Many people have asked what Blake is doing for school right now. Mega-thanks to our good friend Brad Mason (who is at the district office in Redlands) who helped us navigate this process.
Brad met with Blake's teachers on our behalf. They worked out a plan where Blake's grades will be frozen from his last attendance and then Blake will be receive an early exit in May with those grades becoming his semester grades. This is very generous of Blake's teachers! Obviously, the difficulty of Blake's situation played a role in this decision. Also, his courses are difficult, if not impossible to offer through the usual independent study options. Latin and Honor-Algebra 2 are not courses that home/hospital teachers cover!
So for the next few weeks, Blake does not have academics to worry about. We are going to try and slide a good novel into his routine when he is feeling well. But we're not too worried about his brain turning into mush--when he's feeling good, Blake keeps himself pretty busy!
He does have a new piece of "curriculum" at home to occupy his time. Blake's multi-media teacher, Kevin Bibo, had written a grant and recently purchased Maya for his classroom. Maya is a full 3-D animation software package. It was used to make a little movie you may have heard of: Avatar. The software came with a home-install license and Mr. Bibo kindly gave the home version to Blake! This will clearly give Blake a great opportunity to advance his 3-D animation skills using a professional tool.
Many thanks to RHS, Blake's counselor, Brad and Kevin for all the help!