January-finishing the current chapter for the new start

 While January is usually a fresh start, in our house this year, it was the finishing of a chapter.  At the high school the 1st semester ends the last week of January with finals week.  Students either have a final exam or a culminating project to wrap up and when February starts, so does 2nd semester. 

In our house this meant a lot going on.

For C, the oldest, it meant finishing up his extra semester at school.  He wasn't ready to go on to post-secondary and wanted more time to figure out what he wanted to do next, so he did what's called here-12B.  Ontario used to have a Grade 13 for students going on to University (as opposed to college, tech school or just graduating-here college is generally understood to be a 2 year program, university a 4 year program).  Then, instead of Grade 13, they developed "tracks."  Students are generally on an "Applied" track, which will then lead them into college or trades or working right after high school; or they are on an "Academic" track, which will prepare them for University.  Also interesting to note here is that rather than how grades are viewed in the US as a whole over your entire high school career, Universities are usually looking at just a few key classes and how your Grade 11 and 12 years went.  For instance, the local University one town over required a 70 (%) or higher in 3 key mathematics classes you'd take in grade 11 and 12 (on the academic track) as well as an overall 80% in your 5 highest classes during grade 11 and 12 to be accepted.  What this means is kids have a little more time to adjust to high school as grades 9 and 10 your grades don't really "count" as much.  But it does mean you better not get Senioritis and slack off your Grade 12 year.  C's Grade 12 year was extremely stressful and full of very hard classes rather than filled with classes he just needed for graduation and to fill time.  This may have contributed to him feeling like he needed a bit of a break/gap year.  It may have also been that really he only went to high school for 2.5 years, missing 1.5 due to the pandemic.  He didn't seem really a fan of school, so I was a bit surprised when he opted for another semester.

Anyway, all that to explain he took a pretty relaxed course load. Auto maintenance, construction (woodshop) and a free period, then we picked him up 3 x a week to go to a co-op (like an internship-this was due to him still not having a license. Fingers crossed it will happen in April).  The co-op was in a local computer repair shop where he learned, "I don't want to work with retail or with customers."  When January finished, so did the co-op and school.  

He did however apply to the local college as well as a backup one a little further away.  Here you can apply to 5 school programs (max 3 from each college) for one application fee (currently $125).  The requirements are a little lower for the math-you just needed to pass them (he got 60s, so the university won't take him).  He did do very well in his computer science classes (the programs he's applying to) and did complete the math classes required, so hopefully he will start college in September.  He's hoping to start on a 2 year program that has an extra year extension option.  Until then he's planning to spend some time teaching himself a new, free online game design platform to build up his resume as well as hopefully finding some sort of job that "doesn't require retail or working with customers."  For now he's helping Hubby and I at the curling club. But that will end in April.  He'd be able to continue next season though with the evening and weekend schedule and so far doesn't seem to not like it, just that he needs to dress a little warmer for the 40 degree workplace.

H is moving forward as well.  After a hard working January to study for exams and complete culminating projects and finish the homework he probably should have done over Christmas break but did not (he's been very burnt out at school) he has completed semester 1 of his Grade 10 year.  He's started semester 2 off well.  He's taking a food class period 1, 2nd period is spent in the learning resource room taking a computer class online through the school board, 3rd period is math with a teacher who student taught at his elementary school, so he knows him a bit and 4th period is History with "a pretty laid back teacher."  So far so good.

The other big progress is H's application for school next year is complete.

All 5 binders are the same, so a committee can review his application.  The school is run by the Ontario Board of Education.  This means the school doesn't have a fee associated for the school, room, board or transportation to or from the school each week.  Yes, it's a school where he will attend Monday to Friday and come home on weekends and holidays.  It's about an hour and a half from our home. Because Ontario is very big, there are students who fly in to school each week. They leave after first period on Friday, go home for the weekend, and fly back on Sunday night.  

To qualify for the school the student must have a learning disability.  Over the last year, H has been diagnosed with 2 learning disabilities (one associated with math fluency and one associated with written expression), ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).  Students cannot have an intellectual disability as the program is quite rigorous. ADHD and ASD do not prevent him from attending. Medication doesn't prevent him from attending. However, the school needs lots of information to make sure he qualifies for the program and will be successful, so there's a lot that goes into the application.  This means that while the school is free, the application is not. We've paid for a hearing test, a speech evaluation (which he aced-95th percentile for vocabulary and he finished off the testing materials which the evaluator had never done before), a doctor's note (all which probably wouldn't have been needed otherwise).

