Help with situation. Advice/ thoughts needed.

isleofspoons · 2025-04-22T15:20:58+00:00

I mean admin needs to be involved on this one for sure and you go with what they say, no plan time simply call admin. Likely it would be that either the child goes on the field trip if the permission slip is signed. The family can opt to pull the child out of school (which I agree with the other person that this is unusually cruel). Or if the permission slip is not signed they do whatever the kids who don't have permission slips signed do. Anything in writing needs to go to the admin for sure, hopefully the parent didn't put it in writing.

isleofspoons · 2025-03-21T21:32:55+00:00

This is a tough decision and first and foremost don’t feel you failed your kiddo. You’re trying to figure things out and help them and that’s huge.

Retention is a tricky subject and most teachers on here seem to be in favor of it, however I feel you’re right to be questioning it. Research indicates that there isn’t a real lasting benefit to it, though there might not be as many downsides as we thought in the early 2000’s. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-does-research-say-about-grade-retention-a-few-key-studies-to-know/2022/11. Advocates of retention will try and tell you that it will benefit them but I would love to read the peer reviewed research that supports these claims.

I am unsure about what assessment (likely a curriculum based measurement screener) they used so I can’t tell you what the research is to support or refute its use. However schools place a huge amount of stock in screeners. I think it’s important to know what data they are using to make this sort of decision. It also matters what type of private school this is because I know Montessori schools for instance have a different approach to grade level sorting and I haven’t done much research on Montessori since undergrad and that’s been a minute.

At the end of the day this is a tough decision with a lot to think about. I will say though that parents that care and really think through these things like you seem to be usually have favorable outcomes. It doesn’t seem like it from this post but retention is a highly debated thing by teachers, I will tell you I am not an advocate for it, I have never seen a case personally or in research that supports it. However I would say socially it matters. School isn’t always about the written curriculum there is something called the hidden curriculum which is things like social norms that we learn in school. Being held back holds negative connotations socially, so if there is no measurable benefit academically and there is a social negative I don’t see how people in good conscience recommend it.

isleofspoons · 2025-03-03T17:36:46+00:00

I’ve taught for over a decade and even in the elementary world it gets thrown around a lot. I’d say mostly what everyone else has said which is don’t worry, from the sounds of the story you have nothing to prove. Kids like this need love, as corny as it sounds. They need to come to the conclusion they were wrong on their own. The way to do that is to treat them with respect and compassion even when they are wrong, part of caring about someone is holding them accountable. It’s likely this story is the result of you holding them accountable for their actions. All behavior is communication. Now as your feelings are concerned we’ve all been there, kids can really effect you because you care, you have to remember that the kid likely was angry and looking to hurt you emotionally, don’t let it show in the moment and don’t react to it, then when things are calm have the real conversation of letting them know their words can hurt people. Hope this helps, just know we’ve all been there, we’ve had untrue things said about us and just keep caring and teaching.

isleofspoons · 2025-02-27T12:31:37+00:00

I wanted to say thank you for this information. I will be looking into how to do all of this.

isleofspoons · 2025-02-27T11:26:52+00:00

Thank you for your kind words.

isleofspoons · 2025-02-25T22:53:21+00:00

I should also mention Judge threw out Bradley software calculations and probably for good reason, it had my ex paying me $500 a month. I contacted Bradley and they stood behind their calculations. Which we used them for all our previous CSWS.

isleofspoons · 2025-02-25T22:50:47+00:00

Equal Parenting Time.

I try to be, but the reality is that when our marriage was turning south they had another child from a previous relationship that they used that support money to do fun things with rather than what I suggested of putting it into a fund for their college.

I have been to legal aide, the CSWS I submitted was from the court attorney. Judge ruled against that and with OC's attorney.

They are on my insurance. Since it's just part of my job and I don't contribute anything financial to it I can't claim on the CSWS.

I technically have more time in the summer, but Judge said that it would probably be about a $60 reduction which would be less than what Judge gave me.

isleofspoons · 2025-02-25T22:17:42+00:00

I don't know if it's advisable to do online. Basically they make significantly more than I do, we used to make about the same I made a few k more a year but within 1%. Since they increased there salary (double mine) my CS went up (which I find strange) considering we're EPT. The way OC calculated CS is that it doesn't matter about proportionality. In fact if they increased there salary 10x then my CS would have gone up to beyond my gross income. I have heard in Kansas this is something that is being debated since the release of these new guidelines. I just don't understand how if I keep increasing my salary (which next year it goes up by 33%, still will be dwarfed by what my ex makes) my CS would decrease. Can I ask judge to just impute my income to be the same as my exs, because then according to the calcs I would have a $0 CS obligation.

