JSD24

I was reading a post in a Facebook group and I'm in a bit of shock about what I saw. This was about a school district in PA and out of district placements. An advocate posted that they've seen this district cover 50% of the tuition for private schools for several students. I thought that offers from a school needed to be FAPE - Free Appropriate Public Education. It's not 'Free' if only half is covered. I did ask the advocate how they are able to only offer 50% and it's OK. She said, because the parents were waiving FAPE, that the school wasn't obligated to pay for 100%. Settlement agreements, where the private school isn't going to follow an IEP, does require a parent to waive FAPE. I thought that this was waiving the right to having an IEP where the student would be getting special instruction to meet specific goals - in other words, the 'A' in FAPE - Appropriate. I didn't think they would also be waiving 'F' - Free. Does this sound right to you?

I have friends who live in the same school district (if it's the district with an East & West HS that sends students to TCHS) that I know and I was shocked what they did to my friend's child and attending the school they were zoned for. That said, what I would do is write a letter stating that the school's policy doesn't apply in your case because (1) it happened off campus, (2) you were told by the appropriate agency, CYF, to not report this to the police (3) but there was a legal settlement for your child to go to a different school from this child for 6 years. I would ask that they honor your request of having your child attend East rather than West which your neighborhood is zoned for. (You might need documentation from a MH professional that he should not be attending the same school as this other child due to PTSD.) You'll probably need to say you will transport as that tends to be the big ticket item with a student not going to their neighborhood school. He should be able to ride the bus to TCHS from East but you'd need to get him to/from East. On 2nd look, this part may apply: "A student victim (or his/her parent/guardian) may apply to the LEA to transfer to another school within thirty (30) calendar days after the incident is reported to school authorities." IMO, you are somewhere within this 30 day timeline as you recently told the SD about the assault. Use the points I outlined to make your formal request. You might want to call the superintendent and then follow up the call with an email so you have a paper trail. Or you might need to show up in person. I know the person in charge of school safety in my district and they might be someone to have involved with this process. Include the Title IX coordinator too.

Reading between the lines, I'm seeing the special ed director saying all the teacher needs to do is babysit the students and gaslight parents that they are getting FAPE. Some people say that IEP means I Expect Progress. This won't happen without special instruction shown to help mitigate issues from the disability. Depending on the student & the disability, I'd like to see ADLs worked on at a minimum.

If you have a reading eval done, most evals (same exact eval) cannot be redone within the next 12 months. The school's perspective is that outside evals are biased and school evals are not so they only have to consider your eval & not follow it. Given this, I would wait for the school's evaluation to be done. Also, ESY is not expected to cause a student to make progress - sometimes student do make progress. It's there so that a student who's learning a new skill doesn't backslide when there isn't any instruction over the summer. Compensatory things are generally decided by due process although schools will call something this when a student didn't get FAPE and they didn't need due process to determine this. I'm not familiar with "a specific OG READING EVALUATION". I'm thinking that their certified special ed teacher might have an eval they do to determine what the area of need in reading is that is specific to the protocol for the program. (Do ask to get a copy of their assessment results.) This way they can match remedial instruction to what the student needs rather than starting with step 1 which might be something a student already knows. (There are dozens of OG based programs that are out there and are research/evidence based. They are all a bit different which is why a student could make progress with one & not another. You can think of it like chocolate ice cream. Breyers is different from Turkey Hill or Friendly's or your store's brand but they all fill the requirement for chocolate ice cream.)

For Mich- RTI is Response to Intervention and MTSS is Multi Tiered System of Support. Both are part of general ed assistance for struggling students. (Schools generally call it one or the other with RTI being the 'old' way of doing things.)

For Mich- The specially designed instruction in the IEP should target the area of need specified in the evaluation report. If he hasn't been assessed or doesn't show that O-G instruction is needed, it's not going to happen. You need to advocate for the evaluation to be sufficiently comprehensive so the area of need with reading is defined to a point where it can be matched to a research/evidenced based program. If the school recently did an eval, an IEE at school expense might be what to ask for. Education advocates and special ed attorneys can read over the eval to see what was done/what might have been missed. What is taught in a self contained class should be the general ed curriculum as well as there being special instruction that addresses the student's areas of need. They might also be pulled for special instruction. Ex: Speech therapy is hard to do in a classroom with background noise. You'd want it done in the SLP's office/classroom.

