Posts Tagged ‘screening’
The Preschool Screening
My public school drives my absolutely bananas. I wanted to get Madison’s hearing screened just to make sure that there were no problems. We thought maybe some of Madison’s attention issues were due to her not hearing. However, my school being the pain in butt that they are wouldn’t do it unless we scheduled her to be prescreened for preschool through the school (which is a joke but I’ll tell you about that later). Obviously, there is some sort of federal funding they get for this, because I wanted a five minute screening and got stuck with an hour long screening. I sucked it up and took her.
I swear that they expect these kids to have a flash memory drive in their heads. I could hear some of the things they were testing her on, and from what I could tell, she was doing well. When they called me up after the testing was over, I was right. Except for cutting and catching, she scored everything else in the 6 year old range. Madison is only 4. I am seriously wondering if some of the attention issues we are having with her at preschool are due to her being bored. That was the good news.
The bad new was that we failed her hearing screening. I asked what the school would do for that. The answer: nothing. We would have to pay for additional testing elsewhere. The other thing that ticked me off to no end was that she couldn’t even get into the school preschool if I wanted to send her. The only kids who get in are those who are considered “at risk” (which Madison is obviously not) and if we made less than $80,000 a year. Umm, yeah. We make more than that. In Chicago, I am not sure if you can even own a decent house making less than $80,000 a year. Basically, the only kids who get in are those who don’t speak English (because there were several kids like that there) and low income people. I guess my question is what about the middle class? Why do we always get screwed?
My Day
Ever have one of those days? I did today. Instead of my normal Tuesday routine, I got stuck doing other things I didn’t really feel like doing. If you read my last update from when we went to the doctor’s office, Madison needs to get a hearing test done. I finally got around to calling the school district today, and what a mess. Instead of being able just to schedule her for hearing test, they are making her go through an entire preschool screening again. Unfortunately, this means I had to prove residency once again. This is no easy task. To prove residency in my district, you have to bring in your tax bill, two utility bills, an original birth certificate, and your drivers license. Unfortunately, that isn’t always so easy to find. I spent the entire time while Madison was a preschool looking for these items. My other problem was that the school closed at 4 PM.This normally wouldn’t be an issue except Madison had preschool until 3:30 PM. It takes me around 15 minutes to get from my house to her preschool. In theory, I should have made a back In plenty of time. However, I got stuck by two trains. I then turned on the wrong street to go to the school and got a bit turned around. What a mess! Luckily, I got there with five minutes to spare. I literally ran into the building with the kids. Thank goodness the woman was nice, because it actually took me till five after four for me to finish all the paperwork. Seriously, there was so much paperwork it was like signing mortgage papers. Now, I have to sit and wait for school to call me back and schedule a screening for preschool. I seriously don’t understand why they just can’t do the hearing screening like I asked. I think the lady said that testing would start November 7, so at least we don’t have to wait that long. It’s just frustrating because Madison won’t qualify for free preschool, so this is just a waste of my time.






