JSD24

IMO, this is a great ask. I wouldn't ask at an IEP meeting. I'd write down the sort of things I feel the school should be working on from your perspective and send this to the school in the form of a parent concerns letter. Dear school- I feel that my son, XXX, does need the support of an IEP to learn to read. He seems to lack a foundation in phonics, spelling & grammar which makes it hard for him to read and write. He needs for these basic skills to be taught so he can master them. Only after he has a good grasp of these fundamentals should he look to self monitor his reading & writing. I'd like to meet to discuss changing the goals in his IEP so that we can strengthen his ELA foundation.

One thing I remember being told by my child's behavior specialist is that the different between typical & disabled is often frequency, intensity and/or duration. I'd ask for data on a typical classmate as to how often other students experience the same things. My thought on advice for the mom: Where do you live? Are you allowed to record a phone call w/o permission of the other party? (Not legal where I live.) You can record calls if this OK where you live since the school seems to not be willing to communicate in writing. If permission is needed, the mom can reply: Please call me after 2 pm. Please be aware that I will be recording this call. Your calling me means that I have your permission to record this call. There are apps on cell phone which will allow calls to be recorded but I'd test them out ahead of time.

An IEP from a public charter schools in PA would need to be followed by the public school when your child moves into a district school. As with any 'move', the new school will look to see if additional evals are needed. He would not be at square one. They have to follow the IEP for a month before they decide on what changes are needed. Did the school develop a PBSP after doing the FBA? An FBA is an evaluation to see if a student needs a PBSP. The PBSP is often part of the IEP & would need to be followed just like the IEP would need to be followed. Transition is a different issue. In PA, transition age is 14 so the school is obligated to look at 'life after HS' when a student turns 14. Traditional public schools are more likely to use the IUs to provide transition services than charter schools. His current school should do any evaluations related to transition so they can be made part of his transitional IEP.

If a student isn't following school rules and is making a situation unsafe, the school can and should follow their disciple rules and implement consequences. When the student is exhibiting behaviors that are a manifestation of a disability, That's a bit different. An FBA might be the appropriate assessment so that the right Behavior Improvement Plan or Positive Behavior Support Plan can be developed. I'd like to know what his antecedents are so that they can be avoided or modified so that they don't trigger these behaviors. He can also be taught coping techniques since there might be unknowns that could also be antecedents. What does the school's BIP or PBSP say should be done when he has these unsafe behaviors? If math tests are a trigger, he probably should be given them in the resource room with an RBT or behavior specialist there to help him stay calm. If there is no BIP or PBSP in place, the school is setting him up to be disciplined for things we know are going to happen. This could be looked at as a denial of FAPE since he is being removed from instruction for things that are known to trigger his disability. This violates his rights both under special education as well as his civil rights. I've looked over the research. Suspension doesn't help teach coping techniques to a student with GAD. It is archaic and can be counterproductive - especially if you want to avoid school refusal as a future maladaptive behavior to being anxious. Does the IEP say he has GAD? What are the specially designed instruction and accommodations in place to help teach your child to be better regulated when he's anxious? Is the school following his BIP/PBSP? If the IEP isn't FAPE (and it does sound inappropriate), the school should change it so it can provide access to his education given his GAD. If this has been going on for a while (which I'm inferring from the limited info in your post), I'd say the IEP should have been changed up a long time ago to better accommodate your child as well as maybe ramping up the instruction on coping techniques. I like to use diabetes as a model. A diabetic with low sugar will pass out - which is unsafe for both this student & the people around them. How do you deal with this? You allow them to either eat sugary things in the classroom or head to the nurse to check blood sugars and get something sugary to bring up their blood sugar. You don't suspend them or give them detention for leaving the classroom or for passing out because they didn't feel their sugar level dropping. Seems like the school is suspending your child because they aren't accessing their tools to help keep their anxiety from getting out of range. He might also need to be taught to notice when his anxiety is starting to go into a range where he'll not have control of it. Are you asking for a manifestation hearing when your child is being suspended for a manifestation of their disability? https://adayinourshoes.com/child-suspended-from-school-iep/ I think you need to start with sending the school a parent concers letter. Include about the lack of access to his education when he's suspended. Mention that the IEP doesn't seem to be FAPE because he's not learning coping skills. Tell them that they haven't come up with a good assessment of his anxiety so the behavior plan hasn't worked. (I'm thinking you might need an attorney but I feel you need to see how willing the school is to fix things before you make that move.)

