School refused evaluation

[laurag]

Good morning, 

I am working with a family who has an adopted son. This late elementary school child has a significant trauma history and in-utero substance exposure. He has been diagnosed with ADHD, attachment issues, anxiety and depression. He has a 504 for his ADHD. This is his first year at this school. The teacher is very supportive and accommodates the child extensively. The child is in 10+ hours of outside therapy per week and is picked up early from school 4 days/week to attend these supports. He is also on 3 mental health medications. The child has explosive behavior at home but the school says the child has no academic or behavioral issues at school. I would love for this child, who is masking all day at school, to get more in-school support. This would in turn reduce stress on the child and family. The school denied the request for evaluation due to 'no adverse impact' at school. The family did provide extensive reports from outside therapists, doctors, and a full neuropsych report all stating his severe challenges. The family has not yet received the PWN. Any advice on how to show the school that his disabilities are affecting him but in delayed and less obvious ways?

Thank you for your help!

[JSD24]

I have a few thoughts.  One is:  He's got Afterschool Restraint Collapse with masking at school and then letting it out when he gets home.  This is a real diagnosis.  You can request a 504 meeting and see about putting accommodations into the 504 to help address this disability.  To set the meeting up for success, you probably want to bring someone from the afterschool treatment team to the meeting to make sure the 504 supports work to support this aspect of his disability.  (In other words, I don't feel the 504 team will believe a parent that he needs support they aren't already providing.  They are wanting to hear this from an expert.)  Not sure if anyone from outside of school did in-school observations where they have an idea of what sort of support is needed but that's the person to come to the 504 meeting - might be via phone or Zoom.

Another thought I have is an IEE at school expense.  You didn't say anything about academic needs.  Is he pretending to read (masking) during independent reading where he knows he's different academically and this comes out at home as behavior?  I'm trying to see what specially designed instruction the school needs to provide to support his disability.  Knowing what support he might need, might help me to figure out why they don't see an area of suspected disability they need to assess and address with an IEP.  Knowing this would also help to say what an IEE would need to look at.  Do you know what the letter requesting the eval said was the areas that needed to be assessed?  I can make a guess that social skills or pragmatics might need to be looked at but that's 100% guess.

My final thought is to change up the 504 so the Afterschool Restraint Collapse gets accommodated better.  It's possible the school is right where an IEP & SDI aren't needed and updating the 504 will help ease what happens at home.  Might need to be a series of meetings if you see a little improvement and the accommodations work where more might work better.  Also want to mention about Ross Greene & CPS.  It's really a way of talking to kids about their problems and then working with them to fix the problem because if you don't understand the reasons for the masking, it's going to be hard to accommodate them.  More info here: