Need HELP! My child is seriously struggling in HS

[Anonymous]

My freshman DD is seriously struggling this year at her base HS. She has an IEP and is enrolled in small Special Ed classes, but she still struggles to participate in school in any meaningful way. School is a huge source of anxiety for her, and she gets sick at the thought of going to school, or often hurts herself at school in an effort to be sent home. She avoids clubs, has no friends, and is pretty much drowning in every meaningful way.

I am working closely with the counselor, psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker … you name it, I’m doing it, we still are drowning.

She is in the base school CSS site and staff are caring, but things aren’t working. She hurts herself in class in order to be sent home, it’s so sad.

She is currently undergoing treatment for school avoidance at Newport, but I am seriously worried about what will happen when her treatment is done. I want to get her out of this school and into something else when treatment is done, what are my options? I desperately want her out of there. I’ve looked at the website for the alternative FCPS schools, they sound scary to me - referrals for delinquency, violence, criminal behavior? My kid is a very gentle soul.

Home school is not an option as I’m a single mom who works.

To be clear, her IEP is for anxiety and frustration, not learning Concerns.
I also am generally a big proponent of FCPS schools in most situations, my older kids graduated there and had great success. It’s just not right for this one

[Anonymous]

I was going to post my response on the FCPS forum but it's probably better here.
I'm sorry you are going through this OP.

We were in this situation a few years ago. 
School refusal due to anxiety and depression. DD also had ADHD and had an IEP starting in 6th grade that we had to fight so hard to get. 

DD had no disciplinary issues and was not a disruptive, problem kid in the classroom. Same as your child- a gentle soul.
Had suicidal ideation, and started cutting herself in 7th grade, was constantly in the counselor's office for emotional support. 
We tried to work with the High School and it was so inconsistent. 
It was tough dealing with the closed-mindedness of the Special Ed staff. What you get totally depends on who is in the meeting. 
It was hard to wait 3 weeks in between meetings when your kid is harming themselves daily. 
I had asked if they could please have an integrated, unified approach across all teachers. 

We had an educational advocate, and attorney, and really tried to work with the school to find alternative options. 

Here are the FCPS alternatives we looked at: 
Mountainview- is already known to be where the kids with disciplinary issues go. Our kid does not fit that at all and told us it would be worse for her. 
Cedar Lane- I sat there for a few hours to observe. Their methods will not do well with my kid. 
CSS- We looked at the one in Chantilly HS. Geared more to more developmental issues, and also had disruptive kids. Also would not be a good environment. Plus, the procedure to get her into CSS was longer than what we wanted to do since she was already in 11th grade at that point. 
FCPS would not do home instruction. 

Would have been great if FCPS gave educational vouchers so we could take our kid to a school that would fit her. 
Our attorney advised us to use our money for private school instead.
No one wins against FCPS. So we did end up going to private school. 

[Anonymous]

School refusal and qualification based on anxiety is going to get you an ED placement. The population in an ED program isn’t going to be different than a regular mainstream school and might be worse when it comes to violence and behaviors because these are the kids that can’t be managed in mainstream. So if you’re looking for an alternative placement, you’re going to have to accept this.

Also, if the issue is school refusal it’s hard to get a different placement. First of all, it’s so common That the schools can deal with it in their own programs. Second, if she can’t get to school or stay in school now how would that be different in a private placement. Third, if she’s at Newport, presumably she has t been to school for months but has been in an intense therapeutic setting. Presumable she will have new tools and the school is going to want to see how she’s doing - in other words, they will not evaluate her based on previous behavior. Fourth, even if the school agrees you will have to find someone to take her and that’s not easy for school refusal.

What I did when I was in your shoes was this. For background, the school refusal and anxiety and other issues were so bad that my kid tried to kill themselves in school twice and spent about eight months out of school in hospitals and residential treatment. When it was time to go back to school we first tried virtual. That doesn’t require you to homeschool. But it didn’t work for us. So I learned everything I could about every public program. Then I worked really closely with the school team (special Ed coordinator, the transition specialist, and school counselor) to figure out what they would support. Then we officially met and jumped through the hoops to get the county to agree. It was unbelievably time consuming and frustrating at times but ultimately it was successful. And, as an aside, the school did not support my number one choice but their recommendation was really good and so I advocated for that.

Good luck. It’s really hard and I’m so glad to be done with school for my kid. Not that post school life has been a walk in the park but it’s just different.

[Anonymous]

10:13 here.

I was going to note here that DD did all sorts of therapy- CBT, DBT, you name it, we did it.( parents too).
She was sent home a few times and we were told to get her evaluated.
We'd take her to our doctor and they assessed that she didn't qualify for Dominion or any other treatment.
This kind of puzzled us but eventually we also realized, that DD did agree that she felt going to residential treatment was also feeding her curiosity in a "checking to see if that's where I belong" kind of thing. I know it's bad to say, but we also thought that residential treatment was not what she needed and that the environment was going to not be good for her. We also one night decided not to call 911 based on what I saw here at DCUM where one parent said "once they take your kid to the ER, you lose all control of their treatment."

So, having never been in residential treatment did "hurt" the likelihood that FCPS was going to do more than they were offering.
They saw her case was "not bad enough"... but I tell ya, the nightly panic attacks and the self-harm felt really bad to the rest of us at home.

