Advice on Picking up the Pieces

Throwaway account.

I am in the process of fostering to adopt a 15yo. He could come to me as early as next week. His background, particularly with respect to his education, is nothing short of a mess, and I'm looking for advice on picking up the pieces and supporting him the rest of the way, to hopefully a diploma.

He has been involved in "the system" - either in delinquency or abuse/neglect - since he was eight years old. He has not attended what I would call a "real school" since about that time, and was expelled from one prior to that (for accidentally bringing a knife to school). While in the system, he has bounced around to between 8-10 small schools - either really crappy charter, or specialized public that also (typically) weren't great. He also spent one entire year (should have been his 7th grade year) on the run.

As I've gotten closer to receiving him, I've gotten a clearer picture of the damage that has done, and it's not pretty. Take his current placement for example. He has had an IEP for sometime now, for unspecified LD and EI. He was placed at this facility, with an on-grounds charter school, late last year. The child has not had an IEP completed in that time (no review, nothing). Further, the IEP they were "working off of" (if you could call it that) was missing more than half of its pages. When I confronted the Special Education teacher about this, I was told we had to "make do" with what we had. When I inquired to his grade level, I was told 8th grade by one person, 9th by another, and 11th by a 3rd. He is biologically in 10th grade. I could seriously go on all night, I promise you there is more. Needless to say, I've raised holy hell, and this has resulted in numerous complaints and investigations at very high levels that are ongoing. But those don't help the kid in the here and now.

The most recent testing I've received on him was from 2017, the last time he was in any public school setting. This indicated he struggled with basic sight words, and could not identify all pre-primer sight words. I've been told this has improved, but not drastically. He is certainly not at grade level. What good news I have is that he has a decent amount of credits (9) for a partially incoming sophomore and a rather impressive GPA (3.7), though I suspect this likely comes from his recent placements "passing him along". Other good news is that he is a remarkably hard worker. He truly does want to succeed and I believe he has it in him to succeed.

My concerns as he comes to me are multi-fold: (1) I worry he is going to absolutely drown as he is put into a high school with thousands of students, not thirty; (2) I worry he is woefully unprepared for a high school curriculum; (3) a principle reason for his IEP is emotional impairment, and I worry about this massive transition (in school and life) with respect to that; (4) COVID is a thing, and virtual or remote learning is a nice wildcard in this equation to boot.

I am fairly well educated, with a BA from a top university. I don't necessarily worry about helping him when I can, but I'm only useful to an extent, and certainly not as much when in-person resumes. I want to ensure he gets the services he needs to succeed, but I was privileged enough to not be involved in Special Education, and I'm learning as I go. I am a fierce advocate for him (this current school hates me, as I do them), but I need to know what I'm advocating for.

I have a call scheduled with the Director of Special Education at his soon-to-be school tomorrow morning to speak about all of this and give them a warning about this absolute clusterf heading their way.

Any advice, on any of the above, is welcome!!

Submitted September 29, 2020 at 05:51PM by TossAway0208 https://ift.tt/36gOLNk