Switching from public to Montessori school 3rd grade or higher?

[FINFAN]

Has anyone had any experience with this? For years we have battled and struggled with the negative attitude and uncreative teaching style at our kids elementary school. Our youngest does not "produce" well when having only 1 correct way to answer things. He has been tested by the school and by a private psychology team and has an i.q. of 130, yet is miserable because he is always being told to do better. I am in no financial state to take on $6,0000 - 7,000 a year in tuition fees but I can no longer stand by and allow this particular public school to beat down our son. Just wondering if anyone has been through a similar situation and seen a positive outcome. And, I have WEEKLY meetings with the school and nothing is ever done to alter his teachers attitude. I am not the only parent who has stepped up and complained either. The school apparently refuses to acknowledge different learning styles.
Thanks,
Pam

 

[FINFAN]

Anyone?

 

[nativetxn]

Sorry. My son attended Montessorri from age 15 months to age 10 we didn't move him from public to private.

He did very well in Montessorri though, loved it.

 

[Toby'sFriend]

Sorry too. I would have replied but I just didn't feel my experience would help you much.

My youngest son attended Montessori from Pre-K to 1/2 way through first grade.

We moved him for a variety of reasons to Public school. Mostly we felt that the Montessori "work at your own pace" thing wasn't working too well for him. He tended to gravitate to the activities that he was really good at (Math) and really ignored the ones that were difficult for him (Language and Reading). The teacher had a soft spot and she wasn't very good at forcing him to do what he didn't like.

The school itself went to the 6th grade. I did spend some time looking over the projects that the older kids completed, and some of them were quite impressive. I'm not convinced however that the curriculum was very well rounded and I don't think that allowing grade schoolers to "specialize" in one area is necessarily a good thing.

Also - there were 2 Montessori schools in our town. One was very good and the other one was apparently a train wreck. The individual school and teachers are probably more important than just the program itself.

 

[FINFAN]

Thank you both for your honest responses....NativeTXN----SO HAPPY ALL WORKED OUT WELL!
Toby's friend....your response is jst the type of information that I find objectively helpful. I have had concerns that my son will also choose the comfort zone of certain areas...especially if the atmosphere is the complete opposite of his current school. Kind of like a kid in a candy store..........but I need to do something as he is in tears almost everyday and now children have begun to tease him and blame him for getting the teacher angry. The response I was told today by his teacher was that if I choose to believe that he does not have a LD, then he will never have a chance. Even after any LD possibilities were ruled out...and he has been tested twice!
I would home school, but am worried about the lack of social interaction...and my abilities! I am not the most patient person in the world and would not want to fail him as a teacher. He has had enough of that already.
O.K. Enough of my venting! Thank you for all your help!
Pam

 

[janette]

Montessori isn't for everyone. My 8yo DD was in a montessori preschool and it was really a bad place for her. The school and teachers were great but it just didn't work.

We moved her to another school and did find that she has a reading disability. She is now in public school and receives help and is doing very well.

Why does the teacher think your DS has a learning disability? What kind of testing have they done? IQ isn't an indicator of an LD, my DD and a nephew both have high IQ's but have a LD. When my DD was in preschool the frustration level and other things showed the problems to be behavioral. Only by finding a school that could deal with the behavior and find what the real problem was. Now that the LD is addressed the frustration is down and she does fine with the behavior issues.

 

[FINFAN]

Hi Janette,
Testing was done to find or pinpoint a LD, but the first round done by the school ruled out any, but showed the i.q. level, so they felt it WAS behavioral, obstinant etc.,.....but things did not improve when they chose to apply basic techniques that they thought would help him. We chose to have private testing done, VERY thorough and again, no sign of any LD, the only concern Psyc. has is that DS gets absolutely zero joy out of his accomplishments and achievements. Gee, I wonder why when it's never good enough for the school The psyc has reccommended removing him and highly suggest Montessori(one school specifically) so that DS can flourish. She is very concerned, as are we, that he will suffer greatly if left in his current situation.He does not have any behavioral issues according to the school, that cannot be taken care of with ritalin. This is the mentality that I am dealing with. The last time I checked, his teacher did not have M.D. after her name. I almost wish it were that cut and dry....that we could identify a cause and apply a therapy, but so far we have only determined that the public school and DS are not a healthy match. Any IPSD, FMS, dYSLEXIA, DYSCALCULIA, HYPERLEXIA,...all have been ruled out. He is young for the 3rd grade, August b-day...but that only plays a minor role.
Thanks for your thoughts and help....I'm off to check out the school the psyc suggests....it is pretty far away, 35 min. each way so I'd better get going!
Pam

