Brittney M

** Trying to reply to you but may have hit the wrong button. Thank you for your response! I homeschooled her 1st - 5th. She entered 5th grade in January for spring semester. She's now been in public for 2 full semesters. 1. Both, including IEP goals. Her progress monitoring shows regression on some goals and lack of significant progress on others. However, her goals were created with the mindset of "She can reach 6th grade standards with enough support".. we're now confident we need to move the goalposts so to speak, having completed an outside educational assessment and watching her absorb nothing so far this school year. We have no data from her work, evaluations, observations, her own words.. to continue to support the thinking that she is capable of learning this level of rigor at this time. 2. No, they are not yet. I will loop them in on my IEP Meeting follow-up email. 3. Transition services are required in 9th grade or 16yrs old. She's currently 12.5 yrs old and given her FASD dx, takes several years longer than other kids to acquire skills. Her birthday, for example, we've been working on for 6 years. All that to say, 4-5 yrs of transition services will likely be insufficient time for her to acquire all the goals needed to fit her stated goal of living independently. We have been told that they cannot "go back" and teach her the 1st-2nd grade skills like time, money value, etc. because they "have to tie it to grade-level standards, anything else would be modifying the curriculum", which they don't feel is appropriate for her because she would be moved out of gen. ed. and is apparently too social to get her cognitive needs met.

Looking for input / experiences navigating IEP placement & curriculum modification: Right now it feels like we’re not speaking the same language as our school team. A bit about our sweet student: FSIQ: 66 Multiple diagnoses impacting cognitive and adaptive functioning (FASD, ASD L2, IDD) Two full educational evaluations completed (school + outside evaluator) → Results are nearly identical, indicating validity Reading comprehension: ~2nd grade equivalent Receptive & expressive vocabulary: both under the 1st percentile Numerical operations & computation: under the 1st percentile Already retained one grade (our decision, due to her disabilities) Current concerns: I first raised concerns about curriculum modification in September We now have a full semester of data showing: Even with an extensive list of accommodations, the gap between the grade-level curriculum and her actual understanding is astronomical Oh, I also homeschooled her for 5 years so I'm pretty intimately aware of her academic abilities. Lack of meaningful progress No transfer of skills ("Can do it" at school but has never been able to demonstrate a glimmer of understanding at home) No testing that demonstrates she can contextualize or apply grade-level material Relative strength in working memory (42nd percentile) Meaning she can immediately echo and imitate in the moment, but nothing is transferring to true understanding. What we’re hearing from the team: “I know what this (30-page evaluation) says, but that’s not the student we see in the classroom.” “This is absolutely not a kiddo who can’t get a standard diploma.” “She socializes with peers, a different placement would be devastating to her.” Our perspective: Her post–high school goal is to live independently someday. That’s the end target we are working toward. Right now, she is in 6th grade and: Misspells her middle name, doesn't know her birthday Does not know her address Cannot reliably read a clock Has ~1st grade number sense Struggles significantly with functional understanding We strongly feel that keeping her on curriculum that is far beyond her cognitive ability is not providing FAPE, specifically, appropriate education. Real-world examples we’ve used to explain this gap: She can read a box of mac and cheese, but doesn’t understand what any of the words mean If she’s on a public bus and needs stop 13, seeing stop 12 gives her no understanding of whether she’s one stop away or fifty If she needs to leave at 6:10 and the clock says 6:11, she will continue waiting until it shows 6:10 We fear the team is comfortable “helping her pass along,” and we’ll end up with a high schooler who still has 1st-grade daily living skills, unprepared to meet her own stated goals. We meet again in a few weeks. Thank you so much for reading and sharing your experiences.

For background: Our 6th has Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (and, therefore..) Autism L2 & a Mild Intellectual Disability (FSIQ = 66). Testing results (which have been consistent across 3 evaluations): Receptive vocabulary = 0.8th percentile, expressive vocabulary = 2nd percentile, adaptive behaviors = 1st percentile, reading comprehension = 3rd percentile, numerical operations = 0.7th percentile, math problem solving = 0.6th percentile. When she began middle school this year, we could see immediately that she was (literally) years behind in understanding or even conceptualizing the standard 6th grade curriculum. I brought my concerns to the team in Sept. and I mentioned modifying. They looked at me like I had 2 heads and said "she is not a student that would need that". One of the tricky things about FASD is that she can present quite typical and mask her significant deficits. I fully believe that's what's happening here. I've been very active in her IEP and she has dozens of thoughtful accommodations. Even so, she is consistently getting 8%, 20%, 40% on assignments across all classes. Though grades are subjective, they do accurate represent that she does not understand any of whats being taught to her. When she gets a higher grade, it is because she guessed more luckily. In math, for example, they are "supporting her in learning" in finding the area of a parallelogram. My sweet daughter cannot tell time, read a calendar, or do any basic math (+, -, x) without being told step by step how to put it into her calculator. She only memorized her birthday this year but cannot tell you what month is before or after it. When she is guided to a right answer, she cannot conceptualize in any way what it means. I have expressed that our goals for her are functional and life-related, rather than standard 6th grade curriculum. I now have an outside educational assessment that supports the need to modify her educational path, hopefully to a Mild Intellectual Disability classroom. Her current, local middle school does not have this program so it will require her to change schools and be bussed out of her zoned district. Despite all of the above, I know I will meet resistance with her IEP team in getting this change of placement. Though they seem satisfied to pass her through without her actually learning anything (and therefore, not "needing" modification), we are not satisfied with that plan. She can't learn 6th grade curriculum but she can learn something. Leaving her in Gen. Ed. wastes time that she could be working toward functional, life skills that came easily to her classmates years ago. Finally, my question. Is there anything in this scenario I'm not seeing? With the most beautiful accommodations in the world, she cannot access this material by miles. We see no other way forward but to let go of a high school diploma and change her path to a certificate / special education diploma. Thank you.

Thank you. It's helpful to be reassured that my thinking was correct on this. I will get through our outside educational assessment tomorrow before crafting a Parent Concerns Letter on the topic. In speaking with other parents in my district, I assume they will push back on giving accurate grades to my child. In that case, I believe my next step would be to request a PWN justifying that decision.