Lara

Hi! My 10th grader has accommodations approved by the college board for 100% extra time and screen reader. I wanted to enroll her in an SAT prep class but then realized that most of the classes start by taking practice tests. These test during the class would not allow for these accommodations. Some will allow her to come early or take the practice test at home the night before but don't have the screen read function. Does anyone know of a test prep class that specializes in working with students who have approved accommodations? We are in PA the suburbs of Philadelphia. Would love any guidance anyone can offer. Also wondering between the ACT and SAT what has been your experience with your child? Is one proven better for certain learning disabilities or strengths? Thank you.

Hello, My daughter's IEP states that she gets 100% extra time for tests and more can be considered if needed. It also says no use of timers and to answer her questions directly. She is in 10th grade and advocates fairly well for herself. Her last chemistry test the teacher told her that she would give the class the full period to do the test however since she felt the test should only take 30 min she would only allow my daughter to take 60 min. My daughter tried to advocate and the teacher said 30 + 30 is 60. My daughter asked how long the class was and the teacher (instead of answering her directly) told her to look at board where the times of the classes were written. This completely intimidated and added to my daughter's anxiety about the test. When test day came, there was a timer on the smart board. Additional she told the class that they could use notes for the last 5 min. My daughter felt completely uncomfortable and rushed. She was so worried because she had to tell tbe teacher when her last 5 min were (she should not have been limited to 5 min either). With the intimidation, time limit and timer visible through the test, my daughter rushed and didn't check her work. The 5 min to use her notes went so fast she couldn't find anything. It was the lowest grade she got on a test and it brought her average down a point. It is the last week of school should I write a note to the teacher to have the test not count in any way that would negatively affect her grade? Retaking the test would cause too much anxiety for my daughter.

Hello! My child's IEP provides notes to her from the teacher. The teacher is giving the class an open notes test but told my child that she could not use the teacher provided notes. The teacher told her to write her own note card. This instruction was given to my daughter when she asked if she would be allowed to use the teacher provided notes. It was not an instruction given to the full class. This seems counter intuitive to me. Ask a person who has notes as an accommodation to rewrite all her notes. What are my options here. Her test is tomorrow so any advise you can provide quickly would be really appreciated. Thank so much!

Thank you. Yes, she does have audiobooks on her IEP currently. That is something she will always need. I did visit the disability office on some college websites and it does appear that most Colleges require an evaluation be within 3 to 5 years of matriculation depending on the college. Am I correct to assume the High School should be aware of this requirement? I really feel good about her case manager so I am surprised they were trying to suggest an RR. When I asked what colleges would need she said, "We would not suggest an evaluation for the purpose of college. But if you request one we'll do one this summer. " Is that not a valid reason I should give to request the evaluation. Isn't it the HS's responsibility to prepare students for what comes next? Thanks again for your help.

My child's school is suggesting that we do a review of records for her last evaluation before graduation (summer before 11th). Will this be okay when she self declares her disability in college or will they need an Evaluation done within 3 years? When I asked her case manager she said they would not do an evaluation for the purpose of college transition but if we asked for an eval they would do one this summer. Also, the last eval the school did 3 years ago for some reason they decided to no longer include reading (she's had since 2nd grade) even though her fluency scores were in the 1 to 8%tile. (We agreed to it so we wouldn't hold up her services and we were not willing/able to go to court to fight for it at the time) They listed Gifted and OHI for EF and Anxiety as her disability categories for the 1st time and without reading. I just want to make sure she has what she needs when she goes to college to be covered for any accommodations (extra time, notes etc.) under ADA. Anything else I should be thinking about along with this? Thanks in advance!!!

My child's school is suggesting that we do a review of records for her last evaluation before graduation. Will this be okay when she self declares her disability in college or will they need an Evaluation done within 3 years? Also, the last eval the school did 3 years ago for some reason decided to no longer include reading (she's had since 2nd grade) even though her fluency scores were 1 to 8%. (We agreed to it so we wouldn't hold up her services and we were not willing to go to court to fight for it at the time) She is currently listed as EF and anxiety as her disability catagory.

My 2e daughter's general Ed teacher had a meeting with her about accommodations and modifications. She said to her student, "Your IEP is set up so you get good grades" and "You need to push yourself more you should try without your modification and accomodations." "You should not be getting all 100s." Needless to say my student, being put in a position to defend her needs, came out of the meeting feeling terrible about herself. I would love to send a video or a professional paper to this teacher to help her understand students who Learn differently are not lazy or need to pish themselves harder when they are already working 2x as hard as their neurotypical peers. They need the accommodations to fully access their education and show their knowledge. The IEP exists to remove the barrier of her disability to level the playing field and set her up for success. Can you recommend something not too long that I could send this teacher to help her understand my daughter and her other students in the future?

