Special Education

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I just finished reading a post by @bagarad regarding her foster children in Special Education. You can read the article here: http://www.mylot.com/post/3161607/our-childrens-academic-and-social-life-in-public-school-special My oldest son, Aaron, was a handful from the moment he was born. I always needed to be at a minimum two steps ahead of him at all times. It never worked out that way. I am glad I had him first and not last, as my next two children were much calmer than he is and was. It was determined when we were living on Guam that he needed Special Education and Guam didn't have any programs at the time we were there. They might have them now. Thus began my son's education roller coaster. He was in a different classroom every year. One year it was determined he needed Behavior Disorder, so he went into that classroom situation. By the end of the year, it was decided it wasn't what he needed, so he was put in and ED classroom. I forget what that stands for. Anyway, by the end of the year, it was determined he needed more structure than that classroom offered. And so it went. In third grade, they lost his records and he ended up in a regular classroom and had the best year of his young life. Up to then he had female teachers he could wind around his finger. Manipulation is and was his game. In third grade he had a male teacher. He was also in an open classroom with first and second grades. So, when he needed what those classes had to offer him, he went there for various subjects. It was the best year of his life. His teacher kept him accountable with a star card. He got a star for good behavior, completing assignments, everything, and he did wonderfully. On April 1st that year, they found his records, however, he completed his year in third grade before being handed once again into the Special Education system, where once again his manipulative efforts paid off for all but one teacher, and that one, I had fired. That particular teacher would not allow him to leave the classroom from the time he got off the bus until it was time for him to go home. With his continued stubbornness to do anything for her, she eventually took his desk away from him and set a masking tape square on the floor in place of his desk and told him he was to stay inside that taped area. He did not go to gym or music, or outside for recess, and when he didn't complete his homework, she took him into another room, put her hands on either side of his head and yelled in his face. I called the principal of the school when my son told me what she did to him every day, and after a short investigation, she was fired. He still bounced between BD and ED classrooms. However, by the time he was 12, he was completely taken out of my custody. Because he was uncontrollable at home and everywhere else, he was placed in a school placement that would help him. Yeah right. Hear me laugh at that one. I was promised that he would not be found in front of a judge by the time he was 14 by being in the placement. Hear me laugh again. Not only did he get in trouble in the placement because he wanted nothing to do with it, he wanted to come home, he did find himself in front of a judge for misconduct. He was then taken completely 100% out of my custody and became a ward of the state. He was a ward of the state until shy of his 18th birthday. This structured school placement saw him placed in three different school situations and in two different states. We were living in Illinois at the time when he went into placement, we were living in Green Bay, by the time he found a way to come home permanently. Aaron has been diagnosed as ADHD, ADD, and now Bipolar. He is the son I have had the most problems with. He has been to anger management. It didn't do any good. I did everything I could with him, but nothing worked. This is also the son with whom I was finally having a good relationship with when he called me last week and disowned me once again. I do not have a great love of teachers or the educational system because of my son. Kids need good teachers who will help, not hinder their educational progress. Aaron did not get that, except for the teacher he had in third grade. Right now I can only hope he comes to his senses and we get on good ground again. I don't know what happened for him to call and disown me like he did last week. But I know it's all centered in what happened as a child in the educational systems he was involved in, particularly the placement situations. Here's your answer Barbara. I said it might be a book. Thanks for reading. My son is the one on the end. Taken this past Christmas.