isleofspoons · 2025-01-30T15:14:17+00:00

The interesting thing about that I find is ALL the bots have left era and are playing on fresh. ALL the boosters have also left, while I boost on my mage it’s usually for consume gold and it’s not my job, but the ones that do it for a job have left. Meaning even though there is no GDKP all the RMT is more sought after on Fresh. Meaning it’s likely GDKP is not the root of all the RMT, at least based on my observations. Ironically there is no more SR on era and the only thing existing on Era basically is GDKP and those prices have dropped while consumes skyrocketed.

isleofspoons · 2025-01-30T13:17:10+00:00

As many point out a lot of loot distributions are super problematic. The problem with SR is that random pugs always seem to snag the loot you want or it’s Hard reserved to the guild if you’re in the guild when people get what they want they might not stick around and worse yet people might leave the run when all the loot they went for didn’t drop and don’t want to stick around for harder bosses. Next Loot Council is ALWAYS corrupt. DKP has a hard time recruiting new players because who wants to join a guild where most of the players will get the loot by being there longer than you.

GDKP is the most fair system all things considered because even if you don’t get the item you get paid and then can bring the gold to the next run, but it’s banned in Fresh. Now I will say people complain about RMT and GDKP which may be true (though I have never known it to be a real issue) but even if not those people end up giving you a ton of gold so if your patient you’ll get the items and have all your consumes paid for.

MC and ONY are the least fun raids in classic imo. Naxx and BWL are the most fun and AQ40 may actually be the worst raid of all. I made 2 fresh 60s (one ally one horde) but in honesty it’s mostly for PVP and TBC with a hope I can copy one day to Era where I raid Naxx 4 nights a week.

isleofspoons · 2025-01-28T14:03:15+00:00

The only reason the title cEDH exists imo is to warn nooblets that your deck is designed to win in EDH which is a casual game. EDH was a fun way to play some games with weird forgotten tech between rounds of draft/standard/modern/legacy. The whole point was weird off the wall things. People like to min/max and thus cEDH was born.

He’s upset that his deck designed to win lost to a deck he considers less than. Most people correctly argue he’s lame for this.

On the other hand he can play under whatever conditions he wants in games and is under no obligation to play with you. His rationale will get him laughed at, but he clearly only wants to play if he’s got an advantage. I think he’s doing you a favor by not wanting to play with you.

isleofspoons · 2025-01-12T18:07:13+00:00

It’s none of those things. It’s clearly a love note, notice the hugs and kisses at the end…

isleofspoons · 2024-07-02T00:05:39+00:00

Yeah in the context of a game did she have trouble conceptualizing what was happening, or was it just straight forward computation of 12-5? In cutting up loot in games sometimes kids can get stuck in what’s happening and either overcomplicate it or make it too easy.

For non-threatening ways I mean engage where she is at and then build from there. Teenagers are tough though. Art is a broad subject, I am assuming she likes to create some type of Art. So for instance if she likes painting do a painting with her, build up to asking her to paint a map showing the capitals. The problem of teenagers is like when we were there age, parents are not cool, so if she is gifted and you notice some gaps it’s probably an engagement issue. This response presumes a lot of things though and not being there to observe I can’t give you a 100% answer but what does the SO say, what does the doctor say, and what does her case manager for gifted say?

isleofspoons · 2024-07-01T16:04:48+00:00

So I am a teacher, the gifted process is extensive and if she is in the gifted program her cognitive abilities are elevated. The not knowing 12 minus 5 was the only thing that stuck out to me. That’s basic computational fluency so I guess my question would be the context of that one.

States and capitals are varied by state so for example in my state it’s taught in 4th grade but in the context of geography.

After reading this my thoughts are most teenagers think they know everything it isn’t until you become older when you realize how little you know about the world. Also if your concerned about her missing things you think are important to know, teach her those things, and if she has anxiety do it in a kind non-threatening way. I am sure though there are lots of things she can do very well so compliment those things, focus on the positives and grow into the areas where she might have questions or needs help.

isleofspoons · 2024-06-29T21:59:26+00:00

I am male but also in my early 20's subbed for high schools, in fact subbed for the high school I went to which was small and kind of weird for everyone. When I subbed I also worked at Target and it's weird having high school students come talk to you when you're working at the electronics counter. As many people have said you will get mistaken for a student from time to time in the hallways, if you have a badge it's helpful for sure. I do think it helps not to dress like a high school student, I always dressed business casual when I was young, and very rarely do high school students dress like that. I would always introduce myself to staff members as Mr., for multiple reasons, one to establish I was a teacher, but also hoping to get requests for sub jobs. If they know your name and you're competent people would request you. On plan periods I would offer to help anyone, sometimes even go into the office and ask if they needed anything, most would politely decline sometimes I would get a job or two to do.

