Back to School ALREADY?!

Not only was summer too short, life's too short, too! Yep, starting tomorrow I have an official third grader and sixth grader, which is frankly impossible since I swear these girls were just in pre-K last week! 

So it's that time again, posting about race, adoption, bullying and schools. After all, back-to-school for our families isn't just about new lunchboxes and which uniforms from last year still fit (none of them!).  We wonder and worry about how the school will handle a nontraditional family, how much information to share with teachers about our kids' backgrounds, whether the dreaded 'family tree' project will crop up this year, whether we've empowered our kids to handle intrusive questions and racial teasing. 

First, links to past posts collecting links on these topics, lots of great links -- start here first, if you haven't been reading the blog for a couple of years:

Back to School Adoption Resources

Adoption in School -- Samples, Handouts & Downloadables
Back to School: Resources on Bullying and Racism

Now some additional links, if you've moved beyond the basics with your kids in school:

Telling the Teachers: Adoption and School, covers both the arguments for telling and for not telling.

Children Left Behind: International Adoption in Our Schools, from Adoption Today magazine.  It's not available online, but it can be purchased as a back issue here.  And for further information, here's the abstract:

This article discusses the academic challenges faced by orphanage-raised children from overseas who have been adopted by American families, causes of learning problems in adopted children, and major roadblocks at schools due to misconceptions among school personnel regarding international adoptees. The need for persistent cognitive and language intervention to make remediation more effective and reverse detrimental trends in academic performance is stressed.

Can We Talk? How to Explain Adoption at School – Even to Fifth Graders, introducing adoption talk in the upper grades.

Friendships, Social Skills and Adoption, from the Center for Adoption Medicine, looking at why some adopted kids have social issues and tips for helping.

Adoption Awareness in School Assignments, includes some "family tree" alternative forms.

4 Tips to Stop Bullying and Bias Before it Happens: An important issue for adoptive families, since much bullying is rooted in difference -- racial differences, differences in family formation, differences in family structure.

School & Adoption: Navigating IEPs, IDEA, and Special Services, an overview of the requirement that ALL children be accommodated in public education, and services for children with learning issues.