<p>Thanks so much everyone, but I wanted to specifically reply to tsdad. I am quite the special ed testing and iep expert…but most of that is in the past. He was pretty much kicked out of our school district’s gt/ld program for middle school (they placed him in ED, which is when we left the school district, not having the stomach for a hearing and appeal.) We put him in a special ed private school for kids with language based learning disabilities, and he was bored to tears, and eventually expelled for kicking the headmaster (I hope no one hears this, but frankly he deserved it for picking up and carrying my 6th grader tiny son.)</p>
<p>What has worked best for him is letting him be his own strange brilliant funny sweet annoying self, in a very small not special ed school where he learns at his own pace, his actions have consequences but there are no power struggles, and he can manage his anxiety. He gets his meds from his shrink whom I mostly visit, and talking therapy not so much since he hates to talk. I simply cannot imagine him walking into a special ed office on a campus and discussing an accommodation. It is not a matter of teaching him self advocacy skills, he would rather make another choice in life. </p>
<p>He has a long logical explanation for why books are evil, but he CHOSE Nabokov’s Lolita and Atwood’s Year of the Flood as some of his independent reading books. he says he is lazy but he built 2 computers from parts this year and taught himself some basic reading and speaking Japanese – as much as my college son learned in 6 credits I think. And he started Calculus in mid 10th grade and does ALL the work. In fact, he does all the work in everything, unless he thinks the assignment is stupid, ambiguous or he really can’t think of what to write.</p>
<p>He took the PSAT’s last week (I had no idea, found this out last night) and he said they were easy and he finished in plenty of time… so even with slow processing he is likely to be fine for the SAT’s… I can’t see doing the whole testing thing over to get more time to raise his score if he says he refuses to write a college essay! On his 10th grade psat he did well enough that I’m not terribly worried.</p>
<p>The single versus double is NOT an option for him… he has made that crystal clear. </p>
<p>I’m pretty chilled out now though… it turns out I have a pretty super community college in my county, and it does indeed have a guaranteed route to our flagship state school, and a decent entre to 4 year math, engineering, computer science (including gaming) programs. So that’s my stand-by, default, back up plan… he can live at home and do CC, and he can live at home and do the flagship state school (or get an apt). </p>
<p>Of course if he decides to write an essay, well then the world opens up a bit more to him.
And still, it is only October junior year.</p>
<p>Thank you thank you thank you.</p>