IEE questions

[AM23]

Hi,

 

I am feeling overwhelmed and want to make sure I am understanding some details about asking for an IEE. I understand that the school may deny my request and file for Due Process, however I am concerned about doing this at the end of the school year. 

• How long after a school reeval can I ask for an IEE? Also, is it from the date the reeval was done or the date on the reeval report?
• If I ask for an IEE do I have to have the eval done within a certain amount of time? 
• If the school denies my request, is the Due Process timeline paused over the summer?
• Can I decide to not proceed if the school files for Due Process?
• We've presented private reports to the school before, and the school stated they would not accept the testing results. Some of the school's testing results differed significantly from our private testing. We have two private reports with the same diagnosis, SLD Written Expression/Dysgraphia, and the school will not recognize or accept the results/conclusions/diagnosis. Is there some criteria I need to ask about that the school requires to accept private testing? My problem is that the IEP should reflect my son and it really doesn't. He has a lot of accommodations for reading and writing, and the school refuses to qualify him under  a second category of SLD.  I want the categories to reflect where his main struggles are so teachers looking at the IEP quickly see this and also for SAT/college accommodations, but wonder why we're getting so much resistance to adding another qualifying category of  SLD. Is this so the school can more easily legally provide accommodations instead of instruction in writing? We are not the only family in our district in disagreement with the school that accommodations (spell and grammar check) and grade-level edited long-form writing are sufficient to show a student no longer needs additional writing instruction.

Thanks!

[Carolyn Rowlett]

Hi AM.  I will attempt to answer the questions I can in the order you presented them.

• To be safe, I would wait until after the meeting is held to go over the results of the school's reevaluation.  It would be a difficult to argue you disagree with the evaluation (necessary to request an IEE) if you haven't seen it or received an explanation of the results.
• The amount of time in which an IEE is done is on the school - not you.  However, you should keep an eye on the timeframe.  Most states define it as "within a reasonable time," which has been interpreted as 60 days (similar to the school evaluation requirement).  If it starts going beyond 60 days, I would reach out to the school and inquire as to timing.
• I'm not completely sure about the Due Process timeline for denying an IEE and how it's affected by summer break.  In my state, Due Process complaints and resulting timelines continue throughout the summer.  You could call your state department of education and ask.
• You can always decide to withdraw your request for an IEE.
• Unfortunately, there is no criteria on when a school district must accept the results of a private evaluation.  Legally, they are only required to "consider" such results.  That's why IEEs are so important - to "break the tie" between the differing reports in the hopes that the school district will reconsider their refusal of a secondary category.  At the very least, it will hopefully get the needs listed in the present levels and then the IEP has to address those needs regardless of whether he is found eligible in a particular category.

[JSD24]

• How long after a school reeval can I ask for an IEE? Also, is it from the date the reeval was done or the date on the reeval report?  **If it's more than a year, the school might want to redo an eval rather than say yes to an IEE.  (Do wait until after the meeting where you go over the report.  5 minutes after is OK.  )
• If I ask for an IEE do I have to have the eval done within a certain amount of time?  **No.  Often, evaluators have a waitlist & the better ones can have a longer wait.
• If the school denies my request, is the Due Process timeline paused over the summer?  **This probably varies by state but since a teacher who works under a 10 month contract isn't usually involved, my guess is no pause for the summer.
• Can I decide to not proceed if the school files for Due Process?  **You can recind your request for an IEE.  (I did this once.)
• We've presented private reports to the school before, and the school stated they would not accept the testing results. Some of the school's testing results differed significantly from our private testing. We have two private reports with the same diagnosis, SLD Written Expression/Dysgraphia, and the school will not recognize or accept the results/conclusions/diagnosis. Is there some criteria I need to ask about that the school requires to accept private testing? My problem is that the IEP should reflect my son and it really doesn't. He has a lot of accommodations for reading and writing, and the school refuses to qualify him under  a second category of SLD.  I want the categories to reflect where his main struggles are so teachers looking at the IEP quickly see this and also for SAT/college accommodations, but wonder why we're getting so much resistance to adding another qualifying category of  SLD. Is this so the school can more easily legally provide accommodations instead of instruction in writing? We are not the only family in our district in disagreement with the school that accommodations (spell and grammar check) and grade-level edited long-form writing are sufficient to show a student no longer needs additional writing instruction.  **Some states do not allow a 2nd box to get checked but the 2nd area of disability can and should be described in the eval report & on the IEP.  With SATs, the college board will want a copy of the IEP & will provide what's there so long as the student has used the accommodation and the school asked for the accommodation.  (Apply early so there are accommodations with taking the PSAT too.)  If a student is performing at grade level with accommodations, they need these accommodations.  This isn't a good reason to stop remedial instruction to bring a student up to speed w/o accommodations.  Have you asked the school about this in writing so there's a paper trail?  (XX gets accommodations for spell and grammar check as well as grade-level edited long-form writing.  This shows this is an area of need/disability.  Why is there no specially designed instruction so XX can have goals to be at grade level in these areas without accommodations?)  Keep in mind that an IEE is an outside eval that the school must consider & doesn't need to follow.  If you aren't the only family, what about a class action lawsuit?  This is how special ed got started - look up the PARC Consent Decree for the whole story.  Also, look up the tests the school did.  See what the publishers say these tests assess.  Then do the same for the outside evals.  Did both sets of tests look at the same areas?  If they didn't look at the same things, this could be why the conclusions were different.  It's possible they don't have a teacher with the expertise to provide the instruction that would be needed.  Plus it's more expensive to teach versus accommodate.  Not sure if filing a state complaint might work.  The complaint would be:  The school is recognising there is a deficit by accommodating - why is there no special instruction to go with it?  I remember a training where we needed to go through an eval and make sure there was an SDI for every area of need.  This would be best practice.

