JSD24

I'm not sure what agency oversees sports at his school but in my area, it's at the state level. Their rules are that students need to be passing classes to participate. I'm not sure you could make an IEP accommodation that would override these rules. What might make sense is for him to work with his teacher during office hours or afterschool to bring him up to speed rather than what's currently happening. Not sure, with a 4-week season, if he's bring his grade up enough - it's just not enough time. I wish I had a better solution.

I have a question about overidentification. I live in a county that has a disproportionate number of individuals qualifying for an autism waiver. There isn't much they can do about this because these individuals have a diagnosis and the need for a waiver. There are 12 public school districts in my county and they are not allowed to identify a disproportionate number of students for autism IEPs. If you have disproportionality in the adult services system, wouldn't you also expect the same in the in the school system? I don't think there are people moving to my area for adult services. I feel the people who are waiting for a waiver graduated from these schools and maybe they were underserved in the school system. I'm a numbers person and these numbers don't make sense. Anyone have an explanation for why this could be happening?

Has the school done a pragmatics eval? They did one with my child & she masked and they didn't see any issue. The TOPL has an optional extended assessment that probably would have picked it up... Most parents need a lawyer to get a private placement. Any charter schools in your area? They will sometimes do better than the regular public schools with kids like yours.

Ask for an IEE at school expense. You don't feel the goals have been met. (My guess is they don't have anyone who can support the MS goal in HS.) https://adayinourshoes.com/iee-independent-education-evaluation/ I'd ask them to show you some of his work - ask for a copy you can keep. Then ask your son how much help he got with it.

Local Task Force contacts are listed online: https://www.pattan.net/CMSPages/GetAmazonFile.aspx?path=~\pattan\media\stfdocs\ltf-2024-2025-contact-information-10_17_1.pdf&hash=c9bc2458dc739f5b4b7329280963e5057e5a1e0d66932630159a3455446597b7

PA has Safe2Say. It was put in place to report things like overhearing a classmate say they want to end it all but it definitely gets used to report bullying. They have an app & a website for anonymous reporting. Has social skills & pragmatics been evaluated? These are the areas of need I've seen in kids like yours. It's also areas I've seen schools miss. Will not be covered by an IEE if the school hasn't already done an eval. They might not be able to "help what kids say" but they also need to have no bullying policies in place that get enforced. I'm guessing that the more your child is harassed, bullied & teased, the worse the stutter gets. Is your son getting outside therapy? An outside therapist can sometimes get the school to see how toxic the school environment is. In PA, your child qualifies for Medicaid and that can cover outside speech therapy which might work better than school therapy. It covers social skills too but it can be hard to find places that offer this & take Medicaid. The application is online. https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dhs/programs-services/apply-for-benefits

SDI is Specially Designed Instruction. https://adayinourshoes.com/what-is-specially-designed-instruction/

If the school is accommodating for EF, they should eventually do some SDI so the student can become independent. Might make sense to have the anxiety under better control before adding EF goals & SDI. Goals should be data driven. If there is data that he needs a goal (like he's doing homework & not handing it in), then you can bring up the need to work on doing this.

I feel it's going to be hard to come up with good goals but I do have a few ideas. If he's got a pass to leave the classroom when he needs a break to use 'calming tools', a goal could be to use this less often or for less time. Letting your child have lunch with friends (if he's up for that) or eat with the psychologist or social worker (or favorite teacher) - it's more of an accommodation but the goal could be to maximize being with peers. Adayinourshoes has a post on this: https://adayinourshoes.com/anxiety-iep-504-accommodations/ If anxiety causes him to take longer to do things, extra time or shortened assignment are possible. (Do you really need to do 18 math problems? 10 might be better for him.) If speaking to the class is an issue, eliminate the need for participation in class and allow oral presentations to be done 1:1. What you want in the IEP will depend on what your son needs to have to be successful as well as not triggering his anxiety. Even changing for PE in the nurse's office could be on the IEP. My fear, knowing how mean 7th graders can be, is your son getting bullied by his classmates or them asking too many questions about his extended absence from school where it makes him uncomfortable. He might want to come up with a comeback in case things like this happen at school.