 

[Robinrs]

I was told that the Montessori schools here would not accept children over a certain age and I tried when my son was 5. My neice attended Montessori since preschool and graduated with a 4 year scholarship to Stanford which she graduated from with honors again in 1993. I have total faith in the Montessori system but you must check each school like you would anything else. They are run by different individuals and may vary substantially from entity to entity just like any franchise.

 

[LvsTnk]

I just wanted to say if you don't like the particular school you went to today KEEP LOOKING. Trust yourself on this one.

I kept trying to work things out with our school until my DS was in 6th grade. Two months into the school year I could see it was going to be the worst of all. We enrolled him in a Catholic school (according to the school there was no way he would survive in that environment) and he began to flourish.

When he graduated from 8th grade the students wrote letters to their parents, our DS thanked us for sending him to his new school.

All children are different. DD would was doing great at the same public school, other DS has Down Syndrome and we (DH, DS, and DD as well) homeschool him.

Keep up the good work, it sounds like you are very on top of things!!

 

[rbuzzotta]

When my oldest DD was going into 4th grade I moved her from public school to a charter school!! It did wonders for her.

Her 3rd grade teacher repeatedly suggested she had ADD/ADHD and although learning disabilities had been ruled out by medical professionals this teacher still treated her as though she had ADD. She even placed her in Title I (state funded tutorial type program) without my knowledge!! Parents are suppose to sign a release for their cchild to be placed in this type of program!!

Anyways, she went back to public school for 5th grade (a new school) and now as a 6th grader is doing fantastic. Not one otheer teacher even mentioned anything about ADD/ADHD.

Sometimes I think it may just be the student/teacher relationship. They may not click right!!! In my case, I believe that is what it was because of all this 3rd grade teacher said about my DD nothing is true and we have medical and standardized test report to prove it!!

Good luck.

 

[cruisnfamily]

We are going through this EXACT scenario (without the montessori reccomendations though) with DS (1st grader) this year! I could be you! Wow!

Anyway, just wanted to ask, has anybody mentioned to you that an IQ of 130 is "gifted" or "very superior", it is the top 2 percent of the population. 130 is the number needed to qualify for full time gifted services here in our school district. I would assume it is the same elsewhere but I don't know. Is there possibly a full time or part time gifted program at a nearby school that might work? How about a school that uses gifted inclusion? The gifted programs do lots more "hands on" stuff and lots of "why does this work" stuff, instead of worksheets and textbooks. There's alot more homework but the kids are much more excited about school and seem to enjoy the work.

Anyway, our DS has been diagnosed by his teacher (who also does not have an MD after her name) as "ADHD". Well, guess what, He's not! We also took him and had him tested for behavior, IQ, LD, memory, etc. Turns out he's really, really smart and in the "superior" range with an IQ of 120 or so and has no signs of LD's or anything else. He doesn't qualify for gifted but he is smart. He does have a few characteristics of an ADHD kid (fidgety, makes noises, trouble completing his work) but definitely does not qualify as ADHD or anything else. He is a NORMAL 6 year old boy! Even after we had the testing done (at great expense) the teacher refused to drop the matter and we had to go before a student study team supposedly to "help" my son. I believe the "help" they want is for him to take drugs and "sit down and shut up" not actually learn to control his behavior, just stop being a problem for them.