[AM23]

Hi Carolyn and JSD24. Thank you for your replies to both my posts. You both had some great ideas and suggestions again!

After I submitted my post, I realized my wording about how much time I have to ask for an IEE was not very clear.  It has been almost a year since my child's school reevaluation that led me to consider requesting an IEE, so the school will almost certainly want to do another eval before agreeing to an IEE. I plan to ask for evaluations and am just deciding when to do so which I asked in my other recent post about removing areas of support (now or in August/September).

JSD24,  I like your suggestion to ask in writing why there is no specially designed instruction for the areas that are being accommodated. This confirms what I have been seeing and been confused about. Providing accommodations means there is an area of need, but these are not reflected as areas of need in the Present Levels. I did look up the PARC Consent Decree and that was helpful info. I am reaching out to some other families in our district to find out about their experience with the district and special education. I plan to do a deep dive into the testing by early Fall to see if private and school tests were looking at the same things to try to determine why the results were so different.  This also ties into the areas of need listed in Present Levels of the IEP.  In some part, the school's reasoning as to if and why something is an area of need differs  from our private evaluations and has led to different conclusions as to whether a skill should be accommodated or taught or is an area of need at all.  (My  son's profile is complex and his needs fall into a legal gray area which further complicates matters.) Your info about SAT and PSAT was helpful, as I am just getting up to speed on this area and am trying to not miss doing something now that will make things easier later. Documenting accommodations currently being used in school seems important.  If teacher documentation on the IEP of when and how often accommodations are being used is incorrect, and the school will not change it on the IEP how do I address this?  For example, one teacher says the student occasionally goes to another room for small group testing for this subject area, but actually the student is always doing this.  While, another teacher for a different subject did accurately capture this in their Present Levels statement in the annual IEP.  Also, I am considering filing a state complaint about accommodations being provided without special instruction.  JSD24, in my other post, you offered to help with this as you are also in PA. I may be in touch about help with this. I am deciding on what to do and when.  File state complaint and ask for new evals in September or reverse that order? Thanks for your help. It's so easy to get confused and lose site of my "lighthouse".

 

 

[JSD24]

I'd try working with the school and if that doesn't work out, definitely file the state complaint.  State complaints make you "that mom" and being that mom can get in the way of FAPE.  Could it be that some teachers are accommodating consistently & other are inconsistent?  The data could be accurate if this is happening or it could be your child self-advocates for their accommodations (which is a good thing) so it's more consistent than the teacher realizes.

[AM23]

I'll check into how and when accommodations are being implemented. I hear you that filing a State complaint can change things with the school IEP team.

[Janis]

Thank you for posting this!  I am struggling with all of these things in PA….we did not have SDIs in previous state, and “present levels” were written very differently.  We are in the process of getting IEEs, but until then, I would really like to understand this.

If district (based on their ER) lists executive functioning as an area of need, then it must provide an SDI (in this case a “curriculum” within a class which is “the programming” they offer)…..correct? 
* I keep documenting that organization is one of the areas of need within the EF umbrella and that student must have an organizational system (agenda) to write down classes, when tests will be (he never knows) so he can learn how to manage time and prepare (not necessary because he has straight As with no homework, and never studying) what homework is due (none ever), etc.  Time management, break assignments into chunks, pre-teach/re-teach, difficulty with multi-step directions, low frustration tolerance have been on all IEP’s in some form or place, but here they just say “due to needs in EF”.  The EF programming essentially has him fill out a sheet once a week where he looks at his grades and to see if he has any missing assignments (takes 1 minute).  After months of pushing, they agreed to provide an agenda to work on all the things listed (write assignments, upcoming test dates, time management by studying 15 minutes every 3 days before a test…).  They handed him an agenda and it was never touched (same thing happened in previous state). 
* I believe the demands are so little that the areas of need are disappearing…..and my student is getting all As, so why create schedules of studying for no reason?  If he fills out their sheet, he is meeting the goal and no longer has this EF area of need

*Same issues with written expression (SLD in written expression that they won’t list this or his dysgraphia) and they have NOT provided any SDI for teaching.  Only accommodating.

