IEP and 504 Issues and Questions

Recently, I declined to approve a post from a community member. It read: I'm helping out a friend who is trying to get help for her daughter, and I know this information, but I can't seem to find the specifics. What impact does it have on a school district based on the number of students they have receiving support? Is there some sort of benchmark they are trying to stay below or are they just denying it to show control? I declined the post and told her I don’t answer questions like that. Not to be mean. Not to call anyone out. But because that line of thinking sends parents down the wrong path. There’s a lot wrong with that advocacy strategy. Mos…

An IEP was prepared in private by people who don’t know our student and then presented as a done deal at the IEP meeting which involved parents, teacher, bilingual special Ed teacher. Thanks to coaching from this forum we requested an advanced copy of any documents the district planned to bring. We gave brought careful written feedback to hand out to each person at the meeting. The district IEP presenter walked us through the IEP. She had prepared. After the meeting, we gave very careful thorough item by item, written feedback again. Then we got a second draft from the district IEP presenter, which did not include any of the points we raised. It reads as if we didn’t give…

Hello, My daughter is on a 504 plan but I have requested for her to be tested for Special Education because of poor progress with grades and her disruptive behavior. The school has us to agree to oral testing , adding that most of their ADHD students are orally tested. I have put them off but got a call last Friday so I really don't know the pros & cons of doing so. She has no problem reading from our observation and the school's given statement.

So this is Teacher Me talking. I don't know if anyone here has the legal know-how to advise me, but I'll happily take anything. I teach at a virtual school and have a student who could possibly qualify for an IEP. She's not my lowest performer by our beginning of year assessment by any means, but is on the low due to some observed attention struggles. Her mother has been talking about the struggles since before school started and keeps talking about how the kid needs an IEP. Except... Mom is making it so hard and I'm not sure what else I can do. So far, Mom has stated (only by voice) that she thinks Kid needs an IEP and possibly a modified curriculum. …

Student has ADHD diagnosis and is 8 years old. Lives in IL. ONE Teacher is sending home messages everyday about all the things the student is doing wrong. School won’t consider a 504 or IEP because “his grades are too good”. Student is constantly trying to teach other students, corrects other students about rule following, having meltdowns when the teacher won’t listen to him during lecture. Other teachers do not have concerns and state that he “makes them think about things different ways”. The one teacher takes away his recess almost daily even though he is ADHD. He has stated he can’t do anything right for the one teacher and he wants to die! Child is now on medication…

Question: How do you handle it when the school resists adding certain supports or services to your child's IEP? Any success stories or strategies to share?

Hi. My High School Junior daughter was diagnosed with ADHD last year. We have finally gotten the school to do a 504 process. I am looking for accommodations that have been effective for your high school-age student. Since she was diagnosed so recently, she has not had the benefit of training/teachings from a younger age. To top that off, she is a super-sociable teenager who will anyway be distracted by other distractions. Almost all accommodation examples I see seem more effective for younger children, not her age/school. e.g. "Break down tasks in smaller chunks." Is this meaningful to ask for at 11th grade? I am also worried that with too much adult intervention (…

This 9th grader has ASD, ADHD, plus. He has no friends and has been bullied for years. Now 1 year in this state/district where they say he doesn’t qualify for Speech and Language (had from k-8 then PA eval said he doesn’t qualify 🤷‍♀️). He speaks loud and fast, his social skills are very poor:(. The social skills instruction district is providing is minimal, vague, and not effective. Of course, district does not agree. Since starting HS in September, he has repeatedly been called things like “stuttering autistic freak”, “you walk like an autistic freak” while acting this out, “effing stupid”, “sped”, etc. School is aware. He has been physically shoved and slap…

2e kid (gifted/adhd, 5th grade), has 504 and behavior problems. Initial IEP evaluation (kinder) said he didn't qualify, ups and downs with behavior but overall and upward trend (with outside help) Recent dip and showing a lot of emotion Recent school meeting to tell us all the things that are wrong, bleak picture for middle school, will be suspended soon, the normal grilling to see what we are doing and what 'we' could do better. At the very end, IEP evaluation was suggested by a staff member. Evaluations (we had outside ones too) are very rough on the kid and us. If we felt there was legit support that would help (in addition to our outside help) we'd be m…

So we just had our very first IEP meeting. the district allocated one hour! I thought the IEP committee together would develop our student’s IEP, but what happened was someone from the district we never met before came in with a premade IEP. She clearly expected to present it and then have us sign off at the end of the meeting. The meeting started late and people had to go so we have another meeting planned. The district rep was there to present her plan, she wasn’t interested in hearing what we have to say. she’s the person who knows our child least/she doesn’t know him at all. Plus the other people, the school people, on the committee, didn’t say a word whi…

I've only ever seen motor skills and OT/PT related to younger students. How do you approach a high school regarding a teen who is unable to participate fully in Phys Ed due to symptoms of a gene mutation? She is required to get PE credits for graduation but is not participating in the class. Mostly sitting on the bench. She will get credit but she isn't receiving physical education (and her PT/OT is outside school). I've read about Adaptive PE for autistic students who also have low muscle tone but can't find anything that applies to students who need modification for similar physical needs only. Student lives in TN and previously had an IEP but mo…

In PA, does a diagnosis (say dyslexia) a documented thru nueropsych/academic testing, can scjool tefuae a 504 or IEP request and only offer RTI reading support (pull out small group to the reading specialist)? As a side note, district does NOT use the RTI model to identify SLDs-they use discrepancy model.

Can language therapy be added to a 504 plan or does this need to be an IEP? This case is in Missouri.