I remember hearing about a dyslexia camp from a parent. From what I remember, it was in NH; we're in PA. Like you said, it was expensive but from, what was said, the child made significant progress in one summer. I'm sure there are a few where the results are being oversold or the instruction isn't a good match with what the student needs. Students make progress when the remedial program works to fill the student's area of need. If you have a 40 minute session and 5 students, this could translate into 8 minutes of helpful small group instruction for a student which isn't a whole lot. (I'm thinking this is daily during the school year.) This may be why IEP services aren't helping all that much. Given your meeting tomorrow, I would ask the school: If my child meets the goals in the IEP, when will they be at the level of their classmates? (You might want to break this out by asking this for each goal.) If a student is 2 years behind & makes 1.3 years of progress every year where typical classmates make a year of progress in a school year, it will take them 6 years to catch up. With 1.5 years of progress, it takes 4 years. With one year of progress, they will never catch up - they will remain 2 years behind forever. If this is what the school expects given the IEP goals, it sounds like this isn't meaningful progress. If the school's offer of FAPE isn't meaningful progress, it definitely provides information (data) that would support them paying for an outside program where your child will make meaningful progress. Asking the school to provide info on their remedial protocol so you can see how well it matches your child's area of need is another thing you can request. I've seen where schools are not using IEP level remedial programs. (There is general ed support like MTSS where these programs are appropriate.) Definitely ask if the school feels the IEP goals from a year ago were met & if they weren't, ask why. I've seen where schools don't have a well trained teacher who can provide the IEP level instruction so many students need. (I think there's a post on Adayinourshoes about gaslighting that covers this.)

I've been an educational advocate in SW PA for years. I don't recall this being something I've seen anywhere. My best guess is this doesn't exist. You might be able to find a 1:1 SAT tutor who can do this. My thought is (1) there are dozens of different accommodations and (2) students who need accommodations will often not go to college so it's not very feasible to offer a class. My child had 100% extra time from the College Board. Our plan was for them to take the SAT & see how things went. If they needed a prep class, we'd go with the one the local PTA sponsored because it has a good reputation. I hadn't thought about the fact that there wouldn't be extra time with a practice test. BTW, with a class size of ~275, my child was the only person who took the SAT w/ extra time when they took the test. They did it at school over 2 days and they missed classes.

Personally, I feel that not averaging this test is isn't a 'reasonable accommodation'. Given it's the end of the school year & there is limited opportunity to make this right, this might be what to ask for. I do feel you should ask for something. What might be better would be for your child to go over the test with the teacher where the teacher allows her provide a verbal response for the questions she didn't answer 100% correctly. Also, if classmates got 5 minute with open notes, IMO, your child should have gotten 10 minutes. You might want to request an IEP meeting so 'extra time' can be clarified as to what is needed. Maybe also clarify what happens if teachers use timers or do other things contrary to what's in the IEP (if the class needs a timer, your child should be testing in another room) you might want to include that the test will not count toward the final grade unless it brings her average up. I've not seen students get more than 2X time but there are exceptions to everything. If you (or your daughter) don't ask, the answer is 'no'. Definitely say something and do it in writing tso there is a paper trail.

