school shopping update

I have visited all 4 schools
Winston - del Mar
Excelsior - La Mesa
Sierra -  Lake Murry
NewBridge - poway

I took Calvin back to see the first three of those schools.  At this point Winston is out of the running . It is a purely academic school for kids who struggle in public school and need more academic support. They don't have any interest in dealing with kids who need emotional support. 

NewBridge only goes through 8th grade so it would be a challenge to send Calvin there for only a year and a half. If NewBridge seems a good fit, I want to push for having Calvin enter as a 6th grader so he has a longer time there. Academically he is closer to 6th grade anyway. The district would not want to have calvin repeat a year because it means paying for an extra year of school.  However, paying for another middle school year may prevent them from having to pay for an additional 4 years after high school in a transition program. 

Sierra and Excelsior would both be a good fit for him. They are pretty similar with Sierra having a more formal discipline program with points earned each hour, which equate to tickets that are used in the schools store.  Excelsior is a little less organized in their behavioral approach giving tickets on occasion that go into a drawing once a week. Basically Calvin would have to be self motivated.




After I had a first look at each of the schools, the next step was to take Calvin to look at them (very briefly) I took Calvin to see sierra, Exc, and Winston. He did not like Winston at all.  The lady giving us the tour was pretty cold and it was obvious in her mannerisms and conversation she was not excited to have us there.  I'm sure Calvin felt that. 

At Excelsior, the administrator looked at Calvin and talked directly to him, asking what he likes about school, what he thinks a good school would be, and telling him about the program. He soaked it in. At one point, the admin left the room and Calvin turned to me and said, "mom, I think this would be a great school". Pretty astounding coming from a child who did not even want to change schools.   

At Sierra, the day before the holiday break, we showed up during lunch so some of the admins were out, including the main person who does admissions. Someone else gave us a tour, and though friendly, was in somewhat of a hurry to get back to her regular job. Plus the kids were at PE so Calvin didn't see them in class. 

After the three visits I was impressed at how affected Calvin was by the personality of the admin at excelsior. It just goes to show how kindness and enthusiasm can make a big difference.

Next week I'll take Calvin to see NewBridge. I am also waiting for the director to read Calvin's paperwork and see if he thinks Calvin would be a good fit.

The next step is to have Calvin do a 2-5 day visit at each school we are considering. I will for sure set something up at Excelsior; we already have a visit at Sierra scheduled for the second week of Jan. 

It is going to be a busy month. Lots of car time. I just started reading Grapes of Wrath on audio.  Hopefully it is as great as I heard it will be so that it keeps me company in the car as we drive.

practical joker

sometimes calvin does things that make my blood boil.

Examples:
Calvin gets home from school before me a couple of days a week. If that's the case, I all him and remind him to take his booster pills. He was getting really annoyed with me calling to tell him to take his pills.  So, he changed the number in my cell phone for "home" so that it was our old home phone number instead of our current #.  One afternoon I was out taking the girls to dance and kept trying to call cavlin to remind him to take his pills.  A very angry lady answered and said "DO NOT CALL THIS NUMBER!" I was so confused about why there was an angry lady at my house.  Wondering what happened to Calvin. Then I slowed down my thinking and realized Calvin played a trick on me.

Calvin also loves to mess with the passwords on our accounts. He changed my amazon password, Netflix password, email password. It is infuriating to try to log in on my phone and find the password was changed.    For the amazon account he changed the password so he could log on and check on recent order history (and see what was ordered for Christmas). Stinker.

He also set his alarm on his tablet or phone to go off at 1 or 2 in the morning so when I have his device in my room charging overnight it will go off in the night and wake me up.

Also, in recent months, Calvin figured out how to charge purchases to my cell phone number. I do not even know how to do this.

I could be proud of his determination and intelligence if he would find a way to put it to good use and not use it to torture me.

He has currently lost the privelidge of using electronic devices.

Excelsior

In many ways Excelsior was so similar to Winston that I can hardly tell the differences.

They have PE every day. Most of the year the PE is centered around whatever intramural program they are doing. In the fall it's flag football, then basketball.

There is an IPAD for every kid to use in the classrooms.

The kids can take breaks when they need to. They can go to the OT room or take a few minutes listening to music, etc.

They have academic classes and

They seem to be pretty flexible with individualized academic instruction.

7-8 grade is together.

Seems a little more relaxed in structure compared to Winston.

