PS39 / PS107

I am a parent with aspi child who posted this story. Latest evaluation is that my child do not even break the line to get into autistic spectrum.
1. she improved a lot during the last year and we do a lot of things to help her.
2. she improved even more in this last 2 months just by going to preK with regular kids where she is treated like any other regular kid.
3. the point of my post was that there was a very negative reception of my child based only on my own words that she might be in autistic spectrum. And it felt on the first day.
Remember, she was “evaluated” during the first hour at school. Teacher called psychologist the moment she could not keep my child on the carpet during the circle time.
And I was told right after this that it might be better to place my child into special ed school.
We are very aware about our problems. It was us, the parents who insisted that it might be something wrong when our daughter stopped accumulating words and we insisted on evaluation as early as 13 months because we were loosing eye contact.
We did a lot for her improvement and it was not a situation when school sees something wrong and has to alert the parents.
It was a situation when school tried to kick out a child because “they have a long waiting list”. Of course they could not be really straightforward about this. They “give you a chance”. But we found they in reality teacher just did not want to be bothered and school just was looking through magnifying glass waiting to prove that my daughter could not function in this class.
this is what i wanted to share.

Again: my daughter is perfectly fine in other preK with regular kids. She does have some problems with communication. example: she could say “mom, ask me what else I saw when we went to this museum” instead of just telling what she wants to tell directly.

I do not believe that she needs special class at this stage and think that she will progress more just bing in regular class.
I think it would work just fine with PS107 if she would not be treated as an unwanted freak from the very beginning.

Just an FYI 10 Street between 6th and 4th ave. is zoned for PS 39. If you are on 10th between 6th ave and PPW you’re zoned for PS 107. PS 107 has now become so popular that I was told (when I went on a recent tour) that no children out of their zone will be admitted. PS 39 is on the upswing but it’s true that many in the past zoned for PS 39 sent their kids to other schools. (ex PS 295, G&T at PS 230, BNS, Children’s School and PS 10) I think the new principal is looking to bring positive change. So much about choosing a school is seeing if it’s a good fit for your kid. Do the tours they’re really helpful in making your decision. Parents seem happy at both schools. Good luck.

We had a very bad experience with PS107 preK program.
My daughter does not speak English and has a borderline Asperger sindrom.
She is behaves very well, has good IQ (she started to read a bit and write in our language) and she is not destructive or agressive.
Mostly it shows in her sensory preferences and that she is more into fantasy and pretend play then most kids of her age.

I told teacher about her condition and that I could sit with her during her transition period. They do not let me to sit in the class room.
The first day I left my daughter at school I was asked for her file. I ran home and when I returned 20 min later I was confronted by school psychologist.
She told me that she evaluated my daughter and she did not like what see saw. when I asked her what exactly she did not like she said:
the child talked to herself (remember, that psychologist does not understand our language and she could not actually see that it was a pretend play with dialogs between toys);
the child did not want to play with her, turned and went back to her toys ( again: total stranger, language );
my daughter did not want to listen to the book that teacher was reading.

All fair. but does not grant what she suggested. She suggested that my daughter will be evaluated again if she can be at regular school. Remember: this all happed on my child fist 2 hours at school, she did not speak English yet.
There were a couple of accidents: my duaghter misunderstood teacher and thought that teacher is taking away blocks from her when everybody else was playing around her. She tried to explain this to teacher, begged to get toys back and finally tried to grab toys.
I totally admit that this kind of behavior should be panished but the response it get was out of the way: psycologist and parent/school coordinator ran into the classroom, my daughter was removed from the classroom and they wrote report.

The amount of hostility we found is unbelievable. Me and my husband we told several times that school will work with us but how it really sounded is that they give us a huge favor by letting our special need daughter to stay.
couple of things that principal said made me really thinking if hear this for real like
” you do understand how big is our waiting list” or, on my question is it such a rare situation that 4 yo is starting PS107 preK and does not speak English ” yes, but they sit and are afraid to do something that might be wrong” How many 4 yo you know that could be described like that? I guess 50-50?

I could mention many other things like teacher saying ” you daughter does not have any eye contact at the same moment when my daughter was trying to show me something and saying ” mommy, look…” and looking straight in my eyes when I met them at the playground.

To summarize: we went for evaluation again. the result is that my daughter even does not break the line of autistic spectrum and can go to any regular school. But she started to cry every morning saying that she does not like school, teacher does not like her and so on. 3 weeks later we took her papers and went to universal preK program that was recommended by several parents that we know.
My daughter is absolutely in love with her school, does very well, they have a very rich educational program. classes are conducted in English but about 60% of kids and one of the teachers speak our language. I see that my daughter understands already mostly of what she hear in English.

Couple of additional details: when we went to this new school I did not hide that my daughter was diagnosed with borderline Aspergers at age three ( even if it looks like we have a big improvement last year). Program director sent us to the classroom, looked at my daughter as said that we are going to try and see but it looks that my daughter will be fine.
But then our new preK director called PS107 to get my daughter’s file. I do not know why but after this call when we came to the class next morning director said that she think my daughter could not be at the class by herself. But she allowed me to stay at the class. Month later director talked to the teacher and told me that my daughter is absolutely fine and can be in class without any assistance.

Now I do not know if we want to go to PS107 to K and up.

Anyone have any info on PS124 is South Slope?