St. Ann’s (NYC) - Private School Horror Show

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We do know that the school sent the decline to enroll in February, which is too late to transfer elsewhere

I am in full agreement that they should have let the family know of the decline earlier, so that they could apply to privates specializing in kids with disabilities, if private is what they wanted. However, it is not accurate to say it was "too late to transfer elsewhere." Public school, which the vast majority of children in the US attend, and is legally required to provide accommodations, is always an option.

Oh come on. In order to get accommodations in public school districts, you need an IEP. And those take months and months, and usually by February are done for services for the following year. The PP was correctly summarizing the situation.

100% nonsense. You clearly have no understanding of the law. Schools can't just say "Welp, we're done providing services this year." That's not at all how it works.

This private told the parents they could not support this child for several years and the parents refused to listen. They did not have a specialist for ADD and dyslexia. This shouldn't have come as a surprise to the parents. They were asked to switch their child and the parents refused. Most privates cannot support moderate to severe special needs. The parents answer was to get a tutor and when that didn't help, they still refused to change schools.

Who are you talking to? The PP said that a public school would not give services for the next year after February. That is patently false.

I have no idea how what you said here relates.

You completely misread that post. The point of the comment about February is delay, not denial. Goodness.

WHat are you talking about? What delay? The child was not given a re-enrollment contract. They were still at the school through June. Are you arguing that they could not have gotten an IEP in place by September? That's nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:16:16 nailed it.

Like the family that sued Lawrenceville after their son’s suicide, this family is not suing for money or out of simple spite. They don’t need the money and no amount will redress or assuage their loss.

They are doing this to highlight the issue and to help other children and families. They’ve already gotten St Ann’s to hire more support staff. If it helps them feel like their loss has some meaning, good.

I am saddened and the lack of empathy and compassion from the posters criticizing the family.

We should all be grateful to them for doing what they are doing.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

One DC Big3 school determined a high school student had to repeat a year, because the student had so much chemotherapy he had to miss a considerable amount of school. The parents agreed with that. Then the school determined that the student could not go to a school dance with his classmates who’d been his classmates since a young age after a year of fighting cancer. The child was unnecessarily devastated.

Are the schools there to serve students or students to serve schools? And who at the school is this all serving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

One DC Big3 school determined a high school student had to repeat a year, because the student had so much chemotherapy he had to miss a considerable amount of school. The parents agreed with that. Then the school determined that the student could not go to a school dance with his classmates who’d been his classmates since a young age after a year of fighting cancer. The child was unnecessarily devastated.

Are the schools there to serve students or students to serve schools? And who at the school is this all serving?

That’s terrible. (The dance, not the repeating.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

One DC Big3 school determined a high school student had to repeat a year, because the student had so much chemotherapy he had to miss a considerable amount of school. The parents agreed with that. Then the school determined that the student could not go to a school dance with his classmates who’d been his classmates since a young age after a year of fighting cancer. The child was unnecessarily devastated.

Are the schools there to serve students or students to serve schools? And who at the school is this all serving?

Did the child repeat sophomore year and the dance was a Junior-Senior dance? I could understand the child’s disappointment in this scenario but it would make sense to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

This is how I imagine the counseling out process would work. The father even said there was communication from the school that they didn’t share with the kid…I wouldn’t share all the details with my kid either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

One DC Big3 school determined a high school student had to repeat a year, because the student had so much chemotherapy he had to miss a considerable amount of school. The parents agreed with that. Then the school determined that the student could not go to a school dance with his classmates who’d been his classmates since a young age after a year of fighting cancer. The child was unnecessarily devastated.

Are the schools there to serve students or students to serve schools? And who at the school is this all serving?

Did the child repeat sophomore year and the dance was a Junior-Senior dance? I could understand the child’s disappointment in this scenario but it would make sense to me.

It makes no sense to me. It seems fine to have a “only juniors and seniors may attend *unless you have been with the cohort since prek and are now an underclassman only because of your lengthy and grueling cancer treatment” exception.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

One DC Big3 school determined a high school student had to repeat a year, because the student had so much chemotherapy he had to miss a considerable amount of school. The parents agreed with that. Then the school determined that the student could not go to a school dance with his classmates who’d been his classmates since a young age after a year of fighting cancer. The child was unnecessarily devastated.