If the school eval said the student needs VT, are they also putting it in the IEP that they are going to provide VT? Have you met with the school to go over the eval? If they are sending you there for therapy, you need to be paid mileage. I've never seen parents paid for their time with taking a child to an outside service like this. Can this be done as teletherapy? I have seen schools say that an IEE that's an hour away is too far. My state has a consult line that parents can call with IEP questions. I'm thinking you need to reach out to someone who knows your state's rules on things like this.

Teacher grades are subjective. Always has been like this & always will be like this. I wouldn't call them unreliable. Basic with PSSAs is failing although 'below basic' is lower. The district has sheets with the scores that they mail home. They've been getting to the district in Sept/Oct. Might be posted on the portal the school uses & not mailed given mailing can get expensive. Tests like WIAT or WCJ are normed for kids who are the same age - "grade level" can be subjective given that the state standards that are currently in place have been reported to be developmentally inappropriate and PSSAs are aligned with them. This has info in the Firefly: https://www.pa.gov/agencies/education/programs-and-services/instruction/elementary-and-secondary-education/assessment-and-accountability/firefly You might need a parent/teacher conference given your child is lying to you about things they are doing is school being he said he was given the Firefly and the teacher said they didn't administer that. (How would he know it existed if the school hadn't shown it to him?) If the teacher is still saying they don't give that test, you might need to go up the chain of command to figure out if they use this or not. (Did you ask his special ed teacher & his classroom teacher was the one who gave him this?) I looked up IXL. It seems to be an online curriculum. This could be why he's been asked to work on it over break. I didn't see an assessment with this name. "Grade level" would be determined by the PA State Standards. The PSSAs are aligned with them. Other assessments, like the ones they do for IEP eligibility, would look at how your child compares to the kids they used to 'norm' or test the test so they look more-so at development and not at what the state has decided kids at each grade level should be taught. The PA State Standards are available online. It might be a few different files because math, science & ELA are listed separately. You can see what standards your child can and cannot do to figure out what grade they are on. And you might see their reading and writing levels are not in the same grade level with measuring this so their ELA level might not all be the same grade level - math & science might show this too. My feeling is that normed special ed assessments are a better yardstick to use. They compare your child to same-age children and see how their ability compares to other children. They will show if the SDI in the IEP is catching your child up to their classmates or not. In a perfect world, your child should be catching up - not staying the same amount behind nor falling farther behind. Keystones are the state standarized test given in HS to meet ESSA requirements. There are 3 tests: Algebra, literature and biology. (There were supposed to be more of them but they didn't develop them due to cost.) Prior to Keystones, there were PSSAs given in 11th grade. Also, passing Keystones (or equivalent) is a graduation requirement.

NOREP is Pennsylvania. Only filing for Due Process will allow you to invoke Stay Put where the old IEP with the neighborhood school as placement can continue. If you disagree with the NOREP, it will still go into effect in 10 days. The school should have held an IEP meeting to make this change to the IEP. This looks a lot like predetermination if they sprung this on you without an IEP meeting. Was there new data that showed this change was needed? Was there data when he was put onto the waitlist? You might need a special ed attorney given how muddled this looks to be. Not sure if a state complaint is also needed given there was no IEP team discussion about the new placement and this looking like predetermination. Calling the Consult Line and asking them if this was an OK way to change the placement would also be an option but I'm not sure of the timing with the 10 window with the NOREP.

I agree with you. Seems like life skills are what's needed. The only thing she seems to have going for her is she doesn't misbehave when frustrated with academics that are over her head. To get the school to see this, ask them to look at progress toward goals. The gap is widening so the interventions/SDI isn't helping. Something different is needed.

It's easy to do a bad FBA. If you observe at the wrong time or not for long enough, it will show everything's OK. Schools are run by trained professionals (this is best practice - your district may vary). I think we need to trust they are doing things right. (Make me wonder if their parent input form ended up in your Spam box.) When you meet to go over the FBA, ask why they didn't ask for your input. If the FBA (like any other eval) is incomplete or inaccurate, you can ask for an IEE at school expense.

How is the school accommodating her reading disability? It sounds like she's getting SDI to help her learn to decode but until she's at grade level, she needs accommodations. Audiobooks, extra time and speech to text devices are all things that can help her with access until her skill set makes her independent. (Extra time might be needed long term/indefinitely.) If she was getting these accommodations, what would her grades be? You don't want to hold her back because the IEP isn't accommodating all her needs. (IMO, the teacher is attempting to accommodate her not being on grade level but isn't taking an approach that uses the system in place to support students.)