This is the definition of autism from IDEA: (i) Autism means a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. (ii) Autism does not apply if a child’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance, as defined in paragraph (c)(4) of this section. (iii) A child who manifests the characteristics of autism after age three could be identified as having autism if the criteria in paragraph (c)(1)(i) of this section are satisfied. This is section (c) (4) mentioned ^: (4) (i) Emotional disturbance means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance: (A) An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors. (B) An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers. (C) Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances. (D) A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression. (E) A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems. (ii) Emotional disturbance includes schizophrenia. The term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they have an emotional disturbance under paragraph (c)(4)(i) of this section. I find this confusing. From what I've seen with Aspergers type of autism is that emotional issues versus are hard to differentiate which is why autistics are sometimes labeled ED by schools. If 'autism' is a health factor, then ASD is the right box to have checked. Supplemental versus itinerant has to do with staffing. This is from Chapter 14 of the school code: Itinerant (20% or Less) Supplemental (Less Than 80% but More Than 20%) Full-Time (80% or More) Learning Support 50 20 12 Life Skills Support 20 20 12 (Grades K-6) 15 (Grades 7-12) Emotional Support 50 20 12 Deaf And Hearing Impaired Support 50 15 8 Blind And Visually Impaired Support 50 15 12 Speech And Language Support 65 8 Physical Support 50 15 12 Autistic Support 12 8 8 Multiple Disabilities Support 12 8 8 If the student is supplemental, max caseload is 8 - not 12. They should be looking at how much time as a percentage of the school day he's getting special ed services and not the name of the program. If this isn't accurate on the IEP, you could file a state complaint. (You can see this defined her on page 58: https://www.pattan.net/CMSPages/GetAmazonFile.aspx?path=~\pattan\media\forms\files\interactive-annotated-iep.pdf&hash=c0ea2b719d21a38a5c12f35787364505e1915c0b3618e03dec3aae2355fa263a&ext=.pdf.) Note that the annotation says "typical school day". My district has paraprofessionals who have RBT training so this would look the same as far as "restrictive" goes - it's just a 1:1 with different training than other aides (they also make more given the added training). In your shoes, I'd ask that his 1:1 aide have RBT training given your outside eval said he needed an RBT. Emotional support might be the right placement if 'upset' is the reason he needs support & the ES teacher has appropriate training - I'd still want the ASD box checked on the IEP. I wouldn't fault them for using an AS room for a student in the evaluation process if that's where the person who helped was located. So long as a student is in the process of being identified, they get special ed protections and students with IEPs can be suspended. It's really when you get to 10 days that they look at manifestations of a disability because suspensions of 10+ days are a placement change where you need the IEP team to weigh in. What does the autistic support room have that the emotional support room doesn't being you want AS and not ES to be the room where he gets services? If I knew why you wanted this, I think I could help by providing an argument that's specific to the issue you see. I'm aware of a school where one room had both AS & ES support. The issue was that when there was a ES support student acting out & trying to calm down, the autistic student found this too triggering/distracting where they couldn't calm down. There are other things in your post that you might want to file complaints with PDE on: We were told they couldn’t evaluate until full-day 1st grade despite autism being flagged by his therapist. When we did get an eval, they initially didn’t test for autism. I hope I covered everything - you had a lot of questions/comments.

The discipline of a student should be part of the student's file. Only parents and school staff who need to know should have access to this. In other words, you shouldn't have access to the specifics. School policies tend to be publically available on school websites and there is nothing preventing the school from sharing what their policy is. In PA, there is a policy numbering system that schools are encouraged to use. Your school's bullying policy might be # 249. This might not be bullying if this isn't part of a pattern of acts happening by these students to your child as bullying is defined as something that's repeated. When it comes to bullying that could fall under s3x abuse, I feel that schools are hesitant to escalate this because they don't want to be responsible for a Jr HS aged person ending up on Megan's List for what's more so a prank than criminal perversion. Being involved with this and reporting this to ChildLine could force this classmate to have limited opportunities in the future. (In my school district, you cannot enter a school building when students are present if you are on Megan's List to give you an idea what some of the restrictions are.) There is nothing preventing you from calling ChildLine and telling them what happened to your child. Their number is 1-800-932-0313 and is available 24/7. Given that Juvenile Court is involved, I'm not sure how important it is to bring this to ChildLine; I would think the court would have involved them if it was appropriate to do. (I'm curious what the court charged them with given you want to punish but not necessarily escalate things too much.) Also, most things that are investigated by CYF end up being unfounded. This could be why the places you have reached out to haven't moved forward in this. If you feel school staff isn't following proper protocol in reporting things like this, you can escalate this within your school district. Principals oversee school staff and directors of secondary ed oversee Jr HSs. Over them would be the superintendent and school board. Their contact info should be on the school district's website. I feel that contacting your state rep or senator like Lisa suggested would be a good next step to take. I think you might want to answer this question too: What do you want to see happen to the students who did this to your child? If you can answer this, it can help you plan the next steps that are needed with moving forward.

