Well, DH called someone else. It's all VERY confusing to me. I guess there's a chain....the old school notifies the district that they can no longer handle a situation. The district either signs off on the child going to a different school, or looks for another school under their jurisdiction that CAN handle it. If they find one under their jurisdiction, they won't sign off on moving said child to another type of school. You have regular school, special circumstances, and cluster 4, which is basically special education. The school we are moving him to is a cluster 4. So because the district found another school under their jurisdiction who said they thought they could handle it, the district wouldn't sign off for a cluster 4 school. We bypassed that by enrolling him in the cluster 4 school ourselves and then the cluster 4 school asks for all the information to give to an admittance committee that reviews it and decides if they agree that school is the right place for him. If they had said no, we'd have had to look at other options. But they said yes, they agree...so then THEY pass it on to a board and if everybody says "yes, that's fine" then he can go to the school. We're waiting for that board. BUT, the gal said the district changed their mind and said no, they couldn't offer him a suitable place, AND we enrolled him ourselves, so they got TWO applications for him, PLUS they gave him urgency because of certain circumstances. She said it's never happened before that the board has said no if the committee has approved the application and recommended admittance. So the chance that he would be the first ever "no" is slim to none, AND she said we don't have to wait for that answer for him to start, because the answer will be yes anyway. So we have an appointment Monday with the school to do a sort of intake and so he can see the school, and with any luck, he can start the next day.
The only thing we are worried about now is that because of his age, they want to put him back a year so he's with kids his own age and stage of development. Because of his birthday, he finished kindergarten a year sooner than most kids, so he went to 1st grade when he was 5. He's been in 5th grade this year and he's 9. Which would mean he'd only be 11 when he goes to jr. high. BUT, he's in all the advanced groups for math, reading, language. He's working at a 6th or 7th grade level, though chronologically, his age is 4th grade. The old school purposely didn't let him skip a grade because of his age, even though he's capable of doing the work. So the new school wants to put him in a group based on his age, and they said that even the 5th graders aren't doing 5th grade level because most of the kids just aren't cognitively that strong, so they are giving him advanced work anyway, and it doesn't matter whether he does that work in a classroom with kids his own age or a year or 2 older. Which is true...if he's not doing the same work as they are, then it doesn't matter so much where he does it, and it WOULD be nice for him to be with kids his own age for a change, instead of a bunch of kids 2 years older than him, since at his old school, half the kids in his class had been held back a year. BUT, where do they go from there? If he finishes the elementary curriculum, do they make him pick his nose for a year or two until he's jr. high aged? Do they give him jr. high level material a year or two early at the elementary school? And if they do that, what happens when he gets to jr. high and has already done that material? And if they DON'T, do they skip him over to the jr. high when he's a year or 2 younger than most of the kids? I get the impression this doesn't happen a lot and it's going to be a tricky thing to navigate what is best for HIM, because it's not the standard situation where the kid is working below grade level and just fits right into the class as is. I guess we have a lot of questions for Monday.
No snow in sight
