Heads Up: Grandson Update – Medical and Homeschooling

I promised an update on our oldest grandson as significant events occurred this fall. I will not review the past status as all of it is in my previous Heads Up stories on him.

Medical Situational Status

Grandson #1 completed the first eight weeks of vision therapy sessions successfully. Much improvement in balance and the use of both eyes directionally at the same time, which are the issues with alternating exotropia. He has since been in a six weeks adjustment period where he wears his prism eyeglasses all waking hours without any therapy during which time there are two exams a month apart with the doctor to determine his progress. We anticipate another round of therapy beginning soon afterwards to train him to where he needs to be, at which time the eyeglasses will no longer be necessary.

In summary of his progress; vision therapy, sensory therapy and OT are ongoing with encouraging results. Regular monthly maintenance visits occur with the chiro. Physical progress has been outstanding. Most importantly, he no longer takes any meds despite evidence of moderate ADHD symptoms, which has been linked to his Binocular Vision Disorder and Dyspraxia conditions. As they have improved, the symptoms of ADHD have lessened.

We have now conclusively identified the source of his lapses in focus that were believed to be epileptic absence seizures by neurologists. Nope, Mamaw and Papaw had it right all along. The events were triggered by sensory overloads, which he has experienced since the birth trauma. Sensory issues have been known and addressed through a local therapist for half of his ten years on the planet. Now that his vision is improving and CNS is firing correctly we are clearly seeing sensory overload at times that reveals itself with anxiety, fear and animation. We no longer see any trances, focal events or concentration lapses at all. That tells us the therapies and chiro adjustments with elimination of meds have been spot on. Stay the course.

This has led to the completion of the third step in the Lord’s will for Grandson #1.

The first was stopping dependence on traditional medicine and the use of pharmaceuticals. The latter were only making things worse, so we weaned him off and created a new baseline. The second completed step was going to our highly competent chiropractor to make spine and hip adjustments to help his body and CNS function normally. The results were immediately recognized and made life much better for him.

We took him out of the hands of world’s traditional medical system’s control and imagine that (sarc/), we found answers that have been leading to healing. Which leads to…

School

Instead of starting the school year with homeschooling as his parents originally considered, they chose to send him to school under the IEP agreed to at the end of the last school year. They wanted to see how he would do after the vision therapy and with the continuing sensory and occupational therapies throughout the summer. We all agreed it would help us to better understand the effects of the therapies in a classroom setting.

We all hoped for the best, but anticipated it would not go well despite the school admin and teachers assuring us they would work with him closely. Putting square pegs into round holes tends to not work as it should. Their past track record had been spotty at best.

The state legislators and governor are in hyperdrive about education going top down and playing hard ball with school districts. They are using the beatings will continue until the morale improves approach as comprehensive state testing scores have been lagging even worse behind since COVID. They barely acknowledge their roles in making things worse by going along with the CDC/Fauci’s idiocy as well as not tying the test with the actual curriculums used through the school year. As a result of their intense desire to turn it around at any cost, the turnover in the teaching profession has soared and the inability to hire qualified applicants to replace has worsened. People can find better things to do with their lives than be stressed out of their gourds by politicians and hyper kids. Add in the injuries and depopulation of the nation via jabs and, well, you have chaos.

We all agreed as a family that his parents should go ahead and prepare for homeschooling by selecting a reputable Christian based Umbrella School and an established, grade level appropriate curriculum in accordance and compliance with state laws. Our daughter is a trained nurse who also has three years of teaching assistant experience in a public middle school. She is more than qualified to take over the function legally and functionally with her husband’s assistance as well as ours if needed during her coming childbirth period. Within a few days of conducting research and making phone calls, that decisioning was completed and both selections were homeruns. They are ideally suited for the grandson and his family’s situation.

That was the fourth step of determining the Lord’s will for our grandson, His child. They took responsibility for #1’s education instead of trusting it to others who do not have the desire or ability to adapt to his needs.

The primary objective has been and will always be for him to learn to the best of his abilities whatever they may be. Through the years we have become increasingly disillusioned with the abilities of the public schools to be effective in teaching our grandson despite their rhetoric and even their best intentions. The teachers can only do what their system overlords permit. As parents, wifey and I learned lessons the hard way with our daughter’s CAPD condition through her school days that is now of no effect on her life. Had homeschooling been the option it is today during her years, we would have done so. Doing so would have made all of our lives better and more productive instead of doing 2-3 hours of homework every evening to keep her up with subject content as she fought through the effects of the disability successfully.

