Re: The Auburn School in Herndon: Any Reviews?
Posted by:
Lynn
()
Date: January 17, 2015 12:32PM
Our son was at Auburn for two years. His first year, which was also the year the school opened, was more than phenomenal, but, to this day, I kick myself for not pulling him out early into the second year.
When Auburn was first in development, we were urged to enroll him by our educational consultant, who was one of the directors and who insisted he was the "poster child" for the school. He's "Aspergerish" from the standpoint of introversion, awkward/lacking social skills, and sensory issues, and he's very, very smart (99th-100th percentile nationwide in math and reasoning). We never saw a need to pursue a diagnosis or label so, unlike most of the students at that time, he was just a very quirky, bright kid.
The first year, he was in second grade with five other kids and two teachers. Both teachers were not only trained in and skilled with working with such kids but genuinely caring, dedicated professionals who went above and beyond on a daily basis. I really can't say enough about them both; just incredible individuals who really made a difference. The entire program, from academics to OT, was 100% individualized. My son was taught to his academic and intelligence level while learning social skills and receiving help with his sensory issues in a safe, consistent environment. It was literally a dream come true. I packed a healthful lunch and snack every day, and the students had access to both a fridge and a microwave so options for home-prepared meals were greatly expanded. He met a kid in his class that year who remains his best friend to this day, but there was also a slightly older, high-functioning autistic boy with a strong personality who taught my second-grader some things about sex and anatomy I wasn't necessarily ready for him to know.
It all began to unravel when the original head, who was perfectly competent, was fired. It appeared to many parents, myself included, that she was forced out by a small group of non-scholarship (full-tuition-paying) families who wanted more personal access and control over all aspects of the school than she was willing to grant (though, in my experience, the input we did have as parents was an unprecedented amount). The interim head was really amazing and I wish she had stayed. She understood and appreciated the students and ran things in a manner designed to benefit them. But the school is for-profit, so they hired an administrative-minded woman for the second year whose primary claim to be head of a school for Asperger-type kids was that her own (then college-age) son had ADHD. She never tired of reminding the parents that the challenges of raising a kid with ADHD were the same as those of Asperger's and autism. She clearly wanted to seem like she truly understood our kids, but it always seemed kind of desperate and even somewhat offensive to me; kind of like saying, "I'm qualified to teach French because I'm fluent in Spanish."
This new head was horrific. She enforced moronic decisions that were apparently made simply for the sake of change and, in the process, disenfranchised and alienated a lot of people (parents and teachers alike). She restricted interactions between parents and teachers to practically zero and her attempts to strip down and streamline the program tasted strongly of militarism. But the worst was that, in order to increase profits, the school began to accept students that it previously would not have accepted, students with very severe behavioral issues. In my son's class, the teachers went from focusing primarily on academics to being in permanent crisis-management mode, handling constant disruptions and freak-outs from a new student who routinely threw chairs, cursed people out, tore up others' work, and even tried to run away from the school on one occasion. The school, of course, did not see a reason to notify parents of things such as the classroom having been rendered uninhabitable for half the day. I found out after the fact, when the mom of the child in question was enthusing to me about how the school didn't make her remove her son even though he had done all these truly shocking things that she then listed and detailed to me.
About halfway through the year my son, who had always been eager to go to school, began to ask to stay home. I was perplexed and asked several times to discuss the situation with the teachers and head. The head kept brushing me off, would not allow the teachers to respond to me personally, and did not herself acknowledge my concerns until I finally lost my temper and expressed my anger to her in no uncertain terms - which I did because the school had allowed the child with the severe behavioral issues to persecute my son for so long without doing anything to stop it, that my son finally snapped and used some bad language on the kid. Then they had the chutzpah to send us a letter reproaching him for his foul language and asking him to APOLOGIZE to the other kid. It was OK for the other kid to hit, throw things, and flush my son's papers down the toilet (yes, really) but my son was not allowed to get angry in response to months of this kind of thing. To me, this was yet more evidence, if any more was needed, that kids whose parents paid full tuition received preferential treatment over those who received partial scholarships.
At the end of that year, all of the best teachers bailed. A few of them quit even without having another job to go to because the school had deteriorated to such an extent. The writing had been on the wall for months by then so we followed suit and got out, too. I've since heard from fellow parents that little has improved, and that the school continues to accept, and to give preferential treatment to, students with major problems whose parents can afford the full $35k+ tuition. Most of the original families have left. I can only imagine that the good reviews here are from people who a) don't have the first, incredible year as a basis for comparison and/or b) are parents of the kind of kid referenced in this review and who are grateful to have found a school that lets them stay.
It's really too bad that a school that held such promise for a population of students who are often poorly served and misunderstood was mismanaged into a place I wouldn't send my son if I were paid to do so.