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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3148
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 Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 5:48 am Post subject: Panic! Academic Inspection Under New Law! |
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Sorry, long post, crisis, despair, rabbit in headlights feeling.
My almost 9 year old son , ( AS but no dx), home-unschools, and is doing well. By allowing him to learn at his own rhythm he has learned off his own bat, to read, (last year), learned to write, ( tho still printing), and play chess, and do all sorts of things, including speak increasingly fluently and comprehensibly, which until he was almost 7 looked like it might never happen. ( I seriously thought at one time he might always be hugely disabled language wise, but he is catching up incredibly well).
We live in France and in order to avoid the yearly visits from the Academic Inspection which otherwise apply to home schoolers we have been using a correspondence course, ( for almost 3 years now ). My son does all the homework that is demanded, and we send it off regularly every fortnight. Normally this would exempt us from visits by the Academic Inspection.
However, last year the section of the law relating to home visits by the local council social-assistant, (ostensibly to check that child is not in a cult/sect), was changed, to require all homeschoolers "including those on correspondence courses" to submit to these visits, ... and ... since the law was badly/ambiguously worded, ( by accident?), some regional Academic Inspectorates are now imposing academic inspections on correspondence-course pupils as their right in law.
We knew about the change relating to the social assistance visits, and were warily awaiting our time for that visit, but we did not know that because of the "poor" wording of this latest amendment, ( which we now find out quite a few people have fallen foul of already this year apparently), we would perhaps be obliged to take our son for exams/tests at the Inspectorate.
We were particularly unprepared because for the last two years the Correspondence school has issued us with a "Certificate of Scolarity" at registration. We phoned them for a reaction to this letter. Two weeks later we have heard nothing from the director of the school, despite two conversations with the secretary. And this is one of the four most reputable correspondence schools in France.
The french homeschooling organisation we belong to says that the corr schools don't care much because in fact very few children follow entire homeschool correspondence-courses; most of their business is supplementary courses for /support of normally schooled children.
We phoned the Inspectorate. They say that the certificate of scolarity isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
We are requested in writing to take along our son's textbooks and exercise books for the "control".
As the letter does not say explicitly that our son is supposed to go, ( just demands we take along all school work books etc), we have decided , with the support of the homeschooling org, that only my son's father ( who is french, and NT/ reassuringly "ordinary" at times like this), will go, taking with him the homeworks corrected and marked by the corr-school as well as the grades for last year and interim marks for this.
He will say how entirely satisfied we are with the course, answer questions about our son's progress, and ... ... we hope will not be thrown out on his ear for turning up without our son. The HS org says that in theory the inspector should be able to make a report based on this kind of meeting with the parent. Perhaps they will consider it sufficient.
I have in the meantime sent off for, and received, an application form for renewal of my son's British Passport, unfortunately expired last october. And discover that for the second passport for someone living overseas, even a child of british national, now need some consulate registration/declaration thing which I haven't got, and have never heard of before.
Am in increasing state of panic/paralysis. Thinking of horrible outcomes , like the 10,000 € fine imposable on parents deemed to have failed in their duty to educate their children, or prison if cannot ( as we could not) pay, or court order to send child to school, or having to flee the country, ( leaving his father here of course). etc tc etc.
The french have shown, with particularly heavy pressure on german families homeschooling in France, where they moved because it is actually completely illegal in Germany, that they do not like foreign parents homeschooling ; their rabid nationalism,and bureaucracy, leads them to dislike attempts by foreign nationals to do things outside the paperchase/system.
     
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Last edited by ouinon on Fri May 16, 2008 3:10 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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Smelena
Cure Neurotypicals Now!
Joined: Apr 02, 2007
Posts: 2136
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 5:55 am Post subject: |
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What is the French view regarding students with Asperger's?
Would documentation about his diagnosis assist your husband in his meeting?
Can someone from your homeschooling organisation assist your husband?