As anticipated, school did not go as hoped for grandson in terms of academic achievement. Despite detailed medical history and therapy status information provided to them in person as well as previous IEP meetings documentation, the admin and teachers acted like they were not informed or made aware of his medical conditions. Act being the operative word. There were several steps approved in the previous grade’s IEP that had not been implemented as agreed. The OT specialist even provided an extensive written explanation of his status and medical issues with a list of nine recommendations for the classroom.

All were subsequently denied because the state does not have Dyspraxia or Binocular Vision Disorder as listed disabilities.

To cut to the chase about academics, grandson met or exceeded expectations in Math and Reading/English with assistance. He did well one on one with the teaching assistant in Math with an A average. He did next best in Reading/English in a small group of four with the teaching assistant with a B average. In both of those subjects, his time was split equally between working with the assistant and in the general classroom. During the other two primary subjects of Science and Social Studies, the IEP students leave the assistant and rejoin the general class for all of each session.

He did poorly in Social Studies and Science in a general classroom setting with no assistance. He did poorly at following directions, taking notes, etc. in the general classroom setting as he was easily distracted. He did very well in technology, art, music and PE. PE is especially pleasing considering his past need over many years for PT and OT. Our chiro opened a huge door for him physically that has stayed open nicely. However, if it is difficult to focus your vision clearly on written/printed classwork for long periods and use your hand to write quickly what you hear and see, you will not be able to take notes and follow along in a general classroom setting well. You also will not be able to write your test answers and class work responses well. Then add in the normal distractions.

While these meetings, discussions and school attendance were occurring, he had an eye exam followup. The specialist optometrist concurred with our approach and approved our use of his diagnosis and therapy plan documents with the school. He stated that the ADHD type symptoms most likely were directly related to the Binocular Vision Disorder issues as it causes anxiety in stressful situations that can lead to becoming disinterested and/or animated. He stated the cure of the therapy and special glasses would cause this to be worse for a time. He felt a full time teaching assistant would be of great assistance during the transition.

Grandson #1’s vision and balance had improved and changed so much from the therapy that his doctor reduced the strength of the prisms a couple of notches with his new lenses. The teacher seemed pleased that occurred.

With all of our information gathering and conclusions, daughter called an IEP meeting to go over everything and adjust the plan as he was entering the second six week grading period.

IEP Meeting

Son-in-law brought his laptop to record, I took notes, the school system’s case worker recorded for their side. Daughter and teacher were the primary drivers of the exchange.

You know those times when you talk with folks who are agreeable and seem attentive to the subject at hand, who probably then walk out of the room and look at each other and say, “Yeah, that ain’t happening!”? That comment summarizes what the results of the meeting accomplished; nothing but added frustration for wasting our time.

Which was the answer from the Lord to the fifth step of providing an environment where grandson can learn to the best of his ability.

The interesting part was that during the IEP meeting they made some really good suggestions that were agreed to by his parents, while including some minor modifications we suggested. Everybody agreed to what needed to be done next. They agreed to request the full time assistant, but told us not to expect it yet because there were so many unfilled openings for those positions that only the worst situations would receive one. They did not see our grandson as qualifying yet, more data was needed to build the case. This was a huge red flag. They had everything they needed from not only this school year, but also from IEPs in the previous years. They had a diagnostic/recommendations letter from his OT as well as documents from his specialist optometrist to support it.

So when the letter came from the district office rejecting everything the teacher, school admin, case worker and we requested despite possessing documented evidence of disabilities and on-going IEP status – we were not surprised, just relieved it was over. The irony was that all of the costs for treatments and therapies for the medical issues Grandson #1 has faced in the past year have been approved and paid or reimbursed through the Katie Beckett Medicaid program. This is administered on the state level throughout the country. If eligible, a case worker from the state is assigned for approval of all medically required expenditures up to $10 K annually for many applicants and even more for others. So the state acknowledges his disabilities in one program that pays for their cost, yet, does not recognize them or deems them unworthy of consideration under an IEP in another state controlled program.

