JSD24

Are they willing to say what program or methodology they are using with the OGE instruction? You want to check out the research on the program they are using because remediating dyslexia should result in the gap closing - not getting bigger. These programs don't work with every student so if there's no progress, you want to change up what they are doing. (If what's in the IEP is happening & you aren't getting good results, you need to know so the student is not stuck with ineffective instruction. If the instruction isn't happening, you can't tell if it will help.) Does the IEP say who provides this remedial instruction? Maybe your ask is: who provides the instruction? From there, you can see what the provider's credentials are as well as asking the student how often they meet with this person. I was working with a family where no one in the school district was trained in an O-G based remedial program. In other words, there was no way to provide an IEP for SLD in reading because they employed no one trained to do this. District has 2100 students so not very big. If going up the chain of command doesn't help, filing a state complaint is the next step.

I think you need a lawyer. You signed the non-disclosure. Your child is a minor and as a minor is incompetent to sign a contract (I learned this in business law class). There might be things he can disclose that you cannot. This does sound like it could be retaliation for - I'm assuming you sued the school to get the settlement - suing the school. The thing it, this will be hard to show in a court that this was the cause of the coach's actions. Your post makes me wonder what is going on during the academic activities you cannot be at.

ADHD affects academics because it's a disability of the ability to focus. If you cannot focus, you cannot do school work. DMDD affects interpersonal relationships which is not primarily what goes on at school but it seems to affect your child's ability to follow school discipline rules which is resulting in the inability to access academics. Maybe it's now primary because he has gotten suspended 3X. If the school supports this area, ADHD is likely do go back to being the primary disability. I was told the school needs to address all areas of disability if they affect school. When did educational institutions start using diagnoses to pick and choose what areas of disability they can support? 'Sorry, your child is diabetic and has dyslexia. We can only support their diabetes. We decided that the dyslexia is secondary (child won't die due to dyslexia) and we can only support one of these issues.' It sounds like the school is gaslighting you.

The role of the LEA is okaying the funding of IEP services. If they say no, they are the authority on how to spend the school budget and their decision is final. Works this way no matter how the state regs read on if they have a deciding vote. I have a friend who would always say 'follow the money'. This is where IEP funding leads. Meeting LEA holds the purse strings. (If they thought what the team wanted was perfectly "appropriate" but there wasn't a budget to make that happen, what do you think they are going to say?)

If she has pain and cannot participate with PE, she should be excused. With other IEP needs, the time can be used to remediate her other disabilities so she's not missing instruction to be working on social/emotional or academic needs. APE might be an option but I feel a teacher is not equipped to work with a student with the pain she has. It could cause a situation where what they ask her to do causes more pain.

Is anyone familiar with The Compact rules that makes school policies the same for military families who tend to move around alot? This is the link to The Compact rules: https://mic3.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/MIC3-Rules-Book-WEB.pdf Our state must have recently adopted this because my school district is looking to come up with a new policy to address this. The thing that jumps out at me are their definitions of who is covered by this: “Children of military families” means: a school-aged child(ren), enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth (12th) grade, in the household of an active-duty member. “Student” means: the child of a military family for whom an LEA receives public funding and who is formally enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth (12th) grade. It seems to exclude a student with an IEP who might be in 13th or 14th grade or in preschool. Is there a reason to complain that they are not covered by this?

In order to get academic accommodations, you need an evaluation that the school is OK following that says the student has a math disability & needs math accommodations. If the school evaluated this area and said 'no math disability' and you disagree, you need to request an IEE and hope the school is willing to follow it. It looks like the Title 1 services she was getting was masking her math disability. Now that they are gone, your child is not having the same success in math. If they want to do an eval, I'd agree but be careful what you agree to. You want math evaluated - not a full reeval - she's not due for a triennial eval right now. You can specify this on their permission to do an eval form - or on the letter you write requesting the IEE.

Ask for another copy and check both the 'I agree' and 'I want a meeting' boxes. Write that you feel additional accommodation beyond what is listed are needed for your child. I have a feeling your school district solicitor is very well paid. PA Chapter 15 has nothing about 504 forms or boxes. https://www.pacodeandbulletin.gov/Display/pacode?file=/secure/pacode/data/022/chapter15/chap15toc.html

It's on the school to initiate annual meetings. If they miss timelines, they get slapped on the wrist for messing up - at least this is how it works where I am in PA. Specifically, the case manager should be reaching out to you. You can reach out to them if you want. I wanted to talk about anxiety on an IEP. There should be SDI - specially designed instruction - being taught to him so he has the tools to minimize how this affects him. Is 'head on desk' something he's been taught to do when he's dysregulated & it helps him regulate/calms his anxiety? If not, he should be doing what helps him - and what the SDI has helped him to figure out what works. Talk to him and see what he's learned about managing his anxiety. Find out if head on desk is helpful or if he needs another tool to help with anxiety. Many of the colleges in my area, have summer programs for HS student which place them in a dorm & have them taking a college class to get a taste of what it's like. This can also show if he has all the needed tools to go to college & be successful. See if your area has these. It can be part of the IEP for him to do this.

