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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would love some advice on this. My child is an 8th grader who has been in level IV/AAP since 3rd grade. He is zoned for an IB HS. DS has ADHD. He is an A student who is in geometry right now who wants to major in computer science. Math is his favorite subject. He STRUGGLES with writing. I don't mean grammar and sentence structure, I mean he cannot get words down on paper struggle. Spends hours looking at a blank page. Has perfectionist tendencies. Doesn't know how to expand what little he does manage to get down on paper. He works with a writing tutor and has made great strides from where he started but is still a terrible writer. (I write for a living so I cannot relate nor do I know how to help as it comes so naturally to me.)

Based on his profile it seems we should try to transfer to the AP HS. People have told me not to do that. They say the IB HS will teach him how to write. But how do you teach getting ideas down? His issue is not technique. I think it has a lot to do with his ADHD and poor processing speed. I have been told he can a la can do the IB classes a la carte and not go full diploma. I was even told he does not even have to sit for the exams and that the point would be to stay in zoned school with friends and let the counselor check the box for rigorous coursework (because he took some IB classes). Having him leave his friends is upsetting to him but I feel like I am setting him up to fail by having him in an IB HS. Can anyone speak to this?

Also is it true he can take IB courses and not the exam and it won't mess him up for graduation? If he does that can the counselor still check the rigorous coursework box??

I would love any input/thoughts.[/quote]

I'm a parent of a kid who loves to write and did an IB diploma and my 2c based on just what you've shared here is that he would be better served by an AP HS (unless there are other reasons--friend groups etc.) than the IB school.  It is very writing intensive, and writing across the disciplines. You write in AP too, but not to the same degree. BUT if he is motivated to stay with his friends, maybe you can make it work out as a growth process.  Some dysgraphia is developmental--have you had him do speech to text?  I would get him a 504b and talk to the IB coordinators and the HS counselor about exams and rigorous coursework.  There are different policies depending on both of these.

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This is all very good advice.  I think that the County has also made it very hard to move from an IB school to an AP school by the way they concentrated them in one area of the county.  Your child would have to go pretty far to get into a school and be away from the friends that he grew up with.[/quote]

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