They “disappeared” the goal that he didn’t meet (a paragraph with topic, concluding sentence, 3 examples and no more than 2 errors in conventions).  They “revised” that to (will write a multi paragraph essay scoring 3/4 on PA rubric in organization and style 1x per semester).  I didn’t agree which I said in meetings but they put it in the IEP.  It has taken me a while to understand PA NOREPS v. CA PWN.  That revision took place in November, now they started his annual a month early and claimed he wrote this essay.  It is actually separate paragraphs from different assignments, there are multiple errors in conventions and spelling, the concluding sentence has nothing to do with the topic sentence in each paragraph even with the graphic organizers and sentence starters.  This kid still can’t write a paragraph but I’m worried they will say he is doing grade level writing because they gave him an A on this “multi-paragraph” essay (three separate paragraphs just placed one after the other).  And….they recommended he take an honors course specifically to write a 3-6 page essay!.  From what I can see, the graphic organizers, sentence starters, and everything else they have listed in the accommodations is making it “look” like he is writing at grade level….but he isn’t.
 Also, he still doesn’t utilize spell check or anything consistently because they just accept his errors or fix them for him, and he can’t learn how to use it because he so infrequently needs it.  He doesn’t even know how to access it even though it’s written as an accommodation under the SDIs.

What can I ask them to do to teach him to write as an SDI?  Without all the accommodations?  Are multi-sensory programs effective for SLD in written expression, and Dysgraphia? 

Since they identified “written expression” as an area of need, and they just say it will be addressed in his English class which is co-taught?  They do not identify anything that they are doing to instruct him in the class that is different than the “random” co-taught classes he just ended up in.

Can I ask for something much more specific as an SDI so he can be taught to write a paragraph without graphic organizers, sentence starters, and still multiple errors with conventions?

Even though they list social skills as an area of need, the goal they created is silly (I’m working on this now with the advocate).  The teacher input in his present levels basically says he is a rock star, straight A student who gets along with peers.  I can keep writing my concerns (does not have friends, monopolizes air time when talking about interests, does not understand nonverbal cues as evidenced by X), and they could even write goals around what I describe but: they “revise” goals to include “when given direct instruction and teacher modeling (doesn’t actually happen), student will have appropriate give and take conversation for 5 passes with peers in unstructured setting in x out of x.”  Then they consider unstructured time to be during the EF class (their programming) which includes videos of EF strategies and Social skills strategies.  None of it captures my kiddo and the real and pervasive social skills deficits that do impact him across settings daily. 
I know what they “offer” which is their “programming” for kiddos like mine which is watching videos for EF and Social skills in one class with a touch of “study skills” is doing NOTHING for my kiddo(s) in a year…. 
I don’t know what will help with the needs in social skills or executive functioning (other than an educational therapist but they don’t see the need for that!) so I do not know what to ask for…..  If the SDI (their programming which is the X class) is not working (I have to figure out how to create more specific goals to prove this), what can I ask them to do?

They identified “coping skills” as an area of need in their ER.  And they put 15 minutes of counseling sessions as the SDI, which I keep objecting to, even though they do not list anywhere why he would need “coping skills” although he definitely does when he is expected to do something difficult (writing and math).  Essentially, it seems really clear that they are not providing accurate present levels (teachers say rock star straight A student, popular kid)  and also making so few demands that there is nothing he needs to cope with.

ugh.

All this to say Thank You!  Because I did not know that all areas of need must be listed in SDIs, or that accommodations only in SDIs without instruction (writing) is not necessarily appropriate, or (special Thank you to Lisa for drilling the importance of present levels which in this case say nothing about the areas of need other than a few listed words on page 6) that I have to ASK the teachers specifically about their observations because the teacher input section is so slim that there are no areas of need.

My kids have made no progress in their areas of need in executive functioning, social skills or written expression for years!  And it looks like the toothless goals, ineffectual programming and mass accommodations without teaching skills is a big part of the problem.  I hope others can understand the areas of need/present levels/SDIs/skills have to be taught sooner than I have.