JSD24

If the IEP isn't providing what your child needs, that's a great reason for school refusal. (I guess you can't say that in truancy court.) I'm in PA & they changed the rules a few years ago. Schools need to hold an attendance improvement meeting BEFORE they can go to truancy court. They need to contact the parent 3X about the meeting before it's held. If the student has an IEP, they need to have the IEP team at the meeting so changes can be made if that's needed. Can you ask for an IEP meeting for the purpose of discussing the reasons behind poor attendance? Then the discussion could be about getting the right support at school so she's willing to go to school. I'm sure it's more complicated than this. (In some states, the truancy fine is how they get the parent's attention on getting the child to go to school. If the child doesn't cooperate, they aren't going anywhere.) I remember taking my child to the doctor so I could get a note so her absence could be excused - I had written for the max number of days that I could write. She was stressed and refused to go. Would a medical excuse make sense if this is ongoing?

If the IEP says AAC, the school needs to provide it. Out of compliance with the IEP is something worthy of doing a state complaint about. If enough students are involved, I could see a class action suit via a disability rights group. I see this as a whistleblower complaint if a teacher would file the complaint. With whistleblower, your employment would be protected but I can see it being awkward to work for someone where you filed a complaint like this. And like Lisa posted: document - and include dates when things were discovered. It might be good to inquire to your superior (in writing so you have a paper trail) about not having AAC that's written in the IEP & being out of compliance. You might want to say 'I don't want to get into trouble since I cannot implement the IEP given we don't have AAC software' as a way to CYA. I know in my district, the special ed lawyer meets with special ed administration on Mondays & they'd be asking their lawyer how the school should CYA since they don't want a lawsuit. Not sure how everyone in your county all get the same AAC software. This doesn't sound individualized. Also, there are free versions of AAC out there. (See: https://aaccommunity.net/2021/10/free-aac-apps-for-slps/) My daughter was working with someone who was non-speaking & used AAC. She was able to download something for free onto her phone. Also, I've seen school not have an SLP & not tell parents. That seems to be what they do: Be out of compliance and not say anything. (They did eventually get an SLP & made up for the missed sessions - sort of.)

Every state has a Parent Training and Information Center. This is the one for TN: https://www.familyvoicestn.org/resources/education/ This site also says they are the only Parent Training and Information Center in TN: https://tnstep.info/ (Not sure which is the right group - there should only be one.) In my area (I'm in PA), The Arc has advocates that can help with IEPs. TN's Arc might be able to help: https://familyengagementtn.com/ From my experience, when content is modified, the student is taken off a 'diploma track' and put on a 'certificate of completion' track. This has more info: https://adayinourshoes.com/iep-accommodations-modifications/

It seems like there needs to be a better system so this student attends synchronous instructional sessions. Missed sessions need to be noted so the data shows there is a lack of attendance on the student's part. Not sure if the student has issues with executive function where this needs to be accommodated so they get the SDI in their IEP & make better progress. Not sure what can be put in place so this student gets reminders of when they need to be online with you. This might mean you trial & error different reminders and add an accommodation to the IEP when you find something that works.

When you have data to support that the current IEP isn't FAPE... It's unfortunate that this is how IDEA seems to be setup to work. I'm hoping with the movement in so many places toward Structured Literacy, schools will Child Find earlier. There still needs to be more teachers who are trained to provide IEP level support to the students who need this intervention. (My gut says the O-G practitioner has a full caseload where the school cannot add to this.)

Part of the IEP process is progress monitoring. This person might be great with getting this student to make progress and that's really what counts in the world of IEPs. Have the school gather data on progress 8X per year and see how well this is working (you want this spelled out in the IEP). If the student is closing the gap (more than one year's worth of progress every year since the expectation for typical students is to stay at grade level with a year of progress every year) the school has data that this is a good match for this student. If the results don't show this, you have data showing that something different is needed. I'm not a lawyer so I can't say if what the school is doing is legal. (And appropriate seems to be the yardstick used in IDEA.) I also want to mention there is a huge shortage of people who are certified in any of the many flavors of O-G that are out there. I was talking to a parent in my area in one of the smaller school districts (2000 students). They have zero teachers who are certified in an O-G based reading program. Once you have data showing a lack of progress - 4 data points is what I'm thinking is the minimum to see how progress is trending - you'll have evidence that the IEP needs to be tweaked to something that will help the student catch up/close the gap. I know you don't want to let this IEP go into place for a full semester so you have data that their offer of FAPE isn't working but I'm not sure of a way around this. Not sure if someone else has a better idea and wants to post it.

