It's official.  I delivered the necessary letter to the Superintendent of schools to day to officially withdraw my daughter until they put in place the appropriate program for her.  With "The Letter" I also included a three page letter and a notebook with 9 dividers in it.  Each divider contains information on:
 *    Internationally adopted children are not bilingual
·     Internationally adopted children learn English in a different way
·     Adoption and school issues
·     Modes of learning that are effective for an Internationally adopted child
·     Communicative language and cognitive language
And so much more.  I have asked them to read and learn about Th International adopted child before the attempt to teach my daughter again.  They think they know everything about children, yet this is a whole new area that many educators and medical personnel know nothing about.
I normally wouldn't do this, but I will reprint my letter here in case some adoptive parent is going through the same fight I have been going through. This type of challenge is always emotionally draining and can really flatten you. So perhaps my letter can give another parent some ideas and support on how to fight the school systems.  I will eliminate names.

I have withdrawn my child, her name from Middle School, until such time a satisfactory program can be established to teach her English vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure.  Attached are documents explaining the difference in learning a language for an Immigrant child and an adopted child.  Please read.

The teaching style and material chosen for my daughter is not appropriate for an adopted child.  My daughter is instructed to read a book every day and write down the words she does not know. I have looked at some of the vocabulary words that she has written down: proclamation, Musketeers, construction paper, raccoon, auditorium. These are not words that you start with when you are teaching English.  The course should start with the basics, like in 1^st grade through to 5^th grade.  Would you start a 1^st grader with these words?

Mrs. xxxxxx of the Bureau of Accountability & Improvement and ELL & Bilingual Consultant at the  State Department of Education, spoke with the Director of Special Services. She shared with him her thoughts on what would be appropriate training for a teacher teaching English as a second language, English Language Acquisition, and the materials that should accompany those teachings, again English Language Acquisition materials.  I have also spoken and/or sent emails to The Teacher, Guidance Counselor, the Principal, Director of Special Services, the Assitant Superintendent and the Superintendent of schools regarding this matter.  I am a bit baffled by the lack of response.

At the very least that could be done immediately until something more structured could be set up would be to take the spelling lists from the first grade thru to the fifth grade and start with those.

My decision to withdraw my daughter was a difficult one.  Every day she came home from school feeling confused and sad.  Two of my older daughter's friends asked her what was wrong with her sister.  Wednesday night she burst into tears and we sat down.  She had not shared with me previously because in the Chinese culture you are not to question adults nor complain.  A child’s opinion is not valued.

Her English is minimal so it took over an hour to fully comprehend what she was trying to explain.  She basically said the following; ......

‘I go to TAP and I read a book I don’t understand and write down words I don’t know. It is frustrating looking the words up in the Chinese dictionary.  I don’t know what I am supposed to be learning.  I go to History and wait for the bell to ring because I can’t understand, and in Math I don’t know what is being said.  The math that is being done I learned two years ago’. 

This is a child that had her Mother die, six months later her Father was killed in a coal mining accident.  She lived with her Grandmother for several years until she became too ill to keep her.  When the orphanage people came to take her, she didn’t understand why she was being taken away from her Grandmother.  She has suffered loss three times in her young life, which at those ages is internalized as abandonment.   Coupled with learned orphanage behaviors, this presents a child that the system needs to adapt to, instead of the child adapting to the system.  Please see attached articles.

My daughter is frustrated with not learning English and not being able to participate in her classes.  I’m afraid the ‘immersion’ method of learning English is not how to educate an adopted child.  A side note.  I have heard stated that my older daughter is a success story with the present teaching method.  I would like to finally dispel that myth with the following reasons.

1.  My daughter was tutored for 4 months, 2-3 times a week by a Chinese woman licensed in teaching ESL. That I paid for.

2.  For several months she had a Chinese interpreter in class with her.

3.  She went to Summer School and was tutored in English.

4.  I worked with her at home.

All this happened BEFORE she went to Middle School.  By then she already had been here a year and had a strong foundation in the English Language.

My daughter started school being in the country only a few weeks, so comparing her with her sister is inapplicable.

I would like my daughter to return to public school, and that will happen when a program can be established to meet her needs.  I look forward to working with you towards that end.

Sincerely,