Today is going to involve going into our Central Office to see about getting them to pay for elder child's neuropsychological testing, as well as getting them to test younger child for dyslexia.
I should point out that they are in 11th and 9th grades respectively.
The psychiatrist is still pissed that it's taken this long for the schools to do anything for elder child. All we can think is that up until know she hasn't needed to study to do well on tests and she hasn't been disruptive. I returned some books to her last school today, and told them that she had just been diagnosed as being Asperger's, and was told that it was quite obvious to them from the beginning of the year, but that they aren't allowed to say anything. I understand the reasons behind the laws about this, but at the same time, if someone, anyone, had said something to us years ago (and I've had her Sunday School teacher from 12 years ago tell me that there were signs then!) we would have known to keep an eye out for issues. I suppose if the school balks at the costs, I can point out that if they had done what they were supposed to do years ago, the accommodations probably would have cost them far more over the years.
And that gets us to our school budget... They have been requesting 0% increases for the last three years, and this year are asking for a 1.4% increase, or a little over $1M. But they've been able to pay two superintendent salaries as well as legal fees with no problems for the last year. We also have an IB program in the high school which is seriously underutilized, and is costing us about $40K a year per student. For the $400K a year we are spending we could send 20 kids to school full scholarship up to UConn, and probably twice that to the local community college. I would argue that the town would get far more bang for it's buck if we did that than the IB program.
So when we get to voting on the school budget in a week or so during the annual RTM budget meeting, I know what I'll be recommending cutting....
No comments:
Post a Comment