Cyber School Week 1

This is the first week of cyber school. It’s overwhelming with two children in different programs and all of the online stuff plus their classes, plus testing, plus evaluations, plus evaluators who don’t show up for said evaluations, etc.

The last few days have taught me a few things.

1. I like not yelling at my oldest every morning “forgodssakesyouneedtokeepmovingthebuswillbehereandyouhavetobeoutthedamndoor!”

2. He likes sleeping in and not having to be out the door so early every morning. He’s not even sleeping as late as I thought he would. The system of allowing him to choose his own wake up time is going well so far. Although I told him in the beginning if it didn’t, I would be laying down rules that he may or may not like.

3. Our younger child would NOT survive in a regular classroom. He would have that teacher on Xanax in hours. He fidgets, he can’t concentrate without A LOT of redirection unless he’s really interested (hmmm…wonder where he gets that?), and he needs lots of breaks. I also can’t see how he’d deal on the days he doesn’t sleep well. I have to do his program as a half day program. All day Kindergarten is not for him.

4. I love that the boys can move at their own pace, and so do they. We’re not wasting time on things they already have mastered. We LOVE not fighting over stupid busy work homework assignments! This one I cannot say enough. My oldest who has been in public school up to this year (6th grade), LOVES not having to wait for the slower kids, or feeling rushed when he needs just an extra minute or two.

5. I love not having to deal with teachers who don’t care to learn about autism and SPD. As their primary teaching coach, I can accommodate the boys how they need it. I can tweak what they need daily. This is especially good for Aaron (5).

6. I don’t have to worry about Aaron’s food allergies, and if he’s going to have an anaphylactic reaction at school. This is so huge. Especially since we think we found a new allergen just this week here at home.

7. I now understand why my teachers were so big on recycling paper and reusing the backs of printouts we didn’t need. We’ve already used a TON of paper this week, and I’ve set up a bin to reuse the backs of our daily and weekly schedule print outs, plus any others we can reuse.

8. NO MARKERS FOR THE FIVE YEAR OLD. There was an incident yesterday with chasing his brother and a bathroom door got colored. He’s also sporting the Crayola 8 on his face, hands, feet, and legs.

9. No more packing school lunches! I love being able to cook what we eat for lunch each day. Even if we just have sandwiches, they taste so much better freshly made than having sat in a lunch box all morning.

10. Once we get into a groove, we’re going to be able to take advantage of the rich heritage and history our area offers. There are many school outings scheduled as well as we live close to our state capital, Gettysburg, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and much more. It’s all within just a couple of hours. We also have the Army Heritage and Education Center just around the corner where we can walk the trail and the boys can learn about the different military periods.

I’m sure I’ll find more as we go. It has been exhausting. I won’t lie. We’ve been put in a very catch 22 position. It was either constantly be supervising and watching what the public schools were doing and making sure they were in compliance, or keep the boys home and do the cyber school option since it operates as a public school and is free to the families in our state. After what we went through with both boys’ schools last year, I prefer having them home and knowing exactly what they’re doing each day.