If your child has an IEP, PDE will provide a scholarship that covers your hotel & conference registration. Conference is Feb 28 - Mar 1 at Hershey Lodge. Deadline to apply is 1/20. This is the link for more info & to register: https://www.pattan.net/Training/Conferences/Pennsylvania-Department-of-Education-Conference If you have questions, feel free to reply with your questions. Hotel is covered if you live 50+ miles from Hershey. Lots of great info plus a chance to talk to other parents. Good food too.

CBT - cognitive behavioral therapy - seems to be the go to technique for most issues. It can be hard to find a therapist because not a lot of people go into this field (I think people also get burned out from listening to other people's problems too). I'm a big fan of Ross Greene. His protocol is to go upstream, figure out where the problem comes from and solve it. He would say that anxiety is the manifestation of how your child exhibits the frustration they have due to their unsolved problem. This a DIY program and this is a link to more info: When I see a student with school related issues, one of the 1st things I'm going to do is ask what sort of support is the school providing - in other words, is this student getting FAPE via their IEP or 504? (GIEPs are strength based and they might list needs but cannot provide support.) With a 2E student, I've seen where there is denial that an individual can both be gifted and disabled so with one masking the other, the student can come across as a typical student who doesn't need any support. You have not mentioned anything about what the school is doing to help your child who has school-related anxiety. Has the school done an eval? Do they have a 504 or an IEP? What areas of suspected disability were assessed by the school? Does your child have Medicaid? An anxiety diagnosis should be sufficient to qualify under PH-95. This opens up CCBH's network to get treatment for this. I understand if you don't want to have Medicaid for your child. Coordinating benefits can be a PITA. I wouldn't worry too much about reviews on particular providers. My suggestion is to make an appointment and take a therapist for a test drive. You'll know after 3-6 appointments if they are a good match for your child or not. I'm also not sure about medication. There are meds out there that are safe for children and can help with anxiety. A therapist will not be able to prescribe but they might suggest going to your ped or a specialist to look into this option. Sometimes, parents are not open to this but you can often see more progress when therapy and medication are used together. If your child has not been assessed for their issues, Ginny Sutton is who I suggest for an assessment. She does take most insurance. She does see a limited number of clients & I know that she has experience with 2E children. I did weave some questions into my reply so if you want to provide more info about what your child's IEP or 504 has in the way of support or how to get an IEP or 504 to support your child, please feel free to add that info. Knowing how old your child is can also help. With more details, we can provide better resources - things to add to what's there. My child was identified as gifted & had a GIEP & a 504 in 4th grade. It wasn't working. She needed an IEP to get the right support and that didn't happen until 9th grade. The school didn't do her eval within PA's timeline so it wasn't until June that we sat down to write out her IEP even though the school requested permission to do an evaluation in the fall of 8th grade. The school had a perspective: 'she's gifted & will figure this out by herself' but 2E doesn't work this way. You need to give a student the tools so they can help themself.

With an IEE, the school pays for the eval & the final product is the eval report. It is on the parent to pay the evaluator to attend the meeting where they go over the report. I've not seen a school pay for this. It's not FAPE if the parent has to pay for part of the cost of the IEE. Ask the district for names of people who do psycho-educational, OT, PT and ST evals. See how much their suggestions cost and if it fits the budget they gave you. This is one eval with 4 pieces. It's going to cost more than an eval with only one or two areas that need to be assessed. IEPs are not one-size-fits-all. What they cost isn't going to be one-size either. A student with more complex needs will need a more complicated eval and complicated means it's going to cost more.

I seem to always say the same thing with kids with autism. They will struggle with pragmatics & social skills. Has the school assessed pragmatics & social skills? Seem that schools tend to skip the areas of need where they are most likely to qualify. TOPL for pragmatics - they might need the optional extended assessment. SSIS is one of the few (might be the only one) evals for social skills. Were these areas tested with the eval the school did?

With an IEP, there are goals & progress monitoring. You don't have that with a 504. There are also gen ed services called RTI & MTSS. There is a lot less paperwork with this & no evaluation is needed beyond what they do for all students. This might be a route to take. Just make sure that if your child isn't caught up by the end of the school year, that the school evaluates to see if an IEP is needed as it will provide a higher tier of instruction as well as the progress monitoring that is key to making sure the gap closes between a student with a disability & their classmates.

It's really about how the district writes the job description. It is possible that in your district, they can't per the job description. I was told if a district doesn't have something a sp ed student needs, they need to create it. (Maybe the IU has a para with this sort of training/job description.)