Hello, My child is a sophomore in HS. We have always submitted our parent concerns letter and asked that they keep them and just add the new one. This year our case manager is asking if they can streamline the document by removing some of the old ones. I'm fine with that but wanted to check here to see if there is any reason to keep them or keep up to x # of years back. Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks so much!

Hello! I am wondering if there are tools that you have used that can help my dyslexic student. The IEP specifies that the student gets teacher notes and audio for reading assignments but, that doesn't happen unless the student asks every time. The student is a HS freshman so we are at a point where we can't depend on the school to do the right thing anymore. We need to prepare for a world without accommodations. So my question is, are there tools that will scan and read a paper document, take notes (not every word but can determine the important info) and be able to read the notes back? If you have experience with tools that have worked for you or someone you've worked with, I'd love to hear more. Thanks!

Hello, Am I allowed to ask for recommendations here? If so, wondering if anyone can recommend a therapist or doctor for a teen with anxiety. If not, maybe give me your thoughts on how to find a good one or common therapy techniques. Student is 2x exceptional and has struggled with school related anxiety. Now it is overflowing into life outside of school and we want to nip it in the bud and provide tools to help manage the anxiety. Locations in Montgomery, Delaware or Chester County would be good. Don't know what to look for or where to turn. We went to the pediatrician who printed out a list of providers. But most were Out of Network for our insurance or I couldn't find reviews on them. I think it's important to find someone that understands the complexity of being a student that is twice exceptional. Thanks in advance for any recommendations or info.

Wow! That is great. Especially appreciate the study guide 3-5 days in advance. Our school would only agree to provide notes if the wording "when available" followed. Thanks for your reply.

Update and Help Still Needed: As mentioned, I recently asked for a meeting to discuss a few thing including the need for teacher notes. In my parent concerns letter I stated that my student needed a note-taking SDI to read, "Do not require note-taking and provide complete teacher notes from all learning sources including but not limited to text, the board, teacher lecture/instruction, and video presentations." I explained the need as follows, “This is because requiring someone with this student’s profile to take notes restricts her access to the general education curriculum because of the effort that has to go into note-taking. She misses information that is read or presented while she is concentrating on the task of note-taking. She is unable to do both - take notes and absorb all the information being read or presented; as a result, her access to the general curriculum is restricted. We are asking that this barrier to her education be removed by providing complete teacher notes from all classes." During the meeting, the district gave extreme pushback stating that this would not be needed because teachers that have notes will provide them to everyone in HS. If they don't it is because the notes don't exist so they don't have notes to provide. (I know how wrong this statement is and explained in the meeting that the IEP is written for the student's needs and is not based on what the teacher is willing to provide.) When time allocated for the meeting ran out, they said they would discuss the request and would respond with some suggested edits. The school responded in the NOREP with the following SDI: "When note taking exercises are required, the student may share her notes or completed assignment with her teacher. The teacher will provide feedback towards the accuracy and may directly provide her with the source/s used for the assignment (i.e.:text, audio, video, etc.)" This did not address our concerns and made the situation even worse. Now she will miss all the work during the class while trying to take notes. Then she'll need to spend time with the teacher after class or arrange a time to meet to check the notes. Then she'll need to spend additional time at home, in addition to her other homework, with the source material trying to get the notes right. There are simply not enough minutes in the day for her to manage this. Meeting with every teacher after every class alone will cause her undue hardship. To give you an idea of her challenges, on the WAIT-4 her sentence writing fluency was 66, 1st Percentile and reading fluency was 79, 8th Percentile on her last evaluation done at the beginning of this school year. What would you recommend I do now? I have 10 days to respond. Please help. P.s. With regards to the other "practice" SDI mentioned, they added specific skills for which she is lacking ("such as instruction on quick and efficient problem solving, decision-making strategies, and time management skills") of which she has no instruction in or goals listed. I'll need help with how to deal with that too but the notes are my main concern now. Please help. This is setting her up to fail.

That is helpful. What would you add to that for wording when the student is being asked to take notes from reading pages of text also. The student can't focus on writing notes and absorb the content at the same time.

Please help....Does anyone have a child/student who's IEP includes an accommodation for receiving teacher notes? If so, how is it worded?

This is SO helpful!!! I will use most of this as you wrote it. I cannot thank you enough. I really appreciate you taking the time to help us!! Thank you so much!

Thank you so much for your response. She just had a reevaluation the beginning of this school year. Her reading level was at the 9th grade level but her reading fluency was the 5th percentile for her grade. All the test her reading teacher gives her they record as passing her goal already. So, without repeating the evaluation test again, I have no reliable way to measure improvement as the progress reports have her above her goals already. (They won't increase her goals.) When she takes notes she doesn't recall anything and later has to have me read the material to her or she listens to the audio reading so she can listen and retain the information. So, no she cannot read it and take notes at the same time. I appreciate all your suggestions. Thanks so much for taking the time.