Are the schools there to serve students or students to serve schools? And who at the school is this all serving?

If the doctors said child could go to the dance, they should have let him. Repeating a grade made sense or the child should have done an online school that year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We do know that the school sent the decline to enroll in February, which is too late to transfer elsewhere

I am in full agreement that they should have let the family know of the decline earlier, so that they could apply to privates specializing in kids with disabilities, if private is what they wanted. However, it is not accurate to say it was "too late to transfer elsewhere." Public school, which the vast majority of children in the US attend, and is legally required to provide accommodations, is always an option.

Oh come on. In order to get accommodations in public school districts, you need an IEP. And those take months and months, and usually by February are done for services for the following year. The PP was correctly summarizing the situation.

100% nonsense. You clearly have no understanding of the law. Schools can't just say "Welp, we're done providing services this year." That's not at all how it works.

This private told the parents they could not support this child for several years and the parents refused to listen. They did not have a specialist for ADD and dyslexia. This shouldn't have come as a surprise to the parents. They were asked to switch their child and the parents refused. Most privates cannot support moderate to severe special needs. The parents answer was to get a tutor and when that didn't help, they still refused to change schools.

Who are you talking to? The PP said that a public school would not give services for the next year after February. That is patently false.

I have no idea how what you said here relates.

Completely false especially if child had a current neuropsych.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

We do know that the school sent the decline to enroll in February, which is too late to transfer elsewhere

I am in full agreement that they should have let the family know of the decline earlier, so that they could apply to privates specializing in kids with disabilities, if private is what they wanted. However, it is not accurate to say it was "too late to transfer elsewhere." Public school, which the vast majority of children in the US attend, and is legally required to provide accommodations, is always an option.

Oh come on. In order to get accommodations in public school districts, you need an IEP. And those take months and months, and usually by February are done for services for the following year. The PP was correctly summarizing the situation.

100% nonsense. You clearly have no understanding of the law. Schools can't just say "Welp, we're done providing services this year." That's not at all how it works.

You are wildly ignorant of reality. I’m not even sure where to start with this. It’s like you are reading some sort of school propaganda and ignorant of how the actual system works.

My child has an IEP in a public school. Where in the world did you get the idea that there's a cutoff in the school year to get evaluated for an IEP? You can start the process at any time. The district needs to respond within 45 days by law. You cannot be denied an evaluation regardless of the time of year.

I have multiple kids with IEPs in public and private, now in high school and college. I have been through the wringer as far as advocating for services. You are talking about the idealistic theory under the law, I am talking about the real world. Yes, of course you can start the process any time. And yes, of course the school has to respond in 45 days. That theory is all correct.

But the reality is that it is much harder to get services if there is no IEP in place for a new student coming in, especially if there is no recent neuropsych report. Also, school districts by February have assessed their staffing needs for the following year. That means that totally new students, sure, yes they can request. Anyone can request anything. But it is harder, in many districts, to get a full evaluation with services towards the end of the school year. The “reserve” districts have for staffing will be prioritized to those more extreme students, which there is no indication this child was.

The fact remains that if this child was only formally told that he would not be re-enrolled in February after years of waffling, the school acted unconscionably.

The private had them do a neuropsych per the article. It didn't say if it had been updated but the school in ES started telling these parents it wasn't a good fit and child should be moved to a school that would better meet his needs. They were probably worried about getting sued or parents going to the media. To expect a private to help for that level of dyslexia and ADD is not reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

They were trying to get the parents to change schools for several years before not renewing the contract. They recommended an evaluation and the evaluator said to stay at the school and the parents listened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

One DC Big3 school determined a high school student had to repeat a year, because the student had so much chemotherapy he had to miss a considerable amount of school. The parents agreed with that. Then the school determined that the student could not go to a school dance with his classmates who’d been his classmates since a young age after a year of fighting cancer. The child was unnecessarily devastated.