I'd try working with the school and if that doesn't work out, definitely file the state complaint. State complaints make you "that mom" and being that mom can get in the way of FAPE. Could it be that some teachers are accommodating consistently & other are inconsistent? The data could be accurate if this is happening or it could be your child self-advocates for their accommodations (which is a good thing) so it's more consistent than the teacher realizes.

My experience with auditory processing evals was that the school didn't accept the one I had done by an outside therapist. The school did their own eval - actually, it was done at our IU (this is a PA thing) because you need a soundproof booth to do them. As far as getting specific, less is more sometimes. And the sooner you start the process, the sooner you'll have the eval completed. My feeling is that you'll be 1st in line for the fall with asking now.

You can remove SDI & goals based on progress monitoring reports. What I'm seeing is that you don't agree with the reports because the goal was reached with accommodations and you want to see your child move toward doing this without accommodations. I would create a paper trail that gets the school to say your child had accommodations with meeting this goal so he still has delays in this area and given there still are delays, you see the need for Specially Designed Instruction and goals to catch him up to what same-age classmates can do. If the school isn't cooperating with a paper trail that shows the accommodations, ask that the school do a special ed assessment in this area. A special ed eval/assessment gets done by a school psychologist where the progress monitoring is done by a case manager/special ed teacher and they aren't trained with doing normed special ed evaluations. You'll need to sign of on a PTR (permission to reevaluate) so the eval can be done. When you work on the paper trail, copy the school psychologist on the email. I'm hoping this could get the case manager to see that a goal reached with accommodations does not show a student is independent in this area. You also had a post about an IEE. I'm assuming the 2 posts are about the same student. I'm not sure with looking at both posts who evaluated your child as far as writing goes. A normed special ed eval needs to be done by someone trained to do the eval so the testing protocol gets followed. Normed evals wouldn't allow a student to have accommodations unless the accommodations were documented in the eval report. If the protocol wasn't followed, the eval is not valid so you can't use the results. Not sure about asking to see the evaluation where your child's writing was assessed - if the paperwork still exists. Definitely ask your child what sort of help was provided when the eval was done. If more than one person did the eval, that should be in the report. In PA, teachers tend not to be trained to do evaluations. They tend to be done by the school psychologist when it comes to assessing writing. If a teacher who doesn't have the training to do evals are doing them, this falls into doing a state complaint. I'm in PA & I can help you with this.

