I was wondering if anyone would have some suggestions on
accommodations for my son?  He'll be in 9th grade next year, has an
IQ of about 130-135, yet is failing most of his classes.  In part
because he's graded on note taking.  For him, that's an
impossibility.  I'm not sure why just that it is.  He's figured out
that since there is no possible way for him to pass the class (notes
count as much as the tests and if you fail all the notes, you can't
pass the class), he's just not trying on any of it since it's a lost
cause.  I've tried to get the school to not grade him on notes in
the past, but they believe it is vital and have refused to budge. 
There is a copy of the notes in the special ed room; however, it
really does him little good.  When he was younger it would literally
take him days to write ten sentences for vocabulary.  I think there
are a variety of reasons.  He's inability to just accept things or
let them go.  He would have to argue with any and all percieved
inaccuracies in the notes or possible other methods of
interpretation.  He just can't let it go.  Plus he's overly
perfectionistic.  It takes him hours to write one page because if
the t isn't crossed exactly 2/3's of the way up and exactly the same
on both sides he erases the entire page, not just the "t", or the
offending sentence. So instead of focusing on the information and
learning, he's focused on the one "t" and not learning the
material.  I've also tried to get the school to grade him on the
notes he does take realizing they will not be the same as everyone
elses.  While he might rosary and that would be enough for him to
remember the entire history of Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I,
the notes might require more specifics regarding religion and the
establishment of the Protestant religion in England which may make
absolutely no sense to him. The primary obstacles that I see in his
education are his inability to let things go, his concrete thinking,
his "attorney" thinking (have to find all the loopholes in
everything, not just rules, but everything), his perfectionism, his
lack of an ability to organize, his distractability, and his
defeatism (if I'm this far behind in my homework in this class then
I'll just quit doing it all).  He also seems to have no concept of
time.  The primary hits to his grades appear to be either in the
classes where notes are graded, then everything is bad, even if he
knows the material,-- in classes with a lot of homework (he gets
behind and gives up on the class),-- classes with a lot of writing
or non-concrete type problems (ie vocabulary sentences need to
encompass the "perfect" meaning of the word, or in other words
reflect every possible meaning each word has as given in the Webster
dictionary) (math isn't a problem as long as he's given worksheets
instead of copying the problem from the book and he doesn't have to
show his work)...has anyone been able to talk a school into only
grading the exams?  after all the purpose is to learn the material,
not monitor the way in which it is learned.