My son is currently in public school, and doing poorly, he's out sick often with his diabetes, depression, etc. I'd like to consider homeschooling him for the remainder of this year, as he's gone from straight "A"s from last year to failing this year, and througout the summer in hopes of him passing 8th grade. I was looking into the Alpha Omega site, with the switched on schoolhouse program. Does anyone have any experience with this, for middle school and high school age kids?

-- CJ (sheep@katahdins.net), April 12, 2002

Answers

This does not answer your queston but i feel the need to write it...

I would look into why his grades have suddenly fallen before anything else...there may be something very profound that has happened to him and it may not be good...probe hard and understand the change before designing the fix.

-- Oscar Will (owill@mail.whittier.edu), April 12, 2002.

Yes, of course there is a problem...he was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes, and is depressed. He's undergoing counseling, has a home health care nurse who comes once a week, as we've had a hard time with his blood sugars.

-- CJ (sheep@katahdins.net), April 12, 2002.

Does your school system have a homebound program? Here you need a doctor's note to qualify for it (not hard to get). It can also be from a psychiatrist. Best of luck to you. I hope he gets to feeling much better very soon and you are able to get his blood sugar stablized. Depression is a miserable disease, too. You will both be in my prayers.

-- Gayle in KY (gayleannesmith@yahoo.com), April 12, 2002.

CJ, I dont post here very often anymore ,but if you would like to e- mail me privately maybe my son could help your son.We have homeschooled for 13 years and when my son was 12 he was diagnosed with J.D.My son is now 18, and goes to public high scool.He is on the wrestling team,has won 3 gold medals.He is a camp counsellor,swims canoes etc...but that stuff scared him at first because he couldn't always get regulated.As far as school work,We have used different things and are now using SOME s.o.s.I have grade 4,7,and 9.....There is also a good site for homeschool support...www.vegsource.com ttfn teri

-- teri (dnsmacbeth@aol.com), April 12, 2002.

Oh my!!!Its late ,I need to do a spell check!!

-- teri (dnsmacbeth@aol.com), April 12, 2002.

Just a suggestion, but if you're thinking to finish out 8th grade with homeschooling then transition him back into school when he's got things better under control (or at least want to keep that option open), then I'd talk with the school about continuing to use his current curriculum. It may be more difficult for you, but it'd ensure that he's prepared for 9th grade in this particular school system. Also, as Gayle noted, most schools have some sort of homebound program for these kinds of situation. At the very least, they should provide the books. At best, they provide a tutor to come by to work with your son.

If you're not looking to put him back into the school system, then ignore everything I just said.

-- Julie Woessner (jwoessner@rtmx.net), April 12, 2002.

Switched on Schoolhouse is a wonderful homeschooling curriculum. We use it for our 3rd, 6th and 10th grader. If it something you want to try out, I would recommend buying an earlier version. You can pick a set up at a reasonable price on vegsource http://www.vegsource.com or ebay.

The reason I suggest trying it is because of the possiblity of him returning to public school. Because you are so close to the end of the school year, I would suggest taking him out, saying the heck with the last month or so, and make a smooth transition from public school to homeschool over the summer. Don't even worry about school. Relax and allow your son to do so as well. Maybe do lots of fun activities and reading.

The Alpha Omega site also has a download placement test that will help you determine where to begin your son in their curriculum. If you find that he is at grade 7 in math, but in grade 8 in language arts, http://www.pmschoolhouse.com/ mixes and matches the subject grades to fit your needs.

Hope this helps. Also yahoo groups has a GREAT email loop called SOShomeschoolers.

-- Laurean (cranston_06010@yahoo.com), April 12, 2002.

Hi, I have done that I homeschool my three sons in High School. Graduated the first one last year. I know a boy in our church that was flunking 8th grade and whom had already flunked once before but was one of those 'trouble' kids AHD etc. Well I was helping him in the last part of 8th but he still couldn't pass cause of his attention problem and missing soooo much school The school was expelling him all the time just to get rid of him but he deserved most of it. He is a walking hormone. Ha So they flunked him and I took him on as a homeschool kid #Even put him into 10th where he belonged as my son was there also. We worked with him and he stayed at our house thru the week and went home weekends. His first 9 week grades were B's and a C or two but I pushed him to do his best and challenged him to try to contol his attention problem himself and he really straightened up. His next 9 weeks was a bit better and he was responding really well to the schooling if I stayed right on top of it. Then his grandparents decided to take him and do the same with him as they needed a set of legs and hands to do all their work for them. They have a lot of money and the parents don't care what happens as long as they don't have to do anything. Slugs are what they are so they let the g/parents do that and now he gets 2 hours ofteaching a week plus is sposed to do it all on his own between their asigned work There is nothing I can do to finish the job with him and he is not even 16 yet. We quit their church so it is church politics as the preacher is encouraging it as the grandparents are loaded and he wants some so the kid suffers but to make the story short it is possible and very good thing. I use ABEKA video as it is high school stuff and I can tell you from experience that if you want to and are committed it will work, You have to discipline yourself more than the kid tho.What can ya lose if he is already flunking in public.. Cindy

-- Cindy (hollo@bitwisesystems.com), April 13, 2002.