Thank you Carolyn! She is dyslexic and for over 6 years has been SLD but they just changed her catagory to OHI (anxiety and Executive Function) despite her reading and writing fluency being in the single digit percentile. She is 2E so her scores were very high in some areas 99.5% and extremely low 1% in other areas. We strongly disagreed with the catagory change but they agreed to give OG and writing instruction so we didn't know if it made a difference what they called it and wanted services to begin. The school LEA is a special education supervisor. She is the one using the poorly worded SDIs to not provide notes and suggesting they use her special education time to complete notes. I argued many times to remove "when applicable" and they refused. They added the other "practice" SDI this year and now I fear they intend to use it (and are in this case) to not provide the accommodation she needs. I agree, it needs to be removed. I sent an email asking them to not use her reading and writing time for notes and to request an IEP meeting. I love the wording you suggested and will request they use that wording but I have little faith they will make the edits needed. What do you suggest is the best approach for me to be successful in my request? Any official study or documentation I can mention, etc.... She is going to HS next year and I feel the wording needs to be adjusted appropriately before HS. Thanks so much for your help!

Hello, I need help with 2 SDIs that are limited in the wording the school provided. The first one is about notes. It reads, "Provide notes when applicable to reduce the need to copy from the board. Avoid cursive whenever possible." My child is in 8th grade and is being required to take extensive notes in class and then finish those notes for homework. She has been spending hours on note taking each night. When she self-advocates and asks the teacher for notes he simply says he doesn't have a complete set of notes to give her. Her case manager got the same response from the teacher and then had my child's reading and writing teachers work with her to finish the notes during her 1:1 instruction time with those teachers. How should a note taking SDI be worded to cover the many different types of noted that may be needed for a class not just "on the board"? The second SDI I need help with is the one below that the school added at the last IEP meeting despite my concerns. It reads, "Provide opportunities for student to practice and gain skills she is lacking so that she can achieve adequately outside of the school setting and when these modifications may not be available." My concern was that teachers may be confused by this and see it as an alternative to providing any and all SDIs. Now, with this note taking situation, the LEA is using this SDI as a reason for my child to not get the notes. These notes are not just for practice sake. They are what she will need to review later for a test. I see my concern was a valid one and she is being denied access to material she needs. Have you ever seen an SDI like this? Am I off base? Please help me understand how the notes SDI could be worded and what to do about the second SDI. Thank you so much!!

Please keep us posted as my child could benefit from the technology you describe. My child's SETT unfortunately did not yield any useful results as they were struggling to even find a dictation system that might work. It seems like they were simply not familiar with the availability technology.

Hello, My Child recently took a test. As per the IEP my child was given extra time to complete the test. The teacher told my child that she was taking too long and that it was unfair for her to get extra time when other children without an IEP did not get as much time. She said she planned to talk with my Child's case manager about the extra time. I plan to write an email to this teacher so she is aware that her comment was not appropriate and unacceptable. What do you recommend I say in the email? Who else if anyone, should I copy on the email (such as Case manager, LEA, etc...)? If it makes a difference we are in PA. Also, is it appropriate for me to ask the special education department to make sure this teacher receives training to help her not make this type of mistake in the future. Thanks in advance for any guidance you may be able to offer.

Since 2nd grade my child has had a SLD in reading. Now in 8th grade after years in OG training, the school is removing the label from the IEP after reevaluation. Fluency scores are 8th% or lower for all types of fluency but reading scores are high. Reading comprehensive is 68th% which is low compared to oral comprehension of 99.5%. Full scale IQ is 133 and has second catagory of gifted. Since Fluency scores in reading and writing are so low, my child continues to need extra time, notes, audiobooks etc...Reevaluation is concluding that EF and anxiety are causing the delay in reading fluency and labeling as Other Health Issues (OHI). Research I found says reading fluency is not affected by anxiety but other areas are-- other areas that were high on reevaluation would be affected by anxiety. Reading teacher does not think fluency will improve with more OG. Now the district is cutting reading services in half and took away all reading goals on new IEP. They are also adding Counseling and Resiliency to the IEP. This does not seem right to me but I don't know. Can someone who is dyslexic learn to read but still have very low fluency? Can fluency be improved? Can EF and Anxiety cause problems with just reading and writing fluency with every other area tested being very high? Data from reevaluation on anxiety is 2 teachers ratings at clinically significant level. Mom and student ratings were not at that level. My child does want to do well and school work will cause some anxiety. I'm not sure how to respond to the new IEP. If we try it thier way and it does not improve is it harder to fix it? The school is already cutting her reading services because another student is with the teacher now 2 days taking half of my child's time on those days. So, they school does not seem to have the staff needed to help either. Any thoughts, experience or ideas would be helpful. Thanks!