Sorry for the delay with answering this. I check this site a few times every week but this is the 1st time seeing your question. I feel you need to write a parent concerns letter. Your child has needs for an adult to assist them with lots of ADLs so they can be safe at school. If the school removes the 1:1 aide, they will still have these needs for adult assistance. If the 1:1 is removed, who does the school propose will provide this assistance? This is what your letter needs to ask. Feel free to draft a letter & post back here. We'll help you come up with a good parent concerns letter. This has guidance on how to approach this: https://adayinourshoes.com/parent-concerns-on-the-iep-parent-letter-of-attachment/ This should help you get from 'pitch a fit' to 'proactively document the need'.

Neither of those assess social skills. I filled them out for my child and the results of those evals never stated where she was with social skills. The SSIS - Social Skills Improvement System - was the assessment the school did that provided a percentile measurement of where my child was. (She was in the 99th percentile academically and the 2nd percentile with social skills. And this was after 5 years of the school working with her on social skills.) Teachers were who filled this out. The Vineland & BASC look at behavior. You want something specific for social skills. You also want something the evaluator knows how to interpret so there might be a different test for social skills they will use.

Is there a goal for this student to become less calculator-dependent with doing math? You don't mention this in your post. If this is the case, there needs to be SDI in this area because skills don't get better by osmosis. SDI sessions also provides an opportunity for progress monitoring. When a skill only gets accommodated, no progress is expected since there is no SDI so the accommodation needs to continue since there's no progress monitoring without an IEP goal. Best practice is to accommodate while providing SDI until the student's skill set catches up to grade level peers. Not sure if this is happening.

I'm not sure how this would work but it sounds like an outside counselor could diagnose him with Afterschool Restraint Collapse. If this were to happen, accommodations could be added to the IEP to help with how he acts once he's home. Not sure if an IEE would look at this. And you might need to invite this person to the IEP meeting so they can explain to the team what's needed in the IEP given the diagnosis. Every school in the US has anti-bullying rules - pretty sure this is a federal mandate. If it's the same kids or same group of kids all the time who are being unkind, that's bullying. The school should have a protocol on how this gets reported so they can deal with it. If he will not do this, you might need to intervene for him. Lastly, you posted he has social skills deficits. Has the school assessed this area of need? (SSIS is the assessment I'm aware of for this.) If the school sees this as an area of need, the school can help teach this as part of the IEP. This often co-occurs with issues with pragmatic language. If you see these as areas of need, tell the school (in writing so there is a paper trail) so they can assess these areas with doing their re-eval.

I'm in PA & my son ended up with a Spanish teacher who wasn't certified. I'm pretty sure this is OK. They need to be working toward getting certified to do this. Not sure if this is the case with the ELA teacher. If you are finding that a teacher isn't following the IEP, filing a state complaint is an option. What I'd do before I went that route and became "that parent" is to have an IEP meeting. Before the meeting, write out your parent concerns. If teacher X isn't providing extra time and teacher Y isn't reading directions aloud and this is in the IEP, write it out. Send this to the IEP team a week before the meeting. At the IEP meeting, you can request teacher training in how to provide the accommodations in the IEP. (I'm assuming that SDI is being provided by a special ed teacher and that's going OK.) I wouldn't want to meet one on one with a teacher to tell them they need to follow the IEP. That could be done with an email. I'd email the teachers who aren't following the IEP and copy the case manager and principal so they are aware of the situation. Not sure what's going to be the best route to take to get the IEP followed. Sending your parent concerns to the team and the gen ed teachers who aren't with the program might be a strategy. Adding a self-advocacy goal might help your child be able to get the teachers to follow the IEP as well. Lots of options.