Are the schools there to serve students or students to serve schools? And who at the school is this all serving?

Did the child repeat sophomore year and the dance was a Junior-Senior dance? I could understand the child’s disappointment in this scenario but it would make sense to me.

How could anyone even think this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

One DC Big3 school determined a high school student had to repeat a year, because the student had so much chemotherapy he had to miss a considerable amount of school. The parents agreed with that. Then the school determined that the student could not go to a school dance with his classmates who’d been his classmates since a young age after a year of fighting cancer. The child was unnecessarily devastated.

Are the schools there to serve students or students to serve schools? And who at the school is this all serving?

Did the child repeat sophomore year and the dance was a Junior-Senior dance? I could understand the child’s disappointment in this scenario but it would make sense to me.

How could anyone even think this?

proves stupid people go to PS too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's how counseling-out goes down when you have a ND kid in a private school--and believe me they counsel out kids yearly and usually have it planned--  they call the family to tell them verbally in late November or December giving them the holiday break to process it. They rarely put it in writing --putting instead copious internal CYA notes in writing to the file, in emails, documenting all the meetings. Then in Feb when contracts go live, theirs won't be there- they’ll call again. They never will say " we don't support autism and dyslexia"--instead they will point to loads of issues that are specific to the kid's learning style and navigation of the social environment. They need the message to be blurry (and the data on the kid they want out , to be extensive) so they can pick and choose who they like. Autistic but the family is powerful or loaded? Maybe! Dyslexic but the kid uses a lot of support services up and is on financial aid? Maybe not..

When enrollment is down, these kids get carried,  year after year after year— and when enrollment is up, they bite the bullet and counsel them out decisively. So parents get constant mixed messages, and when the time comes to say goodbye, whether intentionally or not, the blame is placed squarely on the kid “ they can not support” and on the kid’s inability to "meet the expectations of the environment". They will always blame the kid -in subtle ways and in soft warm thoughtful tones.

It is insidious and very much enrollment driven, donation driven and diversity driven--schools are much more comfortable counseling out white kids as there is less liability. Prior discussions of problems with the kid years back are a somewhat irrelevant pattern once the contract is offered. Contracts speak much louder than meetings. Signed contracts come with serious ethical but not legal obligations to support students and families in healthy kind ways. The dilemma for schools is that they do "sort-of" know that the process of pressuring kids and families to leave ( which includes a lot of passive aggressive criticism of parenting styles, detailed deconstruction of the kid’s flaws, intense observation and documentation of any little aberrant behavior and learning lapse ) causes severe emotional harm and creates a psychologically unsafe environment-but what can they do?.. it’s a litigious world - they’re  protecting themselves —and I am sure St Anne’s is ready for this lawsuit with a big fat horrible file on a well meaning bright but dead …child.

One DC Big3 school determined a high school student had to repeat a year, because the student had so much chemotherapy he had to miss a considerable amount of school. The parents agreed with that. Then the school determined that the student could not go to a school dance with his classmates who’d been his classmates since a young age after a year of fighting cancer. The child was unnecessarily devastated.

Are the schools there to serve students or students to serve schools? And who at the school is this all serving?

Did the child repeat sophomore year and the dance was a Junior-Senior dance? I could understand the child’s disappointment in this scenario but it would make sense to me.

How could anyone even think this?

proves stupid people go to PS too

And maybe work in the administration

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is unfortunate that the neuropsychologist and/or parents came to the conclusion that a specialized school for dyslexia would have been "overkill." These are parents who could afford such a school and whose child might have really thrived at such a school. I know a family who sent one child to such a school and their DC was quite intelligent and capable. Their DC benefited from it immensely and was able to succeed at a mainstream school later on. I have another friend who is also concerned about sending her kid a specialized school for the same reason as the parents in the article--that the other kids at the school are worse off than her DC. So even parents of non-neurotypical kids are often concerned about a school environment where their kids might be more capable than the other kids. I wonder if this concern might prevent lots of kids from getting the targeted intervention they need.

This is a common, sometimes misguided concern — Siena School for example has a high percentage of twice exceptional students