JSD24

I think you're going to need a lawyer. Someone who knows both special ed as well as criminal issues. Your child committed a crime because his in loco parentis failed to follow the agreed upon IEP. It sounds like the 9 page threat assessment will be evidence this lawyer will use when they defend your child in court - that's when the DA will see this. Not sure if you have a counter suit for damages caused by how the school allowed things to play out. Your child was traumatized and you now have legal expenses in order for him to have a defense to the criminal charges that resulted due to non-compliance with the IEP as well as not curtailing the bullying your child endured at school. This could be a case the ACLU or disability rights group in your state might be able to take on. Both groups employ lawyers who have experience with dealing with issues like this.

You can request a travel training assessment to see if she is capable of walking home safely from this sort of activity. If she can't, the school need to provide transportation given what Carolyn posted. Hint: The school might need to contract with a 3rd party for this is their drivers don't work late enough to accommodate the team's practices. And there is Uber for teens - they need to be at least 13.

What's going through my brain is: what did the eval cover? You posted that your concerns included reading, writing & spelling. Did you let the school know these are the areas you suspect he has a disability in? School evals should look at 'all areas of suspected disability'. Since these are not areas of concern with the school, I can see them not looking at these but if you said you thought there were issues in these areas, they should have provided you with data to support him doing OK with this or they should have evaluated this. (You could ask for them to show you why they aren't concerned.) Now if you didn't mention this to the school, now is the time to tell them. They may want to do their own eval before okaying a neuropsych or an IEE. I'm also curious what he scored on PSSAs. I'm not a fan of state testing but if he did OK on the PSSAs, that can assure you (to a degree) that he's on grade level. Basic & Below basic are failing - Proficient & Advanced are passing. If your school uses a platform like PowerSchool, they should have PSSA grades there. These should also be mailed home sometime in August, September or October - depends on when all the tests are graded. PSSAs are given in grades 3-8 and in HS, they do Keystones which are now a graduation requirement.

Families who receive settlement agreements for comp time (or any other reason) need to sign non-disclosure agreements so it's hard for info to be shared. In my area, there was an article about this (Philadelphia Inquirer carried it - see below). Like Carolyn said, filing a state complaint is one route to getting funds when a school fails to provide FAPE. I'm in PA and the complaint form asks what would the person filling out the form want to see as the resolution of the complaint. Saying that having the school provide funding for compensatory services is something to put on the form if this is what a family wants. I've heard stories where lawyers got involved and were able to get a settlement agreement for compensatory services for families outside of mediation or due process as going these route cost school districts additional lawyer fees. In my area, there are law firms who take cases on a contingency basis. With a contingency basis, the lawyers are only paid when the case results in a settlement from the school. Needless to say, it's the bigger law forms that do this. Link to article: https://www.inquirer.com/education/special-education-programs-philadelphia-region-deficiencies-due-process-settlements-20250805.html?id=hw81GFuWaPeFr&utm_source=social&utm_campaign=gift_link&utm_medium=referral&fbclid=IwY2xjawMIVVJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFjcExDWm5rMGdvbFdWa2dqAR7mEMHyrBBqBJukiofL2ZzR_xBduS9zjCCZTF7WStIB10l_aO7BK_LPTf8XEQ_aem_R_1oOUbJvrgZz5nodeTiVg

What state are you in? PA has a Consult Line to call & get questions answered. There should also be a parent training center. There should be a way to cancel the due process and they should be able to tell you how that gets done. This needs to come from the school - they took you to DP. They would need to drop it.

Many schools in PA use an MTSS framework for providing extra support to students in general ed. I don't believe that progress reports are part of what's done in MTSS. From what I'm aware of, only IEP goals require that progress reports are given to parents. Since RTI & MTSS are part of general ed, I don't expect any type of regular parent communication about what's going on. What I would expect is for something to be mentioned during parent/teacher conferences. Something like: He sees the reading specialist 2X a week and seems to be making progress. Saying 'we have no concerns' and then providing extra support seems like an outright lie. I was able to open the attachment. The way I read this was that progress monitoring was turned on in 2019-2020 and turned off/disabled for the 2020-2021 school year. This might have been due to COVID and not seeing students for MTSS that year with social distancing and only having 50% of students in the building at a time. My kids brought home some school work. These are 'writing samples'. They aren't part of an eval, simply 'classwork'. If you feel what you see being brought home isn't at his grade level, you can use this as data to base concerns on. (Protol with evals is you gather the sample, write the eval report and then shred the sample.) My suggestion and I'm not sure if this will work (it did work for me) is this. Let the school know that you have concerns about academics with your child. You're read through the evaluation report and you feel the report doesn't describe the struggles you see your child having. You'd like the school to do a neuropsychological evaluation to see if there is something more than the autism diagnosis/what was looked at during the school's eval. You feel there might be an element of him masking at school because he's smart. Based on him saying "he couldn't understand why other kids were reading chapter books and he wasn't." my guess would be SLD reading or dyslexia. Could also be dysgraphia. It could be executive function or having difficult starting a project. Difficulty starting things can be an autism thing. They lied to you. Shouldn't this change your perspective of the school?