He can walk with his class (do the ceremony) and not get his diploma so he can keep his IEP and stay until his 22nd birthday. The CCIU has a TLP which might be a good choice for ESY. Because the cost of the TLP through CCIU is high, a few SDs have them in their HS. They also have the Aspire program - 2 of them. One has your child do a week at WCU. The other is during the school year where they are on WCU's campus for 3 days and doing the CCIU's discover program the other 2 days. How are his social skills? Things being 'unexpected' from a social skills perspective can definitely cause some anxiety. Is he on the waiver wait list? Do you see him in competitive employment?

Subcontracting is a process. The person has to have the OK of the school board to do this. In my district, it adds a month to go through the process if getting SB OK.

There is a shortage of sp ed teachers so it's hard to find one willing to do a short term assignment to cover a maternity leave. If you are in a more rural area, this will only make things worse. There are a few solutions. (1) Have the teacher makeup the missed time once they return. (2) You can ask about a tutor but what schools do is instruction - not tutoring. There should be a scope & sequence to the support where tutoring isn't always like that. In other words, tutoring isn't an IEP service. (3) With home instruction...if they had someone willing to come to school; finding someone who does house calls is harder. There is no time line with this. The teacher is a credentialed professional. You can't just hire anyone to replace them. The person needs to have the credentials to do this. I'd ask if it's possible to have instruction made up over the summer.

When you do a request for an eval in PA or any state, they want to know what areas you see concern with. There are 100's of special ed evals that a school can do and there's no way to do them all on every student - no reason to do it either. (You can ask for the school psychologist to 'talk' to you via email rather than a phone call. This way you have time to plan what to say as well as a record of what was said. Not sure if they would agree to this.) Parents need to give the school a clue where to start. Do you have concerns about reading, math, handwriting, etc? I'd say it's 'normal' for the school to make sure they understand the parent's concerns so they can do the evals that are needed. There can be meetings to talk over with parents which evals the school is looking to do. The wording in IDEA (federal law) is to 'evaluate in all areas of suspected disability'. You do need to list out what areas you see where you 'suspect a disability'. You called your post "Request to Evaluate teen for Emotional Disturbance", so I'm assuming this is what you want the school to look at. They do have IEPs for ED but I've seen school psychologists be reluctant to check this box on the IEP. When a child has ED, It really needs to be a team effort between home & school. In other words, your child probably needs an outside clinician to work with and have the school offering similar support during school hours. Schools are educational and supportive. They shouldn't be the primary help when a student has an emotional disturbance. ED is a disability. In PA, every child who is disabled is eligible for Medicaid. Medicaid will cover a clinician to work with your child. If your child is working with a clinician who has already done some evals, you should let the school know this for a few reasons. (1) You can't redo an eval if it's been less than a year since it was done. (2) Sometimes, the school will use an outside eval to provide services where the school doesn't do an eval. (3) You want everyone on the same page with treatment. (4) No need to reinvent the wheel either. If there is an approach that helps, that info should be shared. Feel free to post back with questions.

Given the breath of issues that need to be looked at, I don't feel one person would have all the expertise needed to do each facet of the eval. Evaluating auditory processing requires expertise in audiology as well as the right equipment (a sound-proof booth) to do the eval. Audiologists cannot evaluate self control, emotional regulation or executive function - that tends to be what a psychologist does. Sensory falls under OT. There is no certification for social skills. I'm thinking you'll need 3 or 4 people to do the IEE. Did the school evaluate these areas? The evaluator cannot do the exact same eval the school did. They need to wait a year to get valid results. If behavior is the issue, was an FBA done? What evals did the school do?

Is this the same child who had the OT eval you can't be given any info about? They seem to talking out of both sides of their mouth. I'm in PA & schools who mess up with timelines have the PA Dept of Ed breathing down their back looking at EVERYONE's timelines for at least 6 months. Are you going to file a state complaint about this? When my daughter went to college, she had a small academic scholarship but still needed some accommodations.

