3/17/2011

A change of James

I'm not sure if this is a post to be helpful for other parents who may have to ever deal with this or if it's just to vent.




You are probably wondering who the heck is James. Well James is BJ's professional name I guess you could call it.
 In the school setting we are not allowed to call him BJ (it's harder than you think).
 Well anyways, last year (*cough 2010 sucked cough*) James had the worst school year ever!!
Not so good grades, misbehaving, and not very social.
I don't want to point fingers at who's fault it was, because we (the school, us parents, and the Drs.) are supposed to work in the best interest for James as a team.
Yeeeahhhh..... That didn't happen.
I had the school telling us he wasn't going to pass his ACTAP testing for the year, he was 100% ADD and needed to be on meds., needed to be pulled out once a week for one on one behavioral help at least on a weekly basis. Anything that was asked of us we did, we grounded him, took things away, made him do chores. I mean we were so at a loss that we even started looking into military school, because they made us feel like he was a horrible kid and we as parents were doing something wrong.. Well we would take the paper work from the school to the Drs. and the Drs. felt it 's not ADD, if anything it's Depression. So they fight  (the school vs. DRs.) on what to drug my child with. In the mean time we (Matt and I) don't really want to give our son "any" meds., but I forgot we were horrible parents... So we went with the DR.'s advice.




Here's a little back story on James. Yes he's been a little on the class clown side, and yes writing is his worst subject, but he (up until 5th grade any ways) had done rather well in the other classes. I'm talking honor roll well. And he has always had high test scores, ALWAYS. So when he was suddenly headed down hill, we I got concerned. So that being said we felt that it wasn't ADD but possibly depression. Over the summer, especially from the time I spent with the kids on the farm in Ks. I started to feel like it really wasn't depression either.




So enter the new school year. He is in 6th grade, he had been transferred, because the temp. little apt. was in a different school district. And as parents we went in ready for the bad news to start. After about a week and we didn't receive a single call, we just thought we would ask his teacher how he was doing. No problems!!! What? We thought ok, ok, maybe this is just the honeymoon period he'll show his own... First 9 weeks grade card comes in...... As and Bs, and he is the fastest/highest reader in the WHOLE school..... Next his ACTAP scores from the previous year come in....... Advanced or higher Efficient levels scored...... 2nd. 9 weeks start rolling around we are thinking he should still be ok the first semester is really only review from last year anyways right? As' and B's again...... Then 2011 starts and he tells us that he's tutoring other who are falling behind during recesses!! And Matt and I have talked to teachers, lunch ladies, and even the principal in passing and they all praise on how "great" of a kids he is!!!!! Well we just have been through the 3rd 9 weeks parent/teacher conf. and other than he needs to elaborate more in writing (like I said before we know this is his weak point) he is still doing great. In fact his A's and B's and high test scores has gotten him a referral to AP classes for Junior High! Now don't get me wrong there is that occasional time where he was to run laps for clowing around, but they don't call us when it happens. He's the one who tells us.




I really don't know it the teacher last year just didn't wanna deal with him, if he really was depressed, or if he just grew up over the summer, but I am so very proud of my smart son! I hope he takes this gift he has been given and goes far. I would have given anything to be where he is at in school while I was growing up. It took me to become a wife, a mother, and teacher to understand, be able to learn, and actually enjoy school.

I love you Berlin (BJ) James Brown!

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