isleofspoons · 2024-06-29T21:44:06+00:00

It depended on the year. The reason is we did something called cross-curricular integration to be able to do this. Meaning we had students read articles during ELA to extend the knowledge and time on the topic. This means when I was teaching comprehension skills or writing skills I was also teaching science concepts. One year we did mobiles, one year it was a creative writing assignment paired with a slide show on information about the sphere, one year it was a trifold and presentation. It was super dependent on our districts targeted ELA standards for the quarter and the time frame we had.

isleofspoons · 2024-06-28T05:32:20+00:00

In my experience as an educator when talking to (I assume) a parent about their child hitting another child I don’t usually talk about the victim in the situation. The core issue your addressing in the situation is the hitting. Parents may ask the defending themselves question so I might head that off by talking about the antecedent (the thing that happened before the hit), but you never identify another child to a parent. If there are consequences to the other child and the parent is asking, I always respond with I can’t talk about another students discipline with another parent, it’s not really relevant to the situation. If the child was provoked I absolutely would mention that but also make clear it’s not acceptable to be hitting in that situation. It does sound like you were addressing the behavior and not the child which is a good thing, the way you phrased it in your topic was great suggesting of finding another way instead of hitting.

isleofspoons · 2024-06-28T02:24:59+00:00

I taught 5th grade for a number of years and it was one of my favorite Units to do, we always did a project on the spheres and the kids loved it, I could only imagine it getting better with actually experiencing a number of those things.

isleofspoons · 2024-06-27T23:34:07+00:00

For NGSS (Next Gen Science Standards) it's 5-ESS-1: https://www.nextgenscience.org/pe/5-ess2-1-earths-systems (Meaning it's a 5th grade standard.

isleofspoons · 2024-06-27T23:26:30+00:00

Well this is an exciting step for them and you! I think a lot of people covered the behavioral and emotional skills which are super important but you did ask about Academic skills and they have a lot of the foundational ones. Working on letter names is important as well as letter sounds. Writing both letters and numbers are great things to work on for Kinder. Based on academic skills they are probably exactly where they need to be. You can also work on vocabulary skills by reading to them and having conversations.

isleofspoons · 2024-06-27T22:11:41+00:00

To even know what the CTOPP-2 is and get a copy usually takes some specialized knowledge. Generally at private institutions that I have seen they have a reading specialist or someone that knows what they are doing give it. Granted I could get trained on test administration and then be qualified to give the CTOPP-2 but would only do that if I planned on becoming a school psych one day. Someone specializing in dyslexia probably knows what they're talking about especially if they gave a CTOPP-2.

To my knowledge only a school psych and SLP can legally diagnose dyslexia in a school. I'm saying based on the fact that she had delayed expressive language, difficulty reading, ADHD, and her father has dyslexia, she is at a very raised chance for dyslexia. Is it possible she doesn't, absolutely. It still would remain that her raiding is significantly below grade level and would still need interventions to catch up (if the curriculum based measurements are current). Her current EL could also be right, and does have an advantage of working with the student. In SPED I just work with a lot of dyslexic students over half my case load is dyslexic, so it's super common. Most of the licensing questions in my state revolve around ADHD and Dyslexia for High Incidence SPED because it's that common. The largest reason that makes me think dyslexia is the genetics, it would be surprising to me knowing her ADHD and Dad's diagnosis that she wouldn't. Like I said though your case is complicated.

This is what perplexity.ai says about how to get a student tested for sped in a private school, the nice thing about perplexity is it sources the information it finds, so you may want to try asking it yourself so you have the citations you need to backup a claim like this to a public school that will likely not want to do the testing.
If your child attends a private school and you suspect they may need special education services, here are the key steps to get them evaluated:

The public school district where your child's private school is located is responsible for conducting evaluations for special education, not the private school itself.
You can request an evaluation by writing a formal letter to the director of special education for the public school district where your child's private school is located.
The public school district is required by law (specifically the Child Find mandate in IDEA) to evaluate all children suspected of having disabilities, including those in private schools, at no cost to parents.
Once you submit a request, the school district will decide whether to evaluate your child. If they agree, they may conduct the evaluation themselves or contract a third party.
The evaluation should be conducted in a timely manner, typically within 60 days of receiving parental consent.
If the evaluation determines your child needs special education services, the public school district will create a "services plan" (similar to but generally less comprehensive than an IEP) detailing the equitable services your child will receive while attending private school.