Yes – No Child Left Behind is BS, at least for us, as we suspected all along. Yes, we could appeal the decision to the school board. I know a couple of members well. Yes, we could hire an attorney and kick their azzes all the way to Nashville. Yes, I could call the politicians I know at the county and state and make their lives miserable until this injustice is corrected. But would that be helpful in satisfying the primary goal of teaching our grandson effectively, when that has not been accomplished in five years using the same school system?

Not likely.

The trigger was pulled. Homeschooling began. Enough was enough.

What the school did not know is that the trigger was pulled immediately after walking out of the IEP meeting because we suspected the district would respond the way they did. Their official answer on the full time assistance notwithstanding, they also rejected all of the other recommendations. The unsaid is they cannot hire enough teachers, much less assistants and tutors to take care of the demand they created. So grandson has been going to school this grading period and doing a time limited homeschooling with the selected curriculum in a beta test for several weeks now. Any homework sent by the teacher during the period that required much time has been sent back uncompleted. The IEP says no homework – they can stick it.

The school and homeschool curriculums matched up well with content, so it has been an apples to apples comparison. The presentations, illustrations employed and formatting of subjects is what is different.

The school failed the test. Having individual assistance, direction and computer driven short videos from the curriculum provider has helped make #1 more independent in his learning. It added a sense of accomplishing a task each day instead of a continuous cycle of activity with no end result to celebrate in his mind. Add in many less distractions and elimination of silly goober stuff the schools add to each day to satisfy state requirements.

The formal transition begins next week when the Umbrella School will notify the school district of grandson’s withdrawal and for them to send his records. His parents cannot wait to pay a visit to the school admin to let them know in person.

Total cost – $85 paid annually to the Umbrella School for record keeping and reporting with a one time set up fee of $50. They are an accredited Christian school with a large campus in TN that is licensed for homeschooling in five states. They have sent high school graduates to universities and colleges throughout the country as well as to the military academies with higher than national average ACT/SAT scores. They have offered home schooling for twenty years. The chosen curriculum was free and paid through a grant based on household income. It is normally a little less than $30 per month until middle school when it kicks up to about $60 month as there are more subjects required. Both the school and curriculum provider have tons of reference materials and aids to go with counselors available at no additional cost. The counselors guide parents and provide recommendations for establishing lesson plans and teaching the kids. They have responded quickly in a kind and informative manner to each call #1’s parents have made.

His parents will save more money than the cost of attending public school and the related expenses of supplies, school lunches, school fund raisers, travel, etc.

If he continues in homeschooling he is permitted to participate in public school sports, music, etc. outside activities. He can also do so at a local Christian private school that integrates homeschooling students, albeit at a higher financial cost.

Win-win for them and our grandson.

Homeschooling

To maintain him at grade level each year his parents (and us) have homeworked the poor kid to death to keep up. That ended. If his parents need to take his school assignments and have him complete them at home a couple of hours every day, what is the point of him going to school?

At first grandson was sad because he would miss his classmates. That has been subsiding as he receives the extra attention from family and other homeschooled friends to go with more freedom to do other things he is interested in doing. He has also been encouraged that he is succeeding in the work, which has led to more interest in a variety of subjects. The support groups and local churches providing homeschooling support have been growing exponentially around here and in many areas of the country. Grandson has begun to meet up with the other home schooled kids in preparation, which is satisfying his social needs. As part of her completed lesson plan, Daughter will be taking him somewhere of educational interest similar to short field trips one day per week; which qualifies as class time with the curriculum, umbrella school and state. The public library, zoo, aquarium, discovery museums, the GSM National Park, law enforcement, fire department, educational attractions (we are loaded with them due to tourists), sporting events, local farms, etc. provide opportunities to learn real world stuff his former classmates rarely experience while attending school. His PE will be met by golf, tennis, pickle ball, youth league soccer and potentially, youth league basketball. His therapy sessions are now being scheduled earlier in the day, reducing the requirement to be in rush hour traffic for a 30-60 minute drive one way on two days of the week. Their family stress levels have and will continue to subside with more control over a formerly difficult situation to balance.

