Curious about Raskob

Hi there.  My kid is at Raskob.  It works well for some kids and isn't so great for others.  When it's a good fit it's a safe space where kids with LD can feel safe and start to learn.  Feel free to email me privately.   

I have very mixed feelings about Raskob. My daughter did their summer programs twice but never did the actual school year so take my comments with a grain of salt. I feel like she learned a lot the first summer and learned very little the second. Even though we let the school know months in advance exactly what skills she needed to work on, the actual teacher completely ignored our emails. She definitely knew best and couldn't be bothered to waste any time reading or paying attention to anything that stupid Berkeley helicopter parents thought. What we asked them to focus on were the things that we had been told needed to be addressed during our last SST meeting with the school before summer break. But she couldn't be bothered. If they had paid attention to the information that I was sharing with them but decided to focus on something else and let me know what they were doing and why, I would have been fine. But instead the teacher said something like "oops, I got the email but was so busy that I couldn't be bothered to read it. But, we know best so don't worry about the fact that we completely ignored the school's input." After spending $3,000, I was livid that the school's concerns were ignored. It cost a fortune, the teacher couldn't be bothered to read my email, and very little progress was made. It's also really hard to work full-time and deal with getting a kid there and back, even with a carpool.

The biggest issue that I had was the attitude that my daughter came home with every day. She started being really condescending to us and acting like a tween (she was going into second grade at the time). I was mortified by the sound of her voice and the things that she was saying. We'd never gotten the condescending teenager treatment before she spent time at Raskob. The kids at her regular school are relatively nice and well behaved. At Raskob she was around a lot of very wealthy kids with very bad attitudes. Unfortunately kids who struggle with school often have behavior and anger issues because it's embarrassing not to be able to easily do what the other kids can do. She was around a lot of older kids and picked up on their bad language and attitudes. I'm not saying that she learned how to swear (she already knew that), it was more the condescending tone and treatment of us as morons who should not be listened to. I noticed it the first summer but thought that I was being paranoid. When it started up again the second summer, I knew that it wasn't a coincidence.

She also got into an altercation with one of the older kids and ended up with a broken bone. The director didn't seem to think that it was a big deal and the older kid never apologized or took any responsibility for hurting a much smaller child. I was not impressed. She ended up missing classes (and we missed a ton of work) dealing with the broken bone. No big deal though according to Raskob.

So, if your child is truly failing at other schools because of learning disabilities, Raskob could be a good solution. It's just too bad that the other kids are so much angrier than kids at regular schools. I didn't enjoy the attitude of the older kids at all.