Reply to Current McLean School and Siena school parents

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]McLean parent here.  This is not a promotion of McLean but a general comment about tutoring.  We used tutors for years for our DCs, who both have ADHD.  And, the one thing I noticed that was a big negative was that it took so much time away from the precious down time all kids, especially SN, need.  At one point, the tutor was coming three times a week, twice during the school week and once on the weekend.  It interfered with sports during the week and weekends, which I had a big problem with because my DCs are sports centered and the physical activity is critical.  Now that they are at McLean I feel that they are getting all the support they need obviating the need for a tutor.  And, they get all their homework done at school.  I get constant feedback from the school team and I provide feedback to them on my observations at home and where I think they need reinforcement.  I know it is a lot of money but it is a one stop shop and I don't have to take precious time out of their non-school hours for tutoring, which is not always in sync with what is going on at school and the tutors and teachers may not always communicate or have a good rapport. [/quote]

Siena parent here.  We had the same concerns when considering whether to keep our child in public school with outside tutoring support or whether to place our child in a private special needs school.  I agree with PPs points about the importance of downtime and other activities after school and on weekends.  For our child, we felt that at least 3x a week of outside tutoring was necessary (plus 2x a week speech therapy), if he were to stay in public school.  That would have been a lot to do outside school.  Also, since our child's primary problem is a language-learning difference, we were concerned that an outside tutor together with a (public) school that didn't reinforce any of the tutor's techniques during the day would not really be beneficial.

The thing that has really worked for us at Siena is that every time DC writes or reads or self-organizes, special instruction is reinforcing what he is doing.  As a result, he is making great progress.  Also, having a cap on homework time has made a huge difference at Siena.  No matter what is going on, DC knows he only has to work on something for 20 minutes.  If the HW is unfinished then teachers at school will adjust and if it's important they will re-teach it and allow time to complete at school in a non-punitive way.  At public school, DC would have been forced to work for hours on an assignment w/ or w/o a tutor until it was finished.  Even with a tutor, what was a 1/2 hour assignment for other students, would turn into a 2 hour assignment for DC.  Often when the tutor came was not in sync with when the homework was assigned for which he really needed the tutor's help.  For us, relying on an outside tutor was not a viable plan.  [/quote]

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