Hi all! I know for an IEP you can have it written that a parent must attend all field trips... Is this a reasonable accommodation for a 504 due to extreme anxiety and self-harm behavior around that anxiety? The parent asked for this and was denied. The school said: Thank you for your patience as I gathered more information from our district 504 coordinator. "Unfortunately, allowing you to attend all field trips with Student is not an accommodation that can be a part of her 504 plan. What we can offer Student is to have her be in a group with a preferred peer, allow her to bring her journal/sketchbook (in like a little bookbag) as a calming strategy, have…

What might be an underlying reason(s) for difficulty making inferences? I read the blog article on inference goals, but am curious what “diagnosis” might warrant inference goals? Currently no learning disability diagnosis. Processing speed is just much higher than working memory.

Hello! My 14 y.o. with ADHD has had an IEP since the 4th grade, largely because of behavioral and social-emotional issues. It was "renewed" for 3 years (last triennial) and covered 6, 7, an 8th grade. Both in 6th and in 7th he had a few suspensions for behavior and at the end of 7th after a 3rd suspension the team suggested we reevaluate him, and I agreed thinking it would translate into MORE support for his social-emotional challenges. However, after they did all the assessments they came back and said he was doing so well academically that they felt he no longer qualified for an IEP to "access the classroom" and wanted to move him to a 504. I disagreed and sent the…

My daughter is 15. Her diagnosis are ADHD/SPD/GAD. She has had an IEP for OHI since 1st grade. Her current goals are math and adaptive behavior (planning/prioritizing, task completion, impulse control and appropriate interactions with peers). The IEP also has as many of the age appropriate accommodations for high school (extra time on tests, quiet place to test, alternate testing methods, headphones for noise reduction, speech to text, and more). The problem: she is currently failing two classes. Last semester I - for lack of a better phrase - pushed and prodded her to get a C in science. Getting her to do any home work at home was like pulling teeth. When she did…

I had this client many moons ago. She had several kids with IEPs. She was very difficult to deal with, to say the least. Then, with one of her kids, we went to mediation with the IU (IUs are a PA thing) and we got EVERYTHING she asked for. Cool. The next day, she called (maybe emailed) the IU, without consulting me, and said NO to everything. That she was withdrawing the kid. My contact person at the IU called me, it was a hot mess. I had to fire her. She wasted so much of my time that I could have used helping other families. There was a LOT of other stuff over several months. A few years go by, she starts DMing me on Fb. Blocked her. She starts dm'i…

Mu child is under an evaluation request. I believe the 60d ends today or tomorrow. School just sent me a request for parent input. I need more time than a few hours to write a thoughtful response to be included. Is my timeline impacted by providing input after day 60?

Hello, I'm working on our parent concerns letter for our meeting next week. This is our first year dealing with an IEP and I'm pretty lost! I do have the IEP Toolkit, but I'm not sure how to word a lot of things. Our son's teacher emailed me a list of questions to complete prior to the meeting. It is pretty thorough, but long. The last question is about our parental concerns. Do I answer all of the questions and submit that in the form of a parental concerns letter, or just answer the last with a "please reference the attached parental concerns letter?" More specific questions directly related to our concerns: We have an autism and IQ evaluation schedu…

Since we’ve had my son’s Initial IEP, they rejected my request for a 1:1 aide. Since then he’s been having weekly episodes of aggression at school—and he hasn’t been aggressive before. He was recent diagnosed with Autism and ADHD and is minimally verbal. He’s assaulted classmates and a teacher and I truly feel that with a 1:1 aide, it would minimize these meltdowns. Has anyone experienced sudden aggression in their little on? Any advice would be very helpful. I’m just scared that if this continues he would be pulled from the general classroom.

And if so, is it considered a reasonable accommodation? In the casual world, I've heard various complaints about IEP accommodations assigning another student to help them. Some say it stresses the student helper out too much, and even one story said the parent pulled the kid from school as the kid shouldn't be doing a teacher or para's job. But it's also seemed a good idea in popularity fit quite some time, so what's the current view?

My son is in 7th grade and having a psychoeducational evaluation done. He just exited an IOP (Intensive Outpatient Program) for depression and anxiety. He was in the program for 2 months. He currently has a 504 plan for ADHD and anxiety, but things have gotten significantly worse since school began this fall. He has meetings with the school adjustment counselor to work on anxiety in his 504, but the school psychologist thought it made sense to do a psychoed eval where his mental health has been so poor. He is exceeding grade level expectations academically so I feel like we're not going to get anything out of this AND he may be further triggered by the evaluation. He…

We had our middle school articulation meeting as my child (ADHD & 2e, with poor executive function) is going into middle school next year. They said they will keep all my child's accommodations, but not the pull outs because the school "doesn't do that". Is this legal? She has not met her most of her IEP goals. And has definitely the goals for spelling and executive function. She gets pulled out for spelling using Wilsons. Yet her spelling is below grade level and she can not write a 3 sentence paragraph independently on her own. I pointed out her spelling issues and they just replied they don't grade spelling in middle school, so it is not an issue. I disagreed and …

Minnesota- Our child recently had an IEE completed and we just got back the results. The results came back in our favor. Additional diagnosis's and how they impacting our child at school. We emailed the school requesting an IEP meeting to review the IEE, discuss the recommendations, and update the IEP. The school is refusing to allow the IEE evaluator to come to the meeting since it's an additional charge. I'm concerned the school is going to try placing everything on our child or say they refuse help (even though the IEE addresses why that would happen for our child) and refuse to change anything. Can they do that? What options are there if they refuse …