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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Also, while I value chess dad's advice, there's always stuff left out of the story like their child had a lot of outbursts at this supposedly great charter and they also spent a year at Auburn where their child did not do well at all.

I bring this up to you OP because things don't always go in one direction. With those diagnoses it's sometimes one step forward two steps back. I've been happy to hear chess dad's child is doing well at the mainstream private.[/quote]

It’s mom not dad this time.  DS had a bad 1/2 year in second grade before his ADHD was diagnosed.   Also, DS did not get along with his Sp Ed teacher in second grade and she was replaced.  So much for out bursts in elementary school.  Overall, our charter was great for prek-2 and ok for 3-5.

DS went to Auburn for a year.  A huge waste of time and money.  He certainly did not learn anything that year and I got more phone calls than I ever did at  the charter.  DS’s behavior was awful that year too.  Terrible fit.
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OP here. Where did you go from Auburn?  I'm very interested in that because I heard that once the kid is in a SN private like Auburn/KTS, it's relatively hard to transfer him/her to a mainstream private since the mainstream may not want to take a chance on a student from SN private.

[/quote]

We went to Fusion which my DS loved as opposed to Auburn.  Fusion was great!  We were able to catch DS up in English: vocabulary, grammar and writing. The main reason we hated Auburn was bc the English teacher was illiterate judging by all his grammatical errors on progress reports.  He also assigned Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to 6 graders  :roll:

Back on point.  Then Fusion went to virtual learning for 1/2 the year.  After Fusion, I hired private tutors for a year to fill out DS’s holes in English and Math.  DS did great at Fusion, all As, great recommendations from his English, Math, Science  and HOS which is why DS is at the school he is now.  Took the SSAT.  We applied to a bunch of mainstream private schools and he got into all and goes to his first choice.

COVID was actually great because we had DS all caught up.  He is an academic rock star;). Excels in his top math class and is an excellent writer.  Very self motivated, neat, well organized with good time management.[/quote]

Thank you so much.

I only remotely heard about Fusion and I thought they are mainly a collection of regional offices providing 1:1 tutors?  It is there actually a school, a class and a head of school at each location?

For your DS to reach a point that he “Excels in his top math class and is an excellent writer. Very self motivated, neat, well organized with good time management”, do you think it’s mainly due to the one year at Fusion? Or it’s also related to the years he spend at the charter school?

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Fusion is an accredited school, usually grades 7-12.  Each branch has a head of school and yes, each one is a school w/HOS.  It was started in Solano Beach, CA which is near La Jolla.  Their teaching model is 1:1.  They have schools all over the country.  DS attended the DC branch.  When he was there, there were kids like him with ASD and/or ADHD and lots of others who needed a flexible schedule, like a girl who modeled, a ballerina, a kid who had a significant following on social media, a competitive kayaker, etc… Several kids who attended Auburn but left.  DS plays tournament chess and the flexible schedule worked well for us.

I think the reason he is doing well now is due to several things:  He has a very high IQ, very fast processing and very superior working memory.  We had his neuropsych come to an IEP meeting after DS got his first neuropsych eval and the gist of that meeting was that academically, DS can learn anything and expectations were always high.

His executive functioning was always well supported by his charter school.  The teachers did a very good job helping him with things like organizing his backpack, his folders, work assignments, etc.  this included using timers especially in the early grades.  Starting in third grade, DS always showed a preference to get his homework done at school in aftercare and I’ve always let him.  He’s been pretty much homework independent since then.

DS has a dysgraphia and a learning disability in written expression found when he was in 2nd grade.  The most helpful was putting him on a laptop for writing starting in second grade.  The school started working with him in writing in second grade but the main thing that was helpful was getting him to type on a laptop.  Fusion cleared up his grammar and punctuation and we did a lot of vocabulary work after Fusion.  Fusion has 2 classes for English, one for reading and comprehension and another for grammar and parts of sentences - this was much better than anything he learned at the charter.  DS always tested 2-3 grades ahead in reading when he was at the charter.  DS’s current English teacher is always telling us what a talented and creative writer he is so whatever it was, it worked.

We discovered that there were huge holes in his knowledge of math facts during COVID.  DS has always had a preference for doing math in his head and not showing his work.  So we fixed those bad habits by getting him a tutor, a family friend who is a professor of biostatistics at a university.   DS loves math so it makes it even more fun.

Chess helped too.  DS is no longer into it but he’s always had very intense interests so whatever it is, we support him in it.  It brings him a lot of joy and happiness so why not:)[/quote]

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