Is there an Autism society/organisation in France that can help you?
Helen
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3148
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 6:18 am Post subject: |
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| Smelena wrote: | | What is the French view regarding students with Asperger's? |
Previous searches on the french internet for Aspergers have come up with nothing, but...
*Just found a newish ( it wasn't there last time i looked) page on aspergers at Autisme.France , with lots of links to english language info sites, a reasonable page in french.
But all the info re education and autism is focussed on/orientated towards the govt goal which is that all autists be in schools with other "ordinary" children. And the oft quoted but incorrect statement about school being obligatory, whereas it is not, it is instruction which is.
| Quote: | | Would documentation about his diagnosis assist your husband in his meeting? |
Have none, not even from the speech therapists we took my son to for about 2 months, 3 years ago, because they said that while he did not respond to their material, ( even though he showed ability to talk, if brokenly, about his interests !  ),  they could not make any diagnosis. We gave up at that point. So long as he was happy and making progress at his own speed it didn't seem necessary, while we could avoid inspections.
| Quote: | | Can someone from your homeschooling organisation assist your husband? |
We had several long conversations with both the part-time salaried legal-advisor, and another experienced member of the org who said there wasn't much we could do, as most of the corr schools are washing their hands of us, and the amendment is sufficiently ambiguous to mean the Inspectorate are within their legal rights, apart from going without our son and try to bluff/reassure them out of any further demands re tests of son.
| Quote: | | Is there an Autism society/organisation in France that can help you? |
Haven't looked for any help/support before now; was no need. Will look/see.
Thanks for swift reply.
...
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Last edited by ouinon on Fri May 16, 2008 10:21 am; edited 7 times in total |
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3148
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 6:35 am Post subject: |
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The biggest problem is my son's spoken french. It is still very laboured, not idiomatic, with poor accent/prononciation, and very simple sentence construction. Though he talks at length and happily, ( though in a "mess" as I say), to his papa, ( who does say that he has made lots of progress), and other family, people he knows well, he becomes almost totally silent/mute with strangers or even acquaintances however well-intentioned.
Also he becomes rapidly hostile, and begins glaring, grimacing and wriggling and muttering, if in any way obliged/forced to respond, even with pleasant acquaintances, especially to questions.
He also often repeats back stuff, and laughs oddly and inappropriately/out of synch or for no apparent reason.
The thought of him having to go and sit answering questions etc to a couple of officials that he has never met, and then be made to go to school because they decide he is shockingly behind which they'll probably put down to not knowing french, which is their biggest pet hate, whereas he can read it rapidly and well, understand it, and write, and spell it, sometimes remember grammar details in writing better than I can etc, is completely terrifying.
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3148
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 6:57 am Post subject: |
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I think i'm going to have to leave the country.
Just have to sort out my son's passport renewal problem first.
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LoveableNerd
Velociraptor
Joined: Apr 24, 2008
Posts: 435
Location: Kentucky, USA
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 10:11 am Post subject: |
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| ouinon wrote: | | However, last year the section of the law relating to home visits by the local council social-assistant, (ostensibly to check that child is not in a cult/sect), was changed, to require all homeschoolers "including those on correspondence courses" to submit to these visits, ... and ... since the law was badly/ambiguously worded, ( by accident?), some regional Academic Inspectorates are now imposing academic inspections on correspondence-course pupils as their right in law. |
Badly worded laws are rarely ever by accident, because they almost always give the government passing them a lot more power than they claim they are seeking when they are trying to pass said law. It's all about control and indoctrination. And getting more of the people's money, of course.
Sad that you had already left Germany because of their anti-homeschool laws, and now may have to emigrate yet again. But did you know who initiated the first anti-homsechooling laws (at least in Germany)? Yep, the ole Fuhrer himself, Adolf Hitler. You can look it up. That is the mentality you are dealing with, unfortunately.
| ouinon wrote: | I think i'm going to have to leave the country.