How long after a school reeval can I ask for an IEE? Also, is it from the date the reeval was done or the date on the reeval report? **If it's more than a year, the school might want to redo an eval rather than say yes to an IEE. (Do wait until after the meeting where you go over the report. 5 minutes after is OK. ) If I ask for an IEE do I have to have the eval done within a certain amount of time? **No. Often, evaluators have a waitlist & the better ones can have a longer wait. If the school denies my request, is the Due Process timeline paused over the summer? **This probably varies by state but since a teacher who works under a 10 month contract isn't usually involved, my guess is no pause for the summer. Can I decide to not proceed if the school files for Due Process? **You can recind your request for an IEE. (I did this once.) We've presented private reports to the school before, and the school stated they would not accept the testing results. Some of the school's testing results differed significantly from our private testing. We have two private reports with the same diagnosis, SLD Written Expression/Dysgraphia, and the school will not recognize or accept the results/conclusions/diagnosis. Is there some criteria I need to ask about that the school requires to accept private testing? My problem is that the IEP should reflect my son and it really doesn't. He has a lot of accommodations for reading and writing, and the school refuses to qualify him under a second category of SLD. I want the categories to reflect where his main struggles are so teachers looking at the IEP quickly see this and also for SAT/college accommodations, but wonder why we're getting so much resistance to adding another qualifying category of SLD. Is this so the school can more easily legally provide accommodations instead of instruction in writing? We are not the only family in our district in disagreement with the school that accommodations (spell and grammar check) and grade-level edited long-form writing are sufficient to show a student no longer needs additional writing instruction. **Some states do not allow a 2nd box to get checked but the 2nd area of disability can and should be described in the eval report & on the IEP. With SATs, the college board will want a copy of the IEP & will provide what's there so long as the student has used the accommodation and the school asked for the accommodation. (Apply early so there are accommodations with taking the PSAT too.) If a student is performing at grade level with accommodations, they need these accommodations. This isn't a good reason to stop remedial instruction to bring a student up to speed w/o accommodations. Have you asked the school about this in writing so there's a paper trail? (XX gets accommodations for spell and grammar check as well as grade-level edited long-form writing. This shows this is an area of need/disability. Why is there no specially designed instruction so XX can have goals to be at grade level in these areas without accommodations?) Keep in mind that an IEE is an outside eval that the school must consider & doesn't need to follow. If you aren't the only family, what about a class action lawsuit? This is how special ed got started - look up the PARC Consent Decree for the whole story. Also, look up the tests the school did. See what the publishers say these tests assess. Then do the same for the outside evals. Did both sets of tests look at the same areas? If they didn't look at the same things, this could be why the conclusions were different. It's possible they don't have a teacher with the expertise to provide the instruction that would be needed. Plus it's more expensive to teach versus accommodate. Not sure if filing a state complaint might work. The complaint would be: The school is recognising there is a deficit by accommodating - why is there no special instruction to go with it? I remember a training where we needed to go through an eval and make sure there was an SDI for every area of need. This would be best practice.

Is there a way to scan in the teacher notes and have some software have them neatly typed out? Is this something AI can do? If your child does this, they now have notes they did themself. Makes no sense for this to be the teacher's interpretation of the IEP. The accommodation is there due to a disability. For your child, teacher notes = student notes. I'd want this clarified in the IEP so no one else tries this in the future. Since this is the dyslexia forum, I'm assuming this is the disability. Your child is likely going to transcribe the notes inaccurately given they are going to be rushed. This doesn't 'level the playing field' which is what accommodations should do.

It seems like the support your grandchild is getting from the school isn't FAPE. If the support was appropriate, there would not have been an issue that came up where he lost the privilege of going on field trips that are scheduled in the subsequent 30 days. It seems that what happened was a manifestation of his disability as ADHD & impulsivity go together. The fact that there are 2 scheduled is "bad luck" or more likely, bad timing, since field trips tend to be scheduled later in the school year when students are antsy with anticipating summer break and state testing is over. I think the solution is to request a manifestation hearing although these are generally done when a student is being suspended from school. It might apply since he's being suspended from a school activity, namely field trips.

I wasn't sure where to put this. The back story is that the policy in my school district on IEP & 504 complaints recently changed. They dropped the contact info for the local Civil Right Office that was recently closed - one of the many changes made by DOGE. I started digging. My quest was to answer the question: Who do you call if you have a civil rights issue with a school? The answer is: The USDOE. Yep, the department of education is who now handles civil rights issues. This is the web page with info on filing complaints: https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/file-complaint

I was at a presentation on FBAs. The presenter said that there are general ed level FBAs that can be done w/o parent consent as well as more in-depth, IEP level FBAs that would need parental permission to happen. They were not clear on what the difference is. Realistically, if a student acts out every time they are asked to do a math worksheet, it doesn't take a behavior expert to determine that math worksheets are the antecedent to the behavior for this student. Another example from a different presentation. Student would 'randomly' look upset, get up and leave the classroom. A behavior specialist came in to observe. What they saw was the student looking upset and getting up when an ambulance could be heard in the classroom. They later determined this student lived in a bad area and sirens had happened with some traumatic events in the student's life. This is definitely more of an IEP level FBA given that the family needed to be involved with being able to see the full picture of why this was an antecedent for this student. Requesting & giving permission for an FBA so there is data on how well your child is doing and how much the aide is involved with him being successful with his behavior, IMO, is what's needed. The truth is that he's doing OK & doesn't have an aide as an accommodation on his IEP so he doesn't need an aide is the high level data that I'm seeing. Given he's getting help from an aide, there should be info on what they are doing and how much support he's getting so it can be determined if he needs an aide. It sounds like he doesn't have a 1:1. He might need a 1:2. The decision on what should go into an IEP should be based on data and if the school is refusing your request for an aide, I'd want to see the data that supports this decision...if it exists.