Once she got into private school, things were so much better.
Not having to deal with the IEP and the resistant Special Ed staff was a welcome change for all of us.
We wished we had taken her out of the cold environment of FCPS sooner- it was as if the school was her poison and we were trying to treat her poison with all the therapy. Once she got into the right school, she didn't need therapy outside of school. It was like a different kid, and home life got so much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was going to post my response on the FCPS forum but it's probably better here.
I'm sorry you are going through this OP.

We were in this situation a few years ago. 
School refusal due to anxiety and depression. DD also had ADHD and had an IEP starting in 6th grade that we had to fight so hard to get. 

DD had no disciplinary issues and was not a disruptive, problem kid in the classroom. Same as your child- a gentle soul.
Had suicidal ideation, and started cutting herself in 7th grade, was constantly in the counselor's office for emotional support. 
We tried to work with the High School and it was so inconsistent. 
It was tough dealing with the closed-mindedness of the Special Ed staff. What you get totally depends on who is in the meeting. 
It was hard to wait 3 weeks in between meetings when your kid is harming themselves daily. 
I had asked if they could please have an integrated, unified approach across all teachers. 

We had an educational advocate, and attorney, and really tried to work with the school to find alternative options. 

Here are the FCPS alternatives we looked at: 
Mountainview- is already known to be where the kids with disciplinary issues go. Our kid does not fit that at all and told us it would be worse for her. 
Cedar Lane- I sat there for a few hours to observe. Their methods will not do well with my kid. 
CSS- We looked at the one in Chantilly HS. Geared more to more developmental issues, and also had disruptive kids. Also would not be a good environment. Plus, the procedure to get her into CSS was longer than what we wanted to do since she was already in 11th grade at that point. 
FCPS would not do home instruction. 

Would have been great if FCPS gave educational vouchers so we could take our kid to a school that would fit her. 
Our attorney advised us to use our money for private school instead.
No one wins against FCPS. So we did end up going to private school. 

OP here, Thank you for sharing your story! So sorry to hear what you went through.
I’m I’m curious, where did you end up? We have a529 for DD, May use it for HS.
I’m looking at all options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School refusal and qualification based on anxiety is going to get you an ED placement. The population in an ED program isn’t going to be different than a regular mainstream school and might be worse when it comes to violence and behaviors because these are the kids that can’t be managed in mainstream. So if you’re looking for an alternative placement, you’re going to have to accept this.

Also, if the issue is school refusal it’s hard to get a different placement. First of all, it’s so common That the schools can deal with it in their own programs. Second, if she can’t get to school or stay in school now how would that be different in a private placement. Third, if she’s at Newport, presumably she has t been to school for months but has been in an intense therapeutic setting. Presumable she will have new tools and the school is going to want to see how she’s doing - in other words, they will not evaluate her based on previous behavior. Fourth, even if the school agrees you will have to find someone to take her and that’s not easy for school refusal.

What I did when I was in your shoes was this. For background, the school refusal and anxiety and other issues were so bad that my kid tried to kill themselves in school twice and spent about eight months out of school in hospitals and residential treatment. When it was time to go back to school we first tried virtual. That doesn’t require you to homeschool. But it didn’t work for us. So I learned everything I could about every public program. Then I worked really closely with the school team (special Ed coordinator, the transition specialist, and school counselor) to figure out what they would support. Then we officially met and jumped through the hoops to get the county to agree. It was unbelievably time consuming and frustrating at times but ultimately it was successful. And, as an aside, the school did not support my number one choice but their recommendation was really good and so I advocated for that.

Good luck. It’s really hard and I’m so glad to be done with school for my kid. Not that post school life has been a walk in the park but it’s just different.

10:29, thank you for sharing your experience. I am so sorry o9 hear what you went through

Where did you end up? It sounds like you stayed in FCPS with l9s of supports in place? I’m not sure what I should even ask for, what worked t9 keep you kid in the system? Thank you for sharing your experience, I am trying to learn all I can. I do feel like our HS team cares, but their hands our tied. Was that your experience?

[Anonymous]

In Virginia, GW Community School and Fusion will take mid-year transfers. Maybe Sycamore too? Thinking of you, OP.

[Anonymous]

Try moving to transitional IEP goals where you can focus on social skills, job training, interview skills, technical/vocational skils, dual enrollment.

www.wrightslaw.com

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In Virginia, GW Community School and Fusion will take mid-year transfers. Maybe Sycamore too? Thinking of you, OP.

I was thinking of GW school! I know they have small classes, but not much else.

Thoughts on New School? Both are relatively close to my home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In Virginia, GW Community School and Fusion will take mid-year transfers. Maybe Sycamore too? Thinking of you, OP.

I was thinking of GW school! I know they have small classes, but not much else.

Thoughts on New School? Both are relatively close to my home.

I know people with kids at New School and it’s very good, tiny classes, very progressive bit it is still school OP and while I think there are a lot of kids there with various mental health challenges it’s as I understand it not in any way a therapeutic school or anything like that. From your description it’s hard to know if it would work for your child.

[Anonymous]

I would also maybe consider the Nora School. Just a thought.... hugs to you OP.

[Anonymous]

My school refusal kid is thriving at Fusion - they have been great with helping child to build academic confidence and rediscover love of learning. downside is that it's quite expensive...

[Anonymous]

Check out the New School and Sycamore. Both have very small classes and very warm, accommodating staff.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

We had our first day today of PHP at Domion in Chantilly, they seem to be a very warm and sympathetic staff.
I’m still very worried about what will happen when we are don’t w therapy and have to transition back to school.

[Anonymous]

I'm a PP. We went to Fusion. Lifesaver, literally. It was great to not even worry about an IEP.