When did your child turn 18? You might be out of the picture if he's 18 & 18 is the age of majority in your state for educational decision making. Your adult child would need to grant you the ability to see his FERPA protected evaluation report. On the other hand, you wouldn't be involved with their IEP meetings - unless they requested that. If this is the case, why bother telling you that the eval is done? They should have just sent the info to them and kept you out of the loop. Have you talked to your child to see if they have a copy of this report or any info on this? Dear School: In order to fully participate in my child's IEP meeting, I need to have access to what will be covered at this meeting. Can you please tell me the reason you are denying me access to the recently completed OT evaluation? Are their steps I need to take so that I can access this information like I have done since my child started school? Sincerely,

There is no legal requirement for parents to attend any school meeting. I'd ask to see a copy of the eval so you can better prepare for the meeting. (Some states can't do this - it has to be shared at a meeting - but many can.) You can ask when you gave permission for the eval. Unless it was just a records review, parents need to give permission in writing for the triennial eval to happen. You can also ask when they reached out to you for your input. If your child is heading to college or any post HS training program, the school's eval can be used for these schools to provide accommodations. They will need a written report as to why your son needs accommodations in college.

Reading fluency looks at a student's ability to decode words. Once he's decoded something, can he answer questions about what he read? This is how to test comprehension. Did they do this? (You can look up Scarborough's Reading Rope to see what goes into reading proficiently.) If his reading comprehension is poor, word problems are going to be difficult for him because he won't understand what he's read. How does he do with listening comprehension? If someone reads to him, does he understand? If he does, he can use this as an accommodation to access math word problems. Lots of people have problems with fractions. This is a great example: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/how-failing-at-fractions-saved-the-quarter-pounder-1.5979468 Has the school looked at pragmatics? In students with ASD, this is often an area of need that the school doesn't look at. It could also be why he does poorly with comprehension...and expressing his thoughts. An evaluation will show how far behind he is which should help him keep his IEP. Social skills is another area that students with ASD are not great at. Is this what you mean by social services? Social services are generally like talk therapy which he might have difficulty with if he has issues with pragmatics. This explains why the school didn't say autism: https://adayinourshoes.com/autism-whats-the-difference-between-medical-and-educational-diagnoses/

Most of the time, evaluations are copyrighted. Rarely if ever does an evaluator share copies of the eval. If you want to see the eval, you should be able to meet with the evaluator and look it over - no copies with copyrights. Also, you might not be able to interpret the results w/o training. The eval report is a whole different story. You should get a copy of this. This is what the IEP team looks at to determine areas of need and services needed to address them. Sounds like they are splitting hairs? From your perspective: Yes! From their perspective: No, you asked for something that is illegal to copy.

Gifted is mandated in PA. You might want to ask about a gifted evaluation to see if he qualifies. He sounds like a child who needs gen ed and some enrichment but in a smaller group so there is less in the classroom to trigger autistic behaviors. IMO, reading as a toddler is a red flag for gifted. 2E is the profile that schools do the worst job with. Your post, with reading between the lines, says that he is not getting FAPE. They are dealing with the autism but really haven't looked at academics or if he might need gifted enrichment.

My guess is they want him in a self-contained classroom due to the autism. With the behaviors and capabilities of his classmates, they don't cover the same material they cover in gen ed. The thing is, your child is capable of doing this provided they accommodate his autism. Ask them where in the eval does it show he needs a modified curriculum. In other words, your child doesn't fit in their box so they need to create a new box for your child. This is why they need the supervisor at the meeting. I prefer Floortime to VB Map or ABA when a child is smart. (If they spend time on behavior, it's not there to spend on academics.) Always good to bring a 2nd set of eyes & ears to the meeting.

The school does the eval to see if a student qualifies for special ed & an IEP. You cannot have an IEP meeting until after the eval is done. The eval can be used to see what services are needed in whatever school he ends up at. If the public school cannot provide FAPE, they need to pay for another school for the child. (Not sure if this would be the school the parents would pick.) The public school need to evaluate all areas of suspected disability. Some states require gifted IEPs so they might need to look at that if giftedness is suspected. With an IEP, the student gets special instruction (504s provide accommodations & only accommodations). They must provide what the student needs. Your child does not need to be present for IEP meetings. He will need to be there for the school to evaluate him. I feel that vision and hearing are done so the child becomes familiar with the school and the 'strange adults' who will need to work with h to do the eval. You should read what you sign. Not all private schools will provide FAPE. When a student is parentally placed and no sp ed eval has been done, you don't know what FAPE is so you can't tell if the school will provide it. I've seen parents have the public school do an eval & they take it to a private school so they can do their best to support the student. BTW, this sort of eval would cost $3000+ if a parent had to pay & not covered by insurance given it's educational & not medical.