Just have to sort out my son's passport renewal problem first.
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The American South and Midwest are both still pretty homeschool friendly if you want to give us a try. I live in Kentucky, and briefly worked for the local school district as a computer tech a few years ago, and they actually recommended to parents of troubled children that they go the homeschooling route. I wouldn't recommend California or New York though, as the are slowly going down the Nazi path.
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Last edited by LoveableNerd on Fri May 16, 2008 10:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3148
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 10:14 am Post subject: |
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Thank you for kind thoughts, LovableNerd!
Well, I went and cried for half an hour in the bathroom, and washed my face with steaming hot water, and then obviously I cried some more, so then i washed my face with cold water .
Then I came back to the computer and logged onto the french homeschooling site/forum which i joined last year but have never posted on, and posted a long ( tho' not as long as on here because in french!), and desperate message there too.
Having cried some more, and raged at the french father who came home at this point, I felt a wee smidge better, and in a spirit of anger and nothing to lose asked him to call the correspondence school again, and insist on getting the director this time.
And he got him, and apparently we are both lucky and unlucky.
Unlucky because we live in one of the two toughest school/academic inspection areas in France, and lucky because the correspondence school we picked, (simply because someone told us about it), is the only one which is authorised to issue these "certificates of scholarity", because, get this, the director is friends with some guy on the board/ministry of inspection. ( small hysterics here)
So the papa is going along with the school's documents, the homework, and grades/marks etc, and the names and tel nos of director and my son's "teacher/corrector", and also a name he is only to brandish if absolutely necessary.   Could this happen in the UK I ask myself?
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GreatCeleryStalk
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Mar 19, 2008
Age: 25
Posts: 189
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 10:39 am Post subject: |
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| Is the concern because your son hasn't been educated to the level demanded by French law? It sounds like your son not having a diagnosis is a problem and that a diagnosis would be beneficial for situations like this one. |
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3148
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| GreatCeleryStalk wrote: | | Is the concern because your son hasn't been educated to the level demanded by French law? It sounds like your son not having a diagnosis is a problem and that a diagnosis would be beneficial for situations like this one. |
It's not quite that simple, because the law here does not in fact require children to "match" a particular level of attainment at any age, only to show provable progress over time on an imagined line which must, by law, reach a certain point by age 16, to include knowledge in language, maths, science, history, etc. ( this despite the fact that many children leave school at 16 with nothing like this level of achievement!  )
So it's not so much that he's not at a certain level in certain skills, chiefly oral/spoken language, aswell some fine motor skills , ( writing not yet joined up), etc, but that because the inspection doesn't know where his "line" started they might imagine that he had not progressed since age 6. And might easily think that this represented negligence on our part.
In that sense a dx could be useful, to "explain" why he is not further on in certain things.
But we ( including the NT papa) almost never visit doctors. Even getting a medical certificate for his weekly karate sessions was a strain, ( my son found the examination; T-shirt off and being touched/palped, for chest exam, by total stranger "peculiar" and invasive). The prospect of finding and seeing all the medical people it would take to get a dx is hugely offputting.
If we heard of someone "nice"not too far away who is AS-savvy then perhaps we would do it, like getting a sick certificate for time off work.
However the huge push in france is to get as many disabled into ordinary schools as possible ... ... so am not sure that it would be a good idea to draw attention to my son's AS in case they thought that he would be better off in school. ( you know; the socialising, social skills myth )
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3148
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| Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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Since french papa's phone call with the school director, who sounded matter of factly confident about our prospects, and his giving us the magic word ( the name of the secret power on high ), I am feeling a hundred times better than for a couple of days.
Phew
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DW_a_mom
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 23, 2008
Posts: 1043
Location: Northern California
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 2:43 am Post subject: |
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I am glad you are starting to feel more confident.
Take another deep breath.
