of his poor behavior and said that if they had to investigate and found that my son was being abused, he’d be removed from the home!! Can you believe that??? They were practically insinuating that because my son had emotional issues, IT WAS BECAUSE OF ME!!! I was so ticked off I wanted to scratch their eyes out! I told them to do whatever they felt necessary, there’s nothing they can legally do against me since I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I gave them Mrs. M.’s phone number and told them that if they had a problem with my answer, they can call her and deal with her. I didn’t hear anything from them after that.

So, needless to say, I’ve been VERY busy these past two weeks. Just so I’m not leaving this on a sour note, I thought I’d share with you a flower my son made for me. He said, "Here Mommy, this one won’t die." 🙂 The photo quality sucks because I have such a "great" camera, but you can imagine how much nicer it looks in person.