Is this group or 1:1 instruction? My child needed social skills/pragmatics instruction. The person we saw did 1:1 until she was at a good level to know what to do in a group & then she did group. Finding a good group can be hard as you can't force groupmates to be friends. In school, you can't put typical students into a special ed class. My kids felt anything push-in would make them the target of bullies. It was hard to work within the rules of special ed and get them the services they needed. I can see why the school might not want to do push-in. Is it the teacher of the SLP who will be overseeing this? Should be the SLP.

The one thing that isn't considered with 'certified staff' is the student's relationship with the person. You can have an uncertified person who knows enough to provide good instruction & has a great relationship with the child where the child learns & grows. You can have another person with impeccable credentials who does a so-so job relating to students where they don't learn because they are 'rubbed the wrong way' when they interact with the student. I think it's reasonable to ask who delivers your child's sp ed instruction as well as what happens when the person isn't available. It's possible for them to be in attendance & still not be working with your child so attendance might not give you the right picture. It could be the certified staff has perfect attendance but they are in IEP meetings where an IA works with your child most days. I tell parents to look at progress. The only way for a student who is behind to catch up is for them to make more than a year of progress every year. Less than that & the gap widens. Just one year every year & they stay behind. You can ask for progress reports to be given to you more often than your state requires. This can be written into the IEP. Working with the school can make for a positive relationship between school staff and your child - and you too.

(I keep hitting Ctrl Enter like I'm on Facebook to start a new paragraph and it posts my incomplete reply in this forum.) Misunderstandings do happen. Your child might have said 'I don't want to see the counselor' when they really meant 'I don't want to see the counselor today'. That could have been interpreted as 'I don't want to see the counselor anymore'. One thing I'd ask for is a copy of the IHP to see if the request to not see the counselor is reflected there. If your child is saying to you that they want to see the counselor, I'd make the school aware of this. (Do things in writing so there's a paper trail.) I'm also not sure if talking to the counselor for 2 minutes in hallway would count as 'seeing the counselor'. I can envision misunderstandings coming from lots of situations.

I'm not sure. An IHP has no agency to enforce it. I'm not sure if a school can change it w/o talking to the parent. It would be best practice to let the parent know if they changed the IHP. I'm in PA and we have strange rules about mental health services. One is that at age 14, the child gets to decide about mental health treatments. I'm not sure if MN has rules like this or how old your child is. FERPA might prevent you from finding out what was discussed but knowing if your child is meeting w/ the counselor or not should be something you should be aware of since you are coordinating your child's care.

So he has poor self-advocacy skills. Has the school evaluated this? Do they have data that he does not self-advocate for his accommodations? (You might need to keep a log of when this happens.) With data, he might qualify for an IEP so the school can teach him how to self-advocate. This is a life skill. If he's headed to college, he'll need to advocate for everything he needs.

So there was a pretest before starting a weeks worth of lessons and your child's score wasn't high enough for the advanced/enrichment packet because the school failed to follow the 504. Unless they have time travel technology, there isn't a way to fix the past. Providing appropriate accommodations going forward so this doesn't happen again is really the only solution. It would be nice if someone at the school apologized for the non-compliance issue. I'd ask the school how my child should advocate for their 504 to be followed if they find that the 504 is not being followed again. Is there a person in the school they should go to? Not sure your child's age to know if this is elem, MS or HS. Why did this happen? Was a teacher not given the 504? Did they fail to read it? Did they read it & ignore it? Retraining the person who should have know what was in the 504 might help to bring closure to the situation.

Your son was most likely given an initial/triennial eval in 2022 when you moved states. His next eval would be due 3 years later. If you feel he has areas of need that are not being addressed, you can always request an interim eval. The initial eval they did in 2022 might have used info from the eval his previous school did but it does reset the triennial clock.

Asking for 'parent training' so home and school are on the same page & working together can help you find out what the school is doing as well as making the parent more helpful at home. The school needs to follow the IEP. (Problem is that Tier 1 leaves too many students needing help. Not enough 'extra help' to go around for everyone who needs that. This seems to be an issue in too many schools.)