When a school's evaluation is not accurate or is incomplete, my typical suggestion is to request an IEE at school expense. This needs to be in writing (email is good) so there's a paper trail.

High school transition team members should be well aware this is required by most/all colleges. I believe this is why you were offered the eval over the summer. They take time for the school to do and can cost thousands of dollars if a family needs to pay out of pocket - not usually covered by insurance since it's educational. When is the triennial due? An RR is quick to do so it's done to be in compliance with timelines. It could be sufficient for your child as far as IEPs are concerned. If your child has access & is making progress, an RR might be OK where an eval isn't a real need. (Schools often look at evals as what's done so see if a student is eligible for an IEP. Once they have one, the progress monitoring provides the needed data on present levels to set goals & determine services so they don't see the need for an eval.)

I feel an eval is needed. Reading should be assessed so she can have access to audiobooks in college. (Are audiobooks a current accommodation?) Let them do the RR (likely what they have time to do & be in compliance for triennial eval timelines) and then the full eval over the summer. She seems more like SDL Reading than OHI but dyslexia and ADHD & EF issues as well as anxiety can be comorbid. If you do college visits this summer, pop into the disabilities office and ask them what they want in order to provide accommodations. I have an advocate friend who suggests a disabled child stay within a 2-3 hour radius of home in case parents need to stop by and help them during the course of their college career.

I'm all for specifying this in the IEP/504. My child had 2X time for tests and my other child was given 2 extra days to hand in assignments & get full credit. (The teachers tended to give full credit no matter when things got handed in.) My child who needed extra time for assignments didn't need extra time for tests. IMO, you should ask your child what they feel they need. This way it's individualized for their situation. My kids have ADHD and this is what worked for them. What your child needs could be different since they are dealing with a different mix of challenges.

School district HR makes personnel decisions - not the family. What you can do is make sure, because of the unique needs your child has, that the paraprofessional assigned to him is trained in how he communicates and all of his other needs. The letter from his doctor is an outside assessment that the school must 'consider' - but they don't need to follow what's in the letter. If Medicaid would pay for an aide at school, you might be able to have this person continue as his aide. This is for perspective: Let's say you are an aide in a school. The school board authorized 10 aides for the district and there are 10 aides on staff. Someone comes in insisting the school hire their aide for their child. Are you OK with being let go? You can go to Google Scholar and search for cases in your state where there is legal precedence for this. I cannot do that w/o knowing what state you live in.

I've seen issues like this referred to as 'stealth dyslexia'. It's really not stealth. He doesn't decode which is the 'elephant in the room' clue that he's not a fluent reader. Not sure where you are in PA but there is the Scottish Rite in Harrisburg (there might be other PA locations) that can remediate the reading disability. There are other groups that can help: IDA - PA and Everyone Reads PA are 2. There's a public charter school out in Pittsburgh that does a great job with remedial instruction. What I don't like about the special ed system is that school psychologists cannot diagnose dyslexia. It's not allowed per their practice act but dyslexia affects 20% of the population (this is per the Connecticut Longitudinal Study). This causes so many students to not get the help they need. Given how your son compensates for his disability, he's probably not going to fall far enough behind to qualify for school based services which is why I'm making suggestions for outside of school. There are also homeschool programs that don't cost a whole lot. These include Horton Literacy Primer and Toe by Toe. Turning on closed captioning on your TV is another way to help teach reading. Audiobooks borrowed from the library where you see the text and hear it being read can also help. If you can show the decoding deficit, this might be something the school can give him as an accommodation. (The test for his disability is the inability to decode nonsense words. Not sure if this was done with the school's screening.) As texts get more complicated, he will struggle more & more if he can't decode.