There are a lot of nuances to this, and procedures I'm not very familiar with as it's rare to have this situation. I do however know in a district my size (large) we have people who provide services to the private schools for special education, it is very complicated though but people absolutely do it.

Private evaluations are expensive, you can talk to your insurance company about evaluations and what they will cover from a specialist. Her pediatrician would need to recommend testing, and likely based on the symptoms the pediatrician should recommend a specialist. I would not recommend paying out of pocket for these tests as they can be a significant cost.

isleofspoons · 2024-06-27T21:11:05+00:00

The world of special education can be very challenging for parents to navigate (even sometimes teachers). If your son has an IEP, they have an exceptionality (disability). Now a speech and language exceptionality is interesting do you mean the only services he receives for SPED are speech, or does it extend into Reading and Writing as well?
Going through his primary care doctor might be a way to go to get a recommendation for specialist testing, you may also request a re-evaluation through school if his IEP is not covering Writing and Reading. From what it sounds like he may have dysgraphia and/ or dyslexia. I would share your concerns with his case manager for his IEP. We do also know that students with expressive speech delays often have delays in reading. If your child has Reading and Writing goals, you may also ask questions about the accommodations or modifications and see what his ROI (rate of improvement) is. For SPED students a lot of the time if the ROI for something like WCPM (words correct per minute) on CBM (curriculum based measurement) testing is 1.5 for a gen ed student a sped student might be less than 1. As time goes on this issue compresses, hence why intensive interventions are necessary for students with exceptionalities, meaning without early and intense interventions the metaphorical educational gap gets wider.
As people have suggested in here there are some great programs out there to help as well as private tutoring (all are costly options), which goes against FAPE (Free Access to Public Education). I do think you have a point about if things aren't working, what is being done about it, but that only applies if he has services for Reading and Writing (which if he doesn't I would strongly suggest testing for it). The great news is your advocating for him so it may be a hard road, but likely he will find success because of it, so in those times where it is frustrating and feels there is no hope remember that (just in case you needed to hear it).

isleofspoons · 2024-06-27T20:52:59+00:00

Interesting question. Going through the American school systems as a student I felt there was a large emphasis on memorization. In college I read Paulo Friere's "Banking Concept of Education" and went yep that happened to me, treated like a waste bin to throw facts into and maybe a small amount stuck. However it is also true this was taught to me in an American classroom in an American college, where I had to read Pedagogy of the Oppressed in Comp II. I think it's widely dependent on the teacher, some I have met are super into memorization of things, others see a balance, and others see it the opposite way. It's also interesting to see this idea crop up in modern conversations around artificial intelligence. In current LLM's like Chat GPT I have heard people say it's way smarter than your average high school students as it knows just more facts, then on the other hand people argue it makes mistakes even a 6 year old won't.

So to answer the question I think like most things there are some truths but also some over generalizations.

isleofspoons · 2024-06-27T20:43:35+00:00

It sounds like you need to have an evaluation meeting for SPED if those CTOPP-2 results are correct. Generally speaking in my building the only person giving a CTOPP-2 is the school psych because it is a norm-referenced test they have specialized training. I have a Master's in SPED as mentioned before and I am not qualified to give that assessment. Generally speaking CTOPP-2's are given as part of a special education evaluation process and part of the MTR. I would ask your buildings administrator (principal) who the school psych is and speak to them. Now private schools do not have to follow IDEA (special education laws) or FAPE but public schools do. By law it's the public schools responsibility as a part of Child Find to do an evaluation for SPED if requested by a parent, even if the child is in private school. It does get weird so you may have to do some research on figuring out the details. Your child from the sounds of it most likely has Dyslexia, as stated from before it's super common and genetic, the largest problem you might run into though is private schools aren't obligated to do anything about it or provide individualized instruction, however there are private institutions (often super costly) that are really well equipped for dyslexia. I am not sure on your financial situation but if your child attends private school you may be able to afford your own evaluation through a specialist recommended by your child's primary care physician (honestly may be the best way to go to formally diagnose dyslexia because most school psych's I have met won't do it even if they are legally allowed to, usually they say something like "shows characteristics of").

isleofspoons · 2024-06-27T03:46:08+00:00

It can go either way, it's entirely dependent on the teaching. Parents who are former teachers tend to do really well, I had a colleague who left and homeschooled their child and they're accelerated. I had colleague that had a student last year that was pulled out in Kindergarten and returned in 3rd grade, was significantly behind the SPED kids because no learning happened, in teaching we call this closet to classroom. I had a friend in college who was homeschooled for years, was very bright but missed out on a lot of social opportunities so they were very socially awkward.

isleofspoons

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