I've already posted about this in an Asperger's/High Functioning Autism support forum, but I seem to recall there were people here with kids on the spectrum, and we could really use some help with this.
Our 15 year old son, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, started high school a month ago. He had a bad experience in middle school (long story), but this school really seemed like a good fit for him, and we all were optimistic about this fresh start.
A couple weeks ago, I first started to hear mention of students maybe needing individual laptops to work on at school. Then I heard more about it, and with increasing urgency. It quickly became the reason our son gave whenever he hadn’t done an assignment— ALL the other kids had these laptops.
We are going to have our first meeting about his IEP at the end of this week, and I figured we would do some brainstorming at that time. But last Thursday while I was charging my laptop at the library (because our power was out for a week), I got a message from my husband that the principal had decided that all students MUST have their own laptop. There are no computers available for general use. We asked if there was a way to lock up a laptop for our son’s use at school rather than having him cart an expensive piece of equipment back and forth every day, and were told that, too, was not possible. Also, while the principal said the laptop could be either a Mac or a PC, the vast majority of the students are using these specific Mac laptops. There are special "editing marks" on the Mac, which our son is supposed to use in some of the assignments in his College Reading class. The fee to lease this laptop would be $150, and we would likely qualify for a scholarship to have that fee waived.
Paying the $150 is not our main concern. We are much more concerned about having to sign a paper saying that we will be responsible for replacing the $1400 laptop if anything happens to it while it is in our son’s care.
I wrote to the principal, since she was the one who had handed down this decision, and expressed my concerns—that this is one of our son’s core deficits we’re talking about. I made a point of tying our reluctance to take this sort of financial risk to issues that spring from our son’s disability. Her response to me disregarded this central issue I raised:
We've moved to one-to-one computing at ----- and have worked for two years
to gather enough funding to do so. We weren't able under the grant
guidelines to purchase computers outright, so the lease option was our only one. The scholarship for the $150 is available for all students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. If you do not qualify, the $150 can be paid in installments. This is the best we could do as the computer use in a Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics school is necessary for coursework.
He will be at a disadvantage during school without one, but he can do the
work from home at night if that is your decision.
Well, my initial, unspoken response upon reading this was something along the lines of "nice attitude". I mean, here I am, sitting in what is at the moment our only working car, typing messages to all of these people connected with our son’s education on my PHONE because our power has been out for days. I’m getting ready to drive up to an autism resource center to see what ideas I can get there. I’m way behind on other things I need to be taking care of, but it’s important enough to get our son’s high school experience off to a good start, with a real IEP that I am devoting almost all of my time to trying to make this happen. And what I get when I express my concerns is "well, it’s your decision, but he’ll be at a disadvantage". How is that an acceptable response when the student in question has been identified as having a disability?
Normally my husband picks our son up from school, but on Friday I went myself, arriving early so that I could talk to some of the key players. Everyone I spoke to indicated that it was the principal who determined that each student must have his or her own laptop to use, and there were no possible workarounds. Unfortunately, she wasn’t there, so I couldn’t talk to her directly.
I just got a new piece of information from my husband this morning. Apparently the "one laptop per student" arrangement was the only way the school was able to get the funding to lease the laptops from Apple. But I still think there must be some solution other than "suck it up and take the financial risk". Would appreciate any suggestions you have to share. Thanks in advance for any suggestions or insights you might be able to offer.
UPDATE: I apologize that I will not be able to address every comment and question in this thread, at least not right away, but our house is pretty chaotic at the moment. My husband is still working to get our second car working and, well--just tons of stuff to do.
Some links about "executive function", which is the core deficit to which I am referring
http://www.ncld.org/...
http://www.chrisdendy.com/...
