I have *kids* nearly old enough to have kids your son's age, and I don't remember teachers coming by the homes of kids who ere having trouble. I *do* remember that kids either swam or sank. Kids were tracked, and tracked hard - college, mainstream, VoTech. Mainstreaming (in terms of SN kids) was virtually unheard of. My middle school was part of a trial program partially mainstreaming deaf students (I think there were 7 of them - a group of us were paired with them. I'm still acquaintances with my "buddy"...). Thing is, I DO remember that parents were more actively involved...