Here goes. Do NOT let your frustration and distrust of government prevail. You are calling failure before a step has been taken. The reality, even within a horrid beaurocracy, is that most people want to do what is best for the individuals and for society. Clear your head of all the distrust, clear your head of your own bad experiences with school, clear out the term "unschooling" from your vocabulary, and focus on all the positive, tangible reasons homeschooling is best for your son, and all the progress he has made in this setting.
a) He has a condition that makes him overly sensitive to noise and other stimulation. At home you can control this and allow him to focus. In school environment he is likely to become confused by the stimulation and either withdraw or act out inappropriately. Provide examples from the issues you have had with some of the classes you have enrolled your son in.
b) He has a condition where communication skills are often impaired. Given that factor, "for children like him" he is actually quite advanced. Proceed to list all the academic accomplishments.
c) Remind them that it is the knowledge, not the process, that determines success. Then refer back the accomplishments listed at B.
Stay POSITIVE.
Note that I cannot imagine any responsible official allowing this process to be completed without meeting your child. They will have to, after all, make sure that you aren't running some strange sort of cult. Don't get upset by it, understand the reasoning, and then develop a reasonable compromise. One where your son can feel comfortable, and the officials can get a sense that all is fine, given your son's condition.
You know the old saying, "there is nothing to fear but fear itself." Well, it's true, because it is the FEAR that will defeat you, not the law. You HAVE to believe that, and proceed accordingly.
You know in your heart that you have made the best possible choice for your child. I know you do, because you wouldn't work so hard to sell the rest of us on your program if you didn't. When you believe in something so whole-heartedly, you CAN sell it. You simply have to stay on the POSITIVES. We've discussed that before in different contexts, but it is more important now than ever that you understand what I mean.
And I do think it's wise that you are putting the process into your husband's hands. It sounds like he has some sense of how to "play the game," so to speak, and is more of the kind of face they can trust, and that will be important in this situation.
The best of luck to you!
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3148
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 6:56 am Post subject: |
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| DW_a_mom wrote: | | I am glad you are starting to feel more confident. |
Yes, still a wee bit tense/anxious/in suspense because nothing is guaranteed, but apparently the director of the correspondence school was quite clear, categorical in fact , that unless the government wants to put in doubt the quality of instruction that his school provides ( which would be another issue altogether) they should not need to see our son at all.
The papa should find that giving full details of the school, displaying the fully completed and corrected/graded homeworks, and providing the name and tel no.s of the director and my son's individual tutor on the course, should be enough.
If this still isn't sufficient, then the name of the contact on high is to be made use of, in the form of an explicit referral to the authority of the person authorising our certificate of scolarity, who is also on the highest board of inspections which is the body that decides who needs inspecting.
I said to the papa after the phone call that it is extraordinary that in Europe in the 21st century we are still at all dependent on latin/mediterranean styles of under-the-table connections/power relationships like this. He replied that it isn't exactly very "good", from point of view of democracy but that unfortunately, ( or fortunately   ) that is the way it still works in france in some things.
Thank you for the advice and best wishes! If they do ask for a meeting with my son we have the right to ask for it to happen at home which might help.
But at the moment I am believing the director, because it also explains why the others who posted on the homeschooling organisation's rather moribund internet forum about their having received similar letters from the inspection in the last couple of months, who said were with same school as us, haven't posted since.
| Quote: | a) He has a condition that makes him overly sensitive to noise and other stimulation. Provide examples from the issues you have had with some of the classes you have enrolled your son in.
b)He has a condition where communication skills are often impaired. Given that factor, "for children like him" he is actually quite advanced. Proceed to list all the academic accomplishments. |
Unfortunately without a dx to support this we would probably not get far with such an approach, especially as with my english accent and grammatical errors they will not perceive me as a highly educated and well-read person, and his papa definitely isn't.