There are 3 locations, but only the one closest to us has high school classes.  Students generally stay one year, it would be rare to go for 2 years.  The school claims to assist students in increasing the students skills in the area of learning disability 3 years in the one year of school.  Teachers apply to teach there, generally teach 2-3 years then go back to their home school board to share what they've learned.

There are 8 teachers-2 resource teachers, 1 technology advisor, 1 Education Assistant, the rest of the teachers are general teachers working with the students. This means a ratio of 5 teachers to 1 student. If they were at full capacity they'd hire 2 more teachers. They currently have 41 students, which means most students have their own bedroom and bathroom (typically they would share).  There are 43 applications for the 50 spots for the 2024-2025 school year. A social worker is at the school 2 x a week, counseling is available, speech and language therapy is available 2 x a week, a child and adolescent psychologist is there 2 x a week, a psychiatrist 2 x a month and a student health services/nurse is there all the time.  Dorm supervision is 4:1 and there's no place for supervisors to sleep, they are working when they are there.

Dorm supervisors meet with class teachers at the beginning of the day to debrief each other while students meet in a morning community circle with a counselor. The school not only works on learning skills but life skills with the students.

The school day starts an hour later. Students wake up, have breakfast, can call home and then have school 8:45-3:20 with lunch in the cafeteria (the campus is shared with a school for the deaf).  After school they get an hour of free time where they can use phones, ipad, etc.  then an hour of homework.

Dinner is at the school, then an hour of free time.  After dinner they have learning skills type workshops Monday and Tuesday, Wed & Thursday is organized recreation (right now badminton and dungeons & dragons are popular) and Friday after school everyone heads home for the weekend. 10pm lights out, no devices. Once a week, they can go into town with counselors in the evening for shopping or field trips like bowling.

Follow-up is done the following year to make sure students are doing well with their new skills. There are consultants at the school that help with the application process as well as with transitioning to the school as well as going back to their home school the following year.

There's less focus on electives but high school students are encouraged to do electives for credits they need to graduate as all classes at the school qualify towards graduation.  There's no French requirement (H is already getting an exemption. HS students must take a minimum of a 1/2 year of French in HS to graduate but the requirement can be waived by the principal and is not required for post-secondary school.  He struggles with foreign language and his continuing to take the class wasn't going to serve him in any way going forward, so he will take something that will serve him instead.)

There are laundry facilities, but usually just used for biweekly linen washing-most students bring home dirty clothes.

V is still working towards swimming goals and lifeguarding but is at a bit of a plateau so we will likely change her spring class for a break, then swim team in summer and have another go at the lifeguarding classes in fall.  She still loves her gifted class and has picked classes for high school next year.  She was just approved for private ASD testing so that she should have results before high school begins so over the summer she can work on some social skills that are needed.

Hubby is continuing to learn and improve his ice making skills at the curling club and really enjoys making the ice and curling on it and figuring out ways to make it better and better all the time. We are about 2/3 of the season through and our competitive team that we curl on is in first place!  Ice making also allows for some extra practice time.

I'm starting up another training cycle for running.  Goals this year include a 100km race in May, another try at getting a Boston qualifying time in a fall Marathon as well as other smaller races this year. I'm going with friends to do a trail marathon in Ireland as my last big run big run in early May before the 100k race.  Though we had a rough 2 weeks of cold like the rest of the continent, other than that the weather's been pretty good for winter.  Some photos of the 2 weeks of running in snow!

This is in our local provincial park-shorthills. Because we got lots of rain, then the big freeze, the waterfalls were all huge and frozen.

A friend who lives up near where H would go to school asked if we could from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario  for her 40th birthday (44km, so just over a marathon in length) along the Welland shipping canal path.  It was just before the storm for the snow and ice was starting. The canal water is low so they can do maintenance and there's no boats, but it was interesting to see what's normally under the water level.

On to February and new beginnings!