They have the option in high school to do a transition program if kids need more time to graduate or need to take a few classes to teach skills which aren't academic.

school shopping

Things have been going well for Calvin at school. He had a super smooth transition from Houston back to his school in San Diego. Cook Education Center is set up to help kids with severe behavior problems. Since Calvin doesn't exhibit severe behavior problems at school, another school program would probably be a better fit for him. I had been thinking that I wanted him to change schools within a year or two of getting home, and once he got home from Houston, his teachers noted right away that he is ready for a new program.  So, now I'm school shopping. These are the schools I'm looking at:

Wiston
Newbridge
Excelsier
Sierra

Winston - Del Mar - Amzing school location 1 block from the beach.  15 elementary school kids (4-6), 30 middle school (7-8 grade) and 50 high school kids.
The high school is diploma bound and all high school classes are accredited/count towards college.  It is nearly streamlined curriculum for high school.   They do not give "D" grades. Any class failed doesn't count and must be re-done. If you pass your classes you are considered moving forward.
The kids have math, english, history and science in the morning. In the afternoon is tutorial, a free period for doing homework, with help and with other kids around. They also have electives which you sign up for, art, music, PE, electronics, etc.  There also have an activity program which runs a couple days a week like cooking, dance, video games, photography, board games, painting, robotics.

For homework the kids have math and english homework M,W,F and T/Th the kids have history and science. With a tutorial class at school it is possible to get homework done at school, which would be really good for Calvin.

About 1/2 the kids in the school have ADHD. Another big chunk have high functioning Autism, a few have other things such as tramatic brain injury. Calvin looks like he'd fit in there.

My main concern with Winston is high school. It sounds like academically, it is pretty main stream in high school. It is hard to say at this point, how well Calvin will do academically once he gets into a school that focuses on that. If he could be caught up and in good habits he may be able to do high school but otherwise it might be too hard for him academically.

Winston school is a college preparatory program for bright, creative students in grades  4-12 who have struggled to meet their potential. The school offers and extensive arts cirriculum providing classic training and a creative outlet, as well as opportunitites to build character and self-confidence. 

eye update

For the past several years Calvin's glasses have only had correction in one eye. His "bad eye" has a major astigmatism and a large correction as well. However, the other lens was plano, with no correction. For a while Calvin was wearing a contact in one eye and didn't need one in the other eye. Earlier this year Calvin started complaining that his good eye wasn't seeing as well. So we took him in and sure enough he needed a new prescription with correction in both eyes. Another 6 months passed and he started complaining again that his glasses weren't doing the trick.

I was actually really worried that something had happened with his vision, or brain to cause him to loose vision so fast so I was relieved to find out that it's just normal changing (for someone with bad eyes) and that he'll probably keep losing vision until he is fully grown. Sad that he's been dealt this minor problem. He's had a heap of minor problems that add up to major problems.

Now that Calvin can't see as well he always faithfully wears his glasses unless they are lost or broken.  Since we have returned home we have dropped a pair of glasses out of the car and then they got run over a bus, Meyer chewed up a pair, Calvin broke a pair on the bus (on accident). Any others?? Can't remember. Calvin's glasses are covered under a protection plan so when they break it costs less than $30 to get a new pair BUT it does take two weeks and that is sad because then he goes two weeks without being able to see much at all. For example, he can't see the TV from the couch, or any road signs from the car.

I hate summer

School is good for kids like Calvin. Otherwise they cause all kinds of trouble.

spitting on sisters
peeing on bed
breaking glasses
breaking mp3
dumping out food
dumping out cd's
unpacking what has been packed

thank goodness summer is only 1 week

busy nights?

A few days ago when I woke up Calvin in the morning he got out of bed and was completely naked. He had gone to sleep with some clothes on so I was somewhat surprised to see he had stripped down to nothing. I said, "Calvin, what happened to your clothes?" His reply was a very sincere, "I have no idea."  this struck me as super funny. Such a sweet boy.

to add later

lost calvin at the museum
get prescriptions filled

swearing problems

One day Calvin was swearing at Jo and she was swearing back. Obviously my angelic three year old learned all of her bad words from him, so I told him that if I hear Jo swearing, he is the one who is going to get in trouble.

A few days later Jo came to me and said a bad word. Then she asked if Calvin was going to get in trouble, reminding me that Calvin will get in trouble whenever she says a bad word.  Goodness! How do these kids develop sass at such a young age. I think if she's old enough to figure out how to frame her brother, she's old enough to have her own consequences.

If you're wondering what swear words they say to each other, they like to call each other the b word and they say f you to each other, although when Jo says it is is "puck you Talvin" and "bish"

change of clothes

A few days ago Calvin came home from the park a little while before us. When I got home I noticed he had changed his clothes. It is very unusual for Calvin to care at all about his hygiene so I was surprised to see him changed.  I asked him why he was in new clothes and he said, "oh, just because." And I asked, "Did you have some kind of accident?"  Calvin replied super matter of factly as he continued with what he was doing "yes, wet fart."

hump day

We have reached our 1/2 way mark in Houston. Looking back over old blog posts I was worried sick about planning for this move. We have been so blessed to be here.  We live in just the right place for our family. We are so happy to have this special time as a family to make new friends, memories and experience the gift of feeling God watching out for us a little more than we would have if we had stayed in SD this year.