They would probably either see it as excuses for poor progress/results of neglect/abuse, or signs of parental neurosis ( as at the primary school he tried for a while), or reason to push us into a long round of visits to experts/doctors etc.
The french are very attached to paperwork and would accept nothing from me about something as serious as a diagnosis of autism. I remember one of the speech therapists being very dismissive of my concerns and making light of it, as in fact so many parents talk about on here ( wp) with respect to schools.
| Quote: | | I cannot imagine any responsible official allowing this process to be completed without meeting your child. They will have to, after all, make sure that you aren't running some strange sort of cult. |
That is not their job. That is the job of the social assistant visit by the local council/"mairie" which we have still not heard anything about, and which it is possible we may never hear about, because it is as at the discretion of the local "mairie" and apparently in small villages it is often not done because it might provoke the most awful neighbourly situations to have someone "inspecting" someone else from same village!
The academic inspection's job is to inspect academic attainment, and they should not be inspecting children who are attending any kind of school, because it casts doubt on the school's seriousness and capability for one thing. They are just using the ambiguously worded amendment to the law to interfere, as french bureaucrats love to do, in an area which does not fit neatly into the traditional system, and which they are quite right to suspect is hiding a group of rebels, but who were until last year totally protected by the law in return for a few hundred euros paid to these correspondence schools.
| Quote: | | You know that you have made the best possible choice for your child. You wouldn't work so hard to sell the rest of us on your program if you didn't. |
Some of the most appalling systems and cults are wholeheartedly promulgated/promoted by their supporters.
| Quote: | | The best of luck to you! |
Thank you again. I m crossing my fingers for old fashioned french/latin attitudes! ( "stuff the paperwork, who do i know?!")
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Tortuga
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Joined: Dec 12, 2007
Posts: 485
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| Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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I am very sorry to hear of the increased bureaucracy involved in homeschooling in France. I had been following the German cases and the whole situation in Europe does concern me because it appears they are moving to restrict or outlaw homeschooling. The laws vary by state-to-state in the United States, and I already know that I would not live in certain states based on their restrictive homeschooling laws. If they suddenly changed the law on me, I would want to move.
Your son sounds so much like mine! Same age and same level of academic progress. My son's language didn't really take off until he was about 7 and even now, he has what they call "cluttered" speech. He stammers and it takes a long time for him to get the words out. He has only started working at grade level since he started homeschooling. I know if he was back in a classroom, he would plunge back to the bottom percentile and his aggressive behaviors would return.
I wish you the best and hope you can continue to homeschool him through high school. |
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ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 3148
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| Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 4:17 am Post subject: |
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| Tortuga wrote: | | Your son sounds so much like mine! Same age and same level of academic progress. I wish you the best and hope you can continue to homeschool him through high school. |
Thank you so much for the best wishes and understanding of situation. Yes, if my son could not carry on homeschooling here I would go back to England, where things still seem relatively relaxed. .
I think one of the main reasons for the increasing pressure on homeschoolers is that we are a convenient scapegoat for the widespread, but not surprising, failure of the public/national school system. It is so obviously not working, non-adapted to the needs of both individuals and society in general. But most people are still attached to/fixated on the school approach, and are panic-stricken by the signs of its collapse.
It is scary to see something as vast, monolithic, as the school system beginning to fall apart. And in their fear the government/people are stamping, hard, on anything that does not support it blindly; which openly, or at least implicitly, criticises it, ( as if it is homeschooling leaving thousands of children less literate than 50 years ago).
Anyway. Yes, hope my son gets to continue homeschooling for as long as he chooses, and yours too. Best of luck.
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Odin
Supreme Genius
Joined: Oct 13, 2006
Age: 22
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Location: Moorhead, Minnesota, USA
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| Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 9:23 am Post subject: |
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Ugh, it's because of stuff like this I'm thankful to be living in the Anglosphere, Continental Europe has too much centralized bureaucratic BS. France is especially infamous for this sort of nonsense, or so I've heard.
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