Additional benefits are the elimination of woke situations/materials/people, booze/drugs, bullying, and other bad influences. There will be plenty of time to deal with exposure to that as he ages and becomes more mature. From a family life perspective Grandson #2 will get more attention when he comes home from school as that will be “his” time with mom and dad. Their dad will also stay plugged into the homeschooling as he has a couple of days a week he is off when he can contribute. He is actually quite good at it with strong Reading/English skills. Both parents will benefit as they will know exactly what the curriculum of the youngest son is in the coming years since the homeschool curriculum is very similar to the school’s. They can begin to engage #2 in the easier aspects well beforehand. They plan to potentially pull #2 to homeschool once he completes primary school in a couple of years. That son desires to be homeschooled and will excel at it. He is inquisitive, intelligent, artistic and very self motivated. However, he needs more social exposure, development and interaction at this point as he could easily become more withdrawn with his shy personality around strangers. He needs to mature a bit more.

Grandson #1 is clearly a visual learner and the use of a computer excites him. Images also make it easier for him to comprehend his studies. The selected curriculum requires the use of computerized testing. When using it he has done very well on the tests with each assignment in all four subjects so far compared to what the school accomplished. The subject instruction videos are 5-15 minutes in length and can be repeated as many times as necessary until he comprehends and remembers before taking the test. His parents also use books and supplemental materials with illustrations and photos that are helping.

There are 365 days in a calendar year to get in 180 days of homeschooling. Any days of the week and hours of the day that fit a family’s schedule will work. His parents will report grades and attendance to the Umbrella School each semester, twice in a calendar year. That’s it. Once an assignment has been studied and tested successfully, it’s off to other subjects or activities. Perfect for a boy who is currently in three different therapies with some ADHD symptoms.

When he does practice work and quizzes using books, paper and pencil his grades tend to drop 20 points with the homeschool curriculum, similar to the issues he has experienced in public school. This is a direct reflection of his vision and OT issues with seeing and difficulty using a pencil well. This is clearly why he is struggling with the general classroom part of the public school experience. The frustration amps up, causes problems, and he responds by shutting down or becoming animated. However, with continued therapy and work that has and will continue to improve over time. What is in his head has difficulty going onto paper, but no difficulty going from his head into a computer. Its use is a key that unlocks a door.

But yet the school district rejected the use of the already provided chrome book for testing as well as voice to text methodology. Go figure, right?

With homeschooling the timing aspect of public school classroom work is essentially eliminated. No timed work, quizzes or tests. Whatever reasonable time is needed for a subject to be completed successfully is available to get it done. If it takes excessive time, Daughter knows to go back to instruction before completing, which the curriculum system allows. Some things can be done in ten minutes that the teacher in school takes an hour to do and vice versa. Flexibility is king with homeschooling. Again, the primary objective is to learn well.

Observing and knowing that grandson works best in one on one situations with less distractions while using a computer, it was difficult to accept that the school system refused to allow him to be tested using a voice to text method that their own case worker recommended and teacher supported. This confirmed once again the system’s interest was not related to determining what he had actually learned in his studies, it was to determine performance in conformance to their standard system. And for decades they continue to wonder why kids are not meeting or exceeding expectations in higher numbers.

Which leads to…

Comprehensive State Reading Tests

This was discussed previously, so I will not repeat the story. As I predicted in that post, the state failed at finding sufficient tutors to help 4th grade students that did not meet or exceed expectations based on the results of the 3rd grade state exam. Many of the tutors they did hire came from their existing teacher pool who wanted out of the administrative headaches of being full time teachers. So they lost qualified, existing teachers who had to be replaced with many college grads who had no experience yet. With the lack of tutors, many parents then appealed the decisions on the status of their children’s required extra work for summer school and/or future tutoring requirements and won. Many, many others pulled their kids from school and are homeschooling as well.

It went over so poorly the state teachers education association (a/k/a voluntary member teachers union) began to run statewide television ads out of their own pockets using real teachers to tell the general public how great the TN public schools are (sarc/). They are very concerned about the massive shift to homeschooling and legislative clamp down on statewide comprehensive testing results that threatens their jobs and future compensation/benefits. The state legislators have done nothing to ease the pressure on that situation. They appear to desire the result that is occurring.