So the school decided to ignore the BIP and things spiraled out of control. That's what I'm getting from your post. He needed the support that's written into his IEP & the school failed to provide it. Not sure why they are taking you to Due Process over their non-compliance with his IEP. On top of that, they decided to further traumatise him by cuffing him and having him spend the night in a detention center. My guess is the school is looking only at what your child did and following school board policy - 'you hit a classmate and destroyed school property and you're expelled' is probably what the policy says. What they aren't looking at is the non-compliance with the IEP and the lack of support they were supposed to provide that led up to this happening. I'm thinking you want to bring an attorney with you to this hearing. They aren't going to listen to your side of things without one. I could say more about how this school allows classmates to bully (it's bullying because it's repeated) your child. They shouldn't allow this to be happening - pretty sure there's a federal regulation about bullying in schools not being allowed. I'm thinking this might not be the right placement for your child. If the bullying happened with the school following the BIP, the BIP might not be FAPE. This is something to also bring to the attorney's attention. Sorry to hear that the school messed up and you now need to deal with this.

Did you make your request for your child to be placed with her friend in writing? If you did, include a copy of that when you ask why they aren't together. There is a saying in education: If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. I feel this is something parents should be aware of. My mom-to-mom suggestion: Get your child formally diagnosed. This way, when you want to start meds, you're not waiting months to get in to see someone who can diagnose. I did this with my oldest. Diagnosed in K; started meds in 4th. (Also, it can take months to get in to see a psychiatrist to prescribe meds. You might want to also find someone who takes insurance & will prescribe - this could be your PCP or someone else. When the time is right to start meds, you don't want to have these roadblocks and delays to starting them.)

I live in a 2-party state. We have a form to fill out if we want to record. They want 7-10 days notice because the district wants to record if the parents are recording. Allow sufficient time with telling them you plan to record in case they also want to record. (They might need to dig out and dust off an old cassette recorder. ) It's hard to participate and take good notes at an IEP meeting. IMO, recording the meeting should be something all schools allow.

I found this which says that parents can observe - it's silent on a behavior specialist observing. https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/education-code/edc-sect-49091-10/ I'm wondering if this is why the school is saying the parent needs to be there. You might be able to get around this by granting the BCBA educational guardianship for the sole purpose of doing this observation of your child. Ask the school if this would be OK per their rules. There's probably a website where you can find out how to do this without getting a lawyer to draft the paperwork. My school does have a policy on this and a professional is allowed to observe longer than a parent since observations are often required as part of a comprehensive educational evaluation. The wording with my school is 40 minutes per quarter but it also says per subject (this is for parents). This means a parent could come in one week and see math for 40 minutes and then come back and see science and PE and ELA and... Did the BCBA say how long/how many times they would need to observe to have sufficient data to do the evaluation they are looking to do. If they're looking to provide an FBA, 20 minutes isn't long enough to have sufficient data on which to do a private evaluation. Also, it's not best practice to have a parent present when a professional is doing an FBA. If the professional guidance on FBAs doesn't fit with the school's rules, I think you have a good case for the BCBA being able to observe more than 20 minutes. This is something central admin would need to OK - in other words, you'd need to go over the principal's head.

One thing that hasn't been said: An IEE is an outside evaluation. Outside evals are 'considered'. School evals are followed by the school. I'd ask their SLP if they are familiar with the TOPL. You want this test if the SLP can do it but you'd like them to do the optional extended assessment as well because you feel he might mask at school where their assessment might not be accurate w/o this extra bit of testing. Meanwhile, get on a list or 2 for an IEE. If the SLP doesn't do a great job, you can ask for the IEE again. My SD has electronic report cards. There are a bunch of different ways to code an absence on the report card. Look up how his being removed from general ed was recorded. Being removed for 3 hours a week amounts to missing one school day every-other week or around 20 days of school over a year. If this isn't reflected on the school's records, I'd file a complaint with your state's dept of ed because their records aren't accurate. Or, if you have this data, you can request through FERPA that your child's school records are corrected given the school hasn't been correctly recording when he had in-school suspensions the prior school year. Not sure about starting with a request to see his records in person so you can determine how often he was given ISS w/o you being informed. School policy should show how this should be handled (and my guess is that parents should be in the loop when this is happening). Policies are generally on the school district's website.

If you are in PA, then Chapter 14 applies. In other states, it's § 300.303 Reevaluations and any local case law that applies. And the federal law seems vague to me. You can file a state complaint for not following timelines - it's a procedural violation in PA: https://odr-pa.org/parent-resources/state-complaint-process/ Without knowing for certian what state's rules apply, it's possible that your school is OK with timelines and the new eval is due in October 2025 or March 2026. In most state, I believe you can request an IEE at school expense when a school fails to do a timely triennial eval. Most state also allow the school & parent to agree that an eval isn't needed. In this case, the progress reports are what defines the stude's baseline on which to determine goals & services. The Stay Put process varies from state to state. If you are not in PA, you should look at the procedural safeguards in your state as that should explain what to do. Given this is a national group, unless a question is posted in a Pennsylvania-specific part of this site, I tend not to assume that the poster is in PA - especially when they call an IEP meeting a CSE meeting. CSE seems to be a New York term. I tried to confirm what the reeval timeline is for NY & I didn't see where it said 3 years from the school's evaluation. It said reevaluations every 3 years or sooner if needed but not more than once a year. And there are exceptions to the once a year rule as well.

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.