I know that Wilson Reading is a popular intervention in my area. There's a 'tutor center' near me where their person does Wilson Reading when the issue is dyslexia. Wilson Reading is one of the many O-G based programs that are out there. My thought is: progress. If the teacher is certified in basket weaving and the child is catching up to classmates, whatever they are doing is working and that's the whole purpose of the SDIs in the IEP - PROGRESS! I'm also on the side of the school with intervention timing. When I had looked at the Wilson Reading protocol (this has to be pre-COVID), I remember daily and 40-60 minutes. (I'm thinking the protocol might have changed.) With a 3rd grader, I'm thinking that 90 minutes of SDI seems long. With outside tutoring, I'm pretty sure the sessions aren't this long. With any program, they tend to follow the script so they can say they are doing this with fidelity. If he doesn't need that lesson, I'd be fearful that he'll shutdown during the parts he needs to learn. With monitoring progress in reading, I believe they look at WCM - words correct per minute (per hundred?). So long as they are using the same method to measure progress, you'll see progress if it's there. I do like the idea of data more often. Any program will tend to work for ~80% of students. If this isn't the right program, finding that out and changing your approach should happen sooner & you'll see that with more frequent data collection. With a good Structured Literacy, Tier 1 program, there will still be ~20% of the population who has dyslexia per the Connecticut Longitudinal Study. These are the students who need an IEP (or Tiers 2 or 3 with milder issues). They need more intensive instruction than Tier 1 provides.

I'm pretty sure they can change his diaper if that is needed. No one in the school should be touching his private parts unless it's part of providing care that, if not done, could be looked at as neglect.

This reminds me of a situation that happened a few years ago to someone I know. Her child has Downs Syndrome and didn't want to do a worksheet - this was kindergarten. The child shaped their hand 'inappropriately' and while pointing a finger at the teacher said 'I sh**t you'. This was viewed as a terroristic threat so the school followed district policy. Well, the police got called with how the policy said things had to be done. Their policy was that if there was an incident like this, they needed to have a police officer on the team. And if the police are involved, they make a record of it. The parents were livid that this caused their child to have a record with their local police at age 5. (Your situation is this one times 50.) The school's assessment (MDR) showed that what played out was a manifestation of your child's disability - that's what you wrote. And they want to punish him for this? (I want to see the research/evidenced based study that was done showing this works. What they do in schools should be research/evidenced based. I've looked and I'm not aware you can punish the disability out of anyone.) They didn't follow the BIP, things escalated, and he ended up in handcuffs and detained overnight. Have you filed a complaint with your state dept of ed that the school didn't follow the BIP (which I assume is part of his IEP) and this is how it played out? I'm hoping that the administrators attending the administrative meeting with immediate supervisors have more sense and knowledge of special ed and child pedagogy that they put the SRO & AP in their place. If it doesn't play out like that, you're going to need an attorney. Not sure if you need a criminal lawyer or a special ed lawyer - I'm thinking you need someone with experience in both these areas. Diversion is a great option. With other cases involving diversion, I've seen kids need to stay out of trouble until age 18 or 21 so 6 months seems fair (not sure they took your child's disability into account when they decided this because it sounds like he doesn't have the capacity to understand what he did was wrong). What I feel is needed are changes to the IEP where if he does make an unfounded threat, they don't get the SRO and court involved (because it sounds like he doesn't have the capacity to regulate what he says when escalated). I could see SDI put into his IEP to teach him to say something else when he's escalated and his BIP isn't being followed - but, on the other hand, they really need to follow the BIP/IEP since it should work to prevent this happening again. The state complaint should be something you can do on your own - you shouldn't need a lawyer to help you. If you do need help, every state has a parent group that can assist you with things like this. Not sure where you're located or I'd post the link. They are also someone to reach out to with this situation.

Strangers shouldn't be touching his privates - I agree with you on that. When a student isn't able to be independent with toileting, it's on the school to care for that student as in loco parentis. Your child is under the care and supervision of the school during school hours. They are not obligated to allow anyone other than school personnel into their buildings. At school, his in loco parentis should be changing him. If he loses a tooth, they should be helping with that. If he needs his shoe tied, they should deal with it. I remember one of the school nurses telling me about a girl who needed to be catheterized in order to pee. It was the school nurse who did this - not a stranger. This was at a middle school and they had a male nurse - one nurse for the whole school. There are times when schools are put into lockdown and no one is allowed to enter. What happens if he needs a change then? To not change him would be neglect. They are going to handle changes the same way you would and it would be appropriate because they are in loco parentis - they aren't strangers. If they are not handing this in a dignified manner, call them out - they should be.