Each year students take a current grade level standardized statewide comprehensive exam at the start of the school year. The results were as expected as well. There was a paltry 2% improvement in meeting or exceeding expectations statewide. This proves that summer school and using the available tutors provided inconsequential benefit to the education system and students at a major cost to the state tax revenues and budget. The affected students did lose a chunk of their summer vacations and their parents lost valuable family time with their kids. We had already established that most of the students were legitimately passing and excelling in their classes that failed to meet or exceed expectations on the standardized state test.

Which led to a conversation at church this past weekend with a 38 year old local primary school teacher who has two sons in public school whom we have literally known since a week after she was born. She agreed that students today are at least two school years more advanced in the content that they are expected to know than two decades before when she and our daughter were in school. She stated what I have stated, that the state granted freedom to local districts to choose from seven different curriculums that they could use. This variety of choices works against the statewide comprehensive annual testing, which is based on one nationally used curriculum. She said the state claims representatives of the various curriculums are contributors to the provider of the testing program. However, she sees no evidence in the testing that is true. Much of the content and formatting simply do not match up. The wording and emphasis within questions is totally different. There are no illustrations as are used in the classroom.

How is that approach working out for the students over the years? Horribly. One can claim anything. One can only prove value and effectiveness with factual data and results.

So it must really be about the money. Somebody’s pocket is getting filled with cash in my opinion.

The results over a couple of decades indicate what they are doing is not working. It has not worked in many other states that used similar methodology, several of which have eliminated the standardized testing altogether. The current dogged pursuit of ongoing, proven failure has pushed huge numbers of caring parents to pursue other options. Unfortunately, many of the lower income, less astute folks cannot afford or even know to pursue that path with their children, which means even more will fall through the cracks of the system and become casualties of same with less than productive lives than they could attain. That negatively impacts the students and all of us. Not all can afford to have one parent stay at home and single parents are totally out on that approach.

Is that the legacy We the People want for our future generations? Not this guy. Which is why I write and publish these stories, attend meetings, talk to elected officials, etc.

The answer is simple. The simple answer nearly always is the most effective in bringing positive change. A child should never be faced with being mandatorily retained a grade level when they adequately passed or excelled in their studies over the course of a school year. Ever. Value the classroom learning experiences over a once a year standardized test that is not solely tied to the curriculum used in the classroom.

Solve the problem. Stop using only one comprehensive standardized test that does not truly account for the diversity of the multiple curriculums and multiple formats well. Develop or use multiple standardized tests that do reflect the curriculum in the formats being taught. If unavailable, stop standardized testing. The only other option is to teach just one curriculum that matches the standardized testing as many other states do whose students are generally scoring higher in greater numbers on the standardized tests. Which brings it back full circle to the reasoning for offering multiple curriculums.

Take a stand and deliver for the sake of the children.

Conclusion

The evidence is in our family’s hands now. The curriculum the grandson is using has been endorsed by the Umbrella School along with a number of others they recommend. It has been used successfully by over 1 million homeschool students nationwide over the past 20 years. However, there are literally dozens of quality curriculums available for parents to consider. Unlike public schools, if a student’s needs change or the curriculum proves not to be sufficiently challenging in one or more of the subjects, the homeschooling family can change it. From our observations the content generally is equal to or exceeds what is being taught in our public schools. We reviewed current and prior grade videos and documents from several to confirm during our review process. The formats and methods of teaching are different and the homeschooling method is undoubtedly better for #1. There is enhanced use of images along with the use of the computer for testing that is a much better fit. The ability to review subject matter as little or as much as is necessary helps keep #1 focused on learning.

The primary goal is and will always be about learning, not participating in a system or in school social activities. The latter can be enhanced in other places and ways. There are many methods and processes to achieve the end result of learning to the extent one is capable. No child should be left behind.

Jesus made that clear.

With all of the documentation and evidence, his pediatrician signed off on it and prays it works well. He no longer desires to prescribe an ADHD med to #1 as he sees where this is going and believes his parents should observe to see if the therapies and homeschooling solve the issues. As a result of his approval, all expenses for homeschooling will now be paid by the Katie Beckett Medicaid program, which will even include the expenses of the educational field trips.

So for Grandson #1, this…

Has been replaced by this…

And this…

And this…

And this…

And this…

And this…

May the Lord bless you and yours as He has our family. Will keep y’all informed and thanks for reading.