Brett Schaeffer's Page

Hi Brett, thanks for the friendly welcome.  Due to my husband's job requiring him to be absent/away for long periods of time, I began cyber-schooling  our 3 children and we absolutely love it. The flexibility is great, our teachers are awesome & the curriculum is top-notch, in my opinion. Much to our surprise, one of the biggest positives to cyber-schooling was not being tied to all of the PSSA Drills that my children were subjected to on a daily basis in the traditional "brick & mortar" public school system. More recently though, even our school is being forced to require the students participate online in regular PSSA & Keystone Test Prep classes and drills. I have tried to be very compliant and for the past 4 days I drove two of my children back & forth 40 minutes each way to take the PSSA Tests. These 4 days did nothing but frustrate my kids and eat up precious school/curriculum time.  Now, the school is saying that I must drive my son back and forth 3 days in May for the Keystone Exams. The closest site they have to us is 1 hr and 15 mins. away.  I previously asked if it would be possible to have someone there to administer the Keystone Exams while my other children took the PSSA Exams.  First they said, yes. Then they said, no because there were only certain times/windows allowed for testing.  In the past I've known other families who could not take the PSSA tests at the time they were given and the school made them take the tests when they returned.  PA Virtual is saying that the Keystones are a requirement for graduation, but my son's Keystone Prep Class teacher said that if they did not pass the Keystone Exams, it would have no effect on their ability to graduate.  My son is already working on a graduation Project which is another requirement for graduation (another time waster in my opinion).  He has a 3.89 GPA right now.  I can not afford to waste any more of our precious time and gas driving him back and forth 75 minutes both ways for 3 days in a row.  I just did it with my other children and for what?  Where is the common sense?  If he has a 3.89 GPA, does he really need to waste time with a Keystone Prep Exam?  Is there any way we can opt out?  There is no way I can drive him there in May.  I feel the school and the state are being totally unaccommodating.  Sorry for such a long post.  I just wanted to be as clear and thorough as possible.  Thank you.

Thank you Brett Schaeffer, I look forward to learning and getting trained how to access resources available for my children and others in Philadelphia County.

Hi Brett,

Thank you for getting back to me. I don't know if SEAS or Lehigh Valley Autism Voices or even ARCH know about this thread. Would you like me to introduce it to them and if so would you please write up something explaining what you are with your link you can e-mail me at sharifoose@rcn.com. By the way, my son is going through this situation now and was told the college follows ADA rules. I feel this is a shame because kids with disabilities have accommodations in place to succeed not cheat and some cannot go on to higher education without them.

Shari