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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Thank you for sharing your experiences. We are in the process of deciding between public or SN private. SN private would probably do a better job of meeting DC's current needs, but I'm worried about closing off opportunities in the future, should those opportunities be appropriate.[/quote]

You're welcome and I hope it's useful.  I do want to be clear, though -- I am not for a moment regretting our decision to go SN.  Those years provided absolutely invaluable developmental help to our DC.  What I'm offering is just a frank appraisal of what we found to be a downside -- the difficulty of completing the post-SN transition to the desired mainstream track.

Doing it all over again, I'm not sure we'd have done it any differently.  I think if I could replay the tape, I'd have tried to make the leap one year earlier, coming into 1st rather than 2nd. But on the other hand, our DC made a great friend that last year at the old school.  I do know that if we'd waited one year longer we'd have had real problems.  3rd grade really accelerates the academic work, and 2nd was really the absolute latest that we could have made the transition relatively easily.

And obviously, doing it all over again, we wouldn't have wasted our time with closed-minded schools.

Anyway, please understand I'm not arguing that you should opt against the SN track.  I just want you to be prepared for all the subsequent contingencies.

Good luck!!![/quote]

What kind of support were you able to provide to your child after you left the SN school? If your child had social issues, were you met with understanding parents at the mainstream school?[/quote]

Before and after SN years we worked with a speech path after school hours. The mainstream school has a speech path on staff that we're able to contract with separately, giving us on-site help.  Many schools make this available, some either have a speech path on staff, others give school access and sometimes office space to one that parents can hire separately.

Re understanding at the new school -- somewhat scarred by our previous experience with prejudice re SN backgrounds, we have not shared that background with parents at the new school.  The way I'd sum up our view is that DC worked like hell for years to overcome previous challenges, and despite all that work, through no fault of DC's own, was still viewed in terms of where DC had been rather than where DC's skills had advanced.  We realized that we had subjected DC to this without DC's knowledge or consent, and that it was limiting opportunities in an unfair way.  We made a conscious decision that we needed to stop forcing DC to be labeled by DC's past and give DC a clean slate that allowed DC to be judged by current performance.  Based on DC's consistently strong performance in after-school activities and classes, we were optimistic DC would do well.

DC's social skills are not as advanced as peers at the new school, we don't attempt to hide that. Coming in, many parents commented on DC's smarts, enthusiasm and academic skills.  Sometimes we would return the compliment and mention strong social skills as something their child had.  They'd mention that they liked that our child helped theirs with academic stuff, and we'd mention that we liked it when DC learned from other children on the social side.

Short answer I suppose is yes, parents have been very understanding.  It helps that DC is a really strong performer in the classroom and at school functions, and so is seen as a leader in most areas of school life, which probably adds to the willingness to indulge some of the social quirks.  But we also think it helps that we were able to give DC a clean slate, and so we're keeping it that way.[/quote]

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