Dittos to what Julie W. said. This is what happened to our family: My eldest daughter is an extremely brittle diabetic. She is now a young adult and managing very well, but she had an extremely difficult time in middle school and high school due to her diabetes. Every time she came down with anything more than a cold, she'd end up in intensive care, and would be hospitalized anywhere from 3 to 30 days. Being a bright student and very motivated, she still did 'A' work on all her school work and tests, turned in homework on time, etc. However, a number of teachers continually gave her 'D's on her report card despite her excellent work and grades, their reasoning being that she was gone so much she couldn't have possibly learned as much as if she had been in their classroom the whole time. (Although she was the top student in most classes despite her frequent absences.) She became very discouraged and depressed. I finally pulled her out and homeschooled her through a State accredited Christian school program for 2 years until her medical situation stabilized somewhat. She then returned to high school and did well. In her senior year the school decided they wouldn't accept her grades from the Christian school and made her wade through an entire year of packets from their alternative school program in addition to her regular schoolwork, in order to "make up" those 2 yrs. of credits. It was a tremendous burden on her and in retrospect, I should have hired an attorney and forced the school to accept her (legitimate) credits rather than letting her go through that.

If I were you I would proceed very carefully with homeschooling if you intend for your son to return to public school. Work with the school to ensure he will receive proper credit for his work. On the other hand, your son is obviously having trouble dealing with his condition. Middle school and high school is a very tough age to be "different". Homeschooling may be a very good solution for him and you may not want to have him return to public school at all. Either way, do YOUR homework very carefully before you jump into anything.

-- Lenette (kigervixen@nospam.com), April 13, 2002.

Wow, thanks for all the advice everyone! There's so many different things to consider in making this choice. I'd say there is a 90% chance that my son will be going back to public school at the end of the year. But, it won't be the school he's currently in. He is planning on going to live with his father in N. Carolina, and I've checked their laws, homeschooling shouldn't be a problem, although he'd be enrolled in a school on an Airbase. The other possibility is my husband may accept an 18 month job in Louisianna, and if my son doesn't go live with his father, he of course will be going there with us. They don't seem to have any laws regarding home schooling!

I've ordered the placement tests for Switched on Schoolhouse, and after I see how he does on those, I'll probably decide where we're at. Thanks for all the feedback.

-- CJ (sheep@katahdins.net), April 13, 2002.

You're right . . . NC has very liberal homeschooling laws.

HOWEVER, it's sometimes difficult to transition a homeschooled child into the public school system out here. I have no idea of how things work on an Airbase, but the public schools in NC routinely state that the point of entry into the NC schools is kindergarten, and they reserve the right to test a child and determine what they believe is the appropriate grade level for the child. (Usually, when a child transfers from a public school in another state, it is assumed that the child will go into the appropriate grade without any testing-- it's homeschooling that typically causes the concern because it isn't really standardized in a fashion that feels comfortable to the school administrators.) While I can't help but feel it's mostly political, I do understand--my children are all over the place in terms of the level of work they do. My 12 year old is on grade level in some subjects, yet definitely 11th and 12th grade in others. How in the world do you easily deal with a situation like that?

Of course, this all varies greatly from school to school. Some school administrators are decent human beings. Others, however, seem to take some sort of peverse delight in making formerly homeschooled children jump through silly little hoops like trained poodles. My guess, though, is that you probably wouldn't get stuck with the politics if you make it clear that you were homeschooling for health reasons and not because of any concerns you had with the school.

In most cases, you'll have an easier time transitioning back into public school if you use curriculum that is more like what you'd see in the schools. For us, there's no way we could easily transition our children into the schools, but we knew that going into this and after four years of homeschooling we have no desire to go back into the system. If I had thought it was a possibility, though, we would have done the pre-packaged curriculum route (like Calvert).

-- Julie Woessner (jwoessner@rtmx.net), April 13, 2002.

You might want to ask around about what is done for extended suspension/expelled students.

I read in the news a while back that it was routine for some schools to provide tutors for these students at the district's cost so they don't fall behind, you may be able to point to a similar policy in your district and go on independent study (one common term for students using school curriculum but studying at home) with the assistance of a district tutor.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), April 13, 2002.

Hi CJ, I'm looking at the Switched on Schoolhouse for my soon to be 7th grader for next school yr. We've homeschooled for 4 yrs now, and the main reason we took our daughter out of public school was because of the problems we had with trying to get the school to understand and work with her diabetic program (shots at school, highs, lows, difficulty concentrating) I even had one teacher tell me that he thought she was using her "low blood sugars" to get out of taking tests. Like a child can make their blood sugar drop down to 30 to escape a math quiz. Give me a break. We've found home schooling to be the answer for us(altho I realize it's not for everyone) and Sarah is not only more stable medically, but healthier emotionally. i agree wih one of he previous posts, if your son is going back to public school, I would just let this period of time be like a retreat for him to regroup and get back on his feet. It can often take as long as a yr to 18 months for kids to start feeling like themselves again after starting insulin therapy. Feel free to email me privately any time you need some support yourself! Judy

-- Judy Corwin (corwinsusa@netscape.net), April 13, 2002.

Ah yes....my son often runs into problems with the teachers about him "faking" blood sugar problems. I get called at least 3 times per week. It's such a pain. If I had to work outside the home, I'm not sure how we'd handle it, as I end up going to get him more often than not. Has anyone else had any experience with the Switched on Schoolhouse cirriculum? I'd sure love to hear more feedback on it.

-- CJ (sheep@katahdins.net), April 14, 2002.