1) Most states don't have a timeline for arranging a meeting. At best, they have a timeline to reply to a request for a meeting which is around 10 days. There always are required members of an IEP team; you might not be able to get a quick meeting if they are not available. 2) Absenteeism is the reason they don't put names in the IEP. They will say 1:1 adult support - not Mrs Jones will provide 1:1 support. If your child is getting the services in the IEP, the school is in compliance even if the person is unfamiliar to the student and the time ends up being non-productive because it's spent establishing a trust relationship rather than having instruction happen. With a student needing help with anxiety, my thought is to have backups. If he usually goes to the TOR but has a good relationship with the GC & school nurse, have them be the backup when the TOR is out. 3) Talk to your child. Ask them what makes sense. Are there a stack of pads in the gym that he can punch if physical exercise helps them with anxiety? When a student isn't anxious, they should be learning what helps them so they can do that when they get anxious. There are calming apps and breathing patterns that can help. Maybe a quiet space where he can go & do this is the accommodation you put into the IEP. (Probably better in the long run to be able to self-calm than rely on talking to another person.)

I am in PA & familiar with some of this. A para can provide instruction but the teacher has to 1st instruct the para and then the para instructs the student. Right now, paras are in short supply and might not have the skill set to provide instruction. It really depends on the job description of the para. PA has wrap around/IBHS services. The RBTs that do this are only trained to redirect behavior and cannot do anything academic other than tell a student they need book X and page Y. I think you need to rewrite the job description of the para in the IEP. You need someone who can, in the moment, chunk an assignment or provide instructional support. Your district might call this a teaching assistant or Paraprofessional/Instructional Assistant. Then you'll need to hope they can staff this for your child.

I'd say yes, they can give a poor grade because the student did not complete all the assignments or didn't do great work. You would have needed to modify the IEP to reduce the workload for your child to be given consideration for needing to deal with the IOP. (When something gets modified like this, the school might not get the same credit as a gen ed student.) If she didn't complete the semester, can she earn credit for the classes she was enrolled in? I'm not sure that HSs offer part time options like colleges do where you can take fewer classes when something like this is happening.

You might want to look at the archived Facebook group. I believe there were posts that listed advocates. If not, there's COPAA.

Dear School- The enclosed/attached evaluation from XXX Center shows that my child, XX, has dyslexia, inattentive ADHD, and SLD in math calculation. Please place the following accommodations into place for her via a 504 while we work to find a meeting date where we can get together to put an IEP into place. Extra time on tests - 2X time Extra time (extended due date) for assignments All instructions read aloud All required reading material longer than one page provided in audio format Access to talk to text software for assignments longer than one paragraph No points taken off for spelling errors Calculator available for math assignments and tests as well as assignments that require math calculations like some science concepts that use math Thank you for putting this into place immediately so that XX doesn't need to struggle with her disabilities while we work together to figure out what remedial instruction is needed to bring her to the level of her classmates. Thank you, K-Tina And this isn't the end. After the IEP is in place, she should get comp ed. Five years ago, the school should have figured out she had dyslexia, et al. This means your daughter should receive compensatory education for the 5 years she should have been getting services but didn't because the eval done in 5th grade missed her disabilities. You might also want to talk to a doctor about medication for ADHD. It can help a lot with focus. I know my daughter was identified as gifted after we started treating her ADHD. This wasn't the whole answer because it took another several years to figure out that she also is on the autism spectrum. Unfortunately, the school was using grade school material to remediate a gifted high school student who was reading at a college level. She rejected the material they used and made little progress. She's good now - we got her outside services which really helped.

You can get this into the IEP by writing a parent concerns letter & asking them to put your concerns into the IEP. If you can't change the PWN, does this make sense?

If they are already doing it, they should be OK with spelling it out in the 504. I'd write a parent letter of concern listing out what they are doing but is not in the 504. Let them put the 'already doing this' list at the end. After all, it's just a double check.

Placement needs to be the LAST decision made by the IEP team. He's got a lot of needs that the IEP has to address (because there seems to have been a delay in identifying 'all areas of suspected disability'). How will the areas be addressed? Is the only place that can do this a self-contained classroom? Answer the questions and you will figure out the LRE placement for your child. I agree with Carolyn about child find issue & that your child might be owed compensatory services. This would be for not identifying & remediating his LDs sooner when there were evaluations showing he had these issues. Goals should be for him to catch up to same-age peers/classmates.

Around here home/hospital has a teacher coming to you for ~5 hours/week. I think it's limited to 12 weeks (rule in my state - might be different where you live). You might want to talk to the school & see how much instruction they will provide, what the hours are (it's often after school) and if they have available teachers. Independent study should be more flexible. Taking 4 classes sounds like the better option as it'll be hard for her to focus on both school & the IOP.

Schools can do a behavior plan in gen ed w/o parent permission - it's like RTI/MTSS for an academic issue with a gen ed student. What they seem to be doing is delaying doing a full sp ed FBA by doing this. Just that USDOE has rules saying this isn't allowed. Here's the letter stating that rule: https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/osep11-07rtimemo.pdf My best advice is to file a state complaint. He doesn't have access to his education when he's in the seclusion room. Also, these have been shown to cause trauma in students. He's in 5th and doesn't have AAC? I'd be frustrated and self-harming if I didn't have a way to communicate. I'm so sorry to hear that this school doesn't seem to be providing FAPE to your child on so many different levels. If your state has facilitated or moderated IEP meetings - where someone from the state comes to the meeting - I'd try to put this into place for future IEP meetings.