u/BrainQuilt

For context my son (12M, level 1 autism and moderate combined ADHD) goes to school in California.

Attendance is law and chronic truancy/absenteeism can result in being referred to the “School Attendance Examination Board” (SARB) or the “Department of Probation“.

I’m currently being sent to SARB for a meeting. They emailed it and had someone hand deliver a letter that I had to sign for.

If I don’t attend this meeting (I plan to but wanted to add what the letter says) the case may be sent to my local county‘s attorney’s office for legal action.

I’m not sure what to expect, his attendance is actually getting better but because it was so bad his first semester, any tardy or absence without a doctors note is held to the extreme.

My only idea at this moment is homeschooling him. The stress of it all is really getting to me and I’m pretty sure it’s the reason he doesn’t want to go either. I’m not super excited about homeschool because we have been working with his therapist on getting my son to be more responsible and less lazy and I feel like taking physical school away will make that all the more difficult.

Definitely feeling stressed and I wish I knew what was in store for this meeting. Has anyone been in a similar boat?

Edit to add: Here is what we are currently doing to help. He goes to weekly therapy, has an IEP, takes ADHD medication which has helped but we are still fine-tuning it, and I meet with his teachers often. He tests average to above average but struggles with work completion which has negatively impacted his grades. Behaviorally he’s good, only a couple days out of the whole year where he was disruptive and we were able to work it out. Biggest issues are work completion and school refusal (he says it’s boring when I ask why). He will fight with me for hours every morning. Some days I’m just too exhausted because I don’t have a great support system to help me. Just me, my partner and his therapist. My partner commutes and works full time. I work part time.