Anyway, we absolutely LOVE our school and have a daughter in 4th grade at the school as well. We actually were quite pleased with this teacher when DD had her but are pretty unhappy with her theories on DS. So, this is an ongoing situation for us but we're hopeful it will all work out.

Keep us posted on your situation, I'm very curious as to how it turns out.

 

[janette]

It sounds like you've done what is needed. Teachers don't always see past the behavior but the doctors can.

I would probably go with the Drs recommendation. When we had some testing done with my youngest DD she also was not diagnosed with ADD but had many of the behaviors. We had already decided to go with a private school that dealt with social and learning differences and the Dr agreed that would be best. She later was diagnosed with a LD, with that and help from the private school she's in public school now and doing fine. She does qualify for special education help though.

Good Luck, visit the school with your son and see what he thinks. It could be a good thing for him.

 

[FINFAN]

*update*
Hi everyone...again I can't thank you all enough for the great insight and support I LOVED the school I checked out yesterday...one drawback is that since DS has not been part of Montessori, he is behind on the concept of individualized learning. A concern is that he may feel inadequate working in a variety of ages of children (grade 1-3 are together) who are used to the program. A second drawback is distance, it took me 47 minutes to get there...NOT in rush hour traffic, and is $729 p. mo in tuition. I will do everything I can to make the right choice for my sons education, and I am the last to put a price on his head, so to speak.....but H dropped a financial bomb on the family last night and our situation has become more complicated ( as if that were possible) in the last 12 hours.
I am going to continue to check out school and alternative options because I know that my son will only continue to be emotionally harmed where he is.
Sonya....sorry to hear that you are experiencing the same frustrations...yeah, that testing is one large bill! Our school "team" has done the exact same thing and now punish DS by pulling his card( a system that humiliates children in front of their peers...they must stand, pull a paper card from their desk, walk it over to the teacher and apologize to the class for not doing whatever was asked! they are psychotic!)Any way, the schools solution is to beat him down using such negative tactics unless we lable him. I am in the process of documenting all this for a case before the district. As far as the gifted end goes, yes, the Dr. informed us his being in only 2% of the population, and tho we were pleased to hear it, one of the things that has occured due to classmates calling DS dumb and stupid (because he does not write as fast as the teacher wants)is that DS thinks being a smart kid is bad because they hurt the feelings of other people. Those are his exact words. He has told us he does not want to be a smart kid. This is a delicate time for all and I appreciate you informing me of the gifted angle, I am not sure what programs are offered at DS school. I will check it out! Thank you for that Pam

 

[FINFAN]

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[FINFAN]

bump my posts aren't showing up

 

[cruisnfamily]

You should definitely follow up on all of these things. The humiliation your son is having to endure is UNACCEPTABLE! I cannot believe this is an accepted practice.

In our area, almost all of the schools have a "part-time" gifted program where they pull the kids out once a week for the full day or every day for an hour or so, but we also have two "full-time" gifted programs here in town where they are in a whole class of gifted kids all day every day. Some teach thinking outside of the box kind of stuff and some just teach one grade level ahead. It bears looking into what kind of programs are available. Anyway, the best thing about these gifted programs is that they are offered at the public schools and are absolutely free! I believe the school district has a responsibility once your child is labeled as "gifted" to provide him with an IEP (individual education plan) and that they are required to provide him with an education that meets his special needs....in this case gifted. Not that this would solve anything but you may have a good law suit case here.

I am not against going to private school if that is your CHOICE but I am upset that you are being forced to do this without any other alternatives. I don't know about you but $700 a month is really big money to me. You could buy another house! You should carefully check out all of your options!

By the way, regarding what you were saying about him writing slowly, does he have a problem with writing? My son has very poor fine motor skills and we had him in OT last year to try and alleviate this. He has improved somewhat but his handwriting is just awful and writing is a real chore for him. The psychologist who did his testing said he lost at least 10 points on the IQ thing due to his motor skills. We need to put our son back in OT to help him deal better with this. Just wondering if the same applied to your little guy....sounds like they could be brothers!

Keep us posted!