JSD24

I'm in PA & providing PWN happens automatically after the IEP meeting because what gets signed by parents to OK the IEP is the PWN. I would write something with KISS in mind: Dear IEP Case Manager- Can you please provide PWN for the request for captioning of instruction via CART that was discussed and requested at XXX's IEP meeting on June X, 2023. Thank you, I know exactly what your child needs. I'm HOH & I do OK in meetings & in lectures but I'd do better if I had hearing aids. I have to work harder to absorb what's being said. You are correct that her implants do not provide equal access. They provide access but it's not equal to what non-disabled students have.

Schools follow the IEP. Ask for work samples to be required as part of progress monitoring. If she's getting 4 out of 5 correct, have the ICT teacher send you a copy of those 5 math problems. The other thing that can be done is a sp ed assessment. Ask the school to evaluate her math ability to see how things are going since the ICT teacher's data is incongruent with state testing, MAP and iReady results. Something has got to be inaccurate. Students who are getting B's shouldn't be scoring well below basic. Another option you can do is print out some unmodified problems and have your child work through them. Save a copy of what she did & note how long it took her to do. (I know PA has sample questions on the website that lists state standards.) If she's meeting goals of 80% on modified tests, what's the next goal? 90%? Unmodified questions? And for Carolyn. They might not have saved the passages but they can tell you their protocol. They used an online test of some sort. What's the name of the website? What grade level did they pick? (I remember a story from an advocate about a teacher who gave the same passage each time. Student had unbelievable progress but the testing was invalid.) You can also make up an assessment yourself. Write a passage that's ~100 words. (With 100 words, the math on words/minute is EZ to calculate.) Have the child read it. Look at the state standards or get help from a librarian to make sure it's at grade level. Your results might not be all that accurate but it'll be better than the nothing the school provided. Here's an example of how you can do this: Here's more:

Schools follow the IEP. If it's not in the IEP, the school doesn't need to do it. That said, document, document, document. Write an email: Consultant suggested X. School said that they would do X but this wasn't added to the IEP. I am concerned that without this being in the IEP, my son will not get X at school. Please take my parents concerns in this email and copy & paste this into the parent concerns section of the IEP. Thank you. This is how you can document what was said at the meeting & get it into the IEP.

K these days is like 1st or 2nd grade when I went to school. Kids need to focus & learn. You don't say what state you're in. Every state has standards that students need to learn. Do a search: standards in ___ (your state). Read them over for K. Do you feel your child will be able to learn all this a year from now with how she's progressing? If the answer is no, another year of preK is probably the right choice. I tend to be for staying with same-age classmates. IMO, there's more benefit to extra sp ed post HS than pre K. With some students, they just aren't ready for this and you need to lay a good foundation to build on. With a 40 second attention span, I just don't see her meeting K standards unless this changes a lot over the summer. (You said she's at a 24 month level. These standards are for age 60+ months. That's a huge difference.)

Your child has to go to the school that can follow the IEP. In my district, we have 11 elementary schools. If you need emotional support, only one of those school offers this service. If your child needs this, they go there - no matter where in the district you live. It's similar for ASD support (4 schools), MD support (1 school), life skills (1 school). I was working with a parent in another district. Her child is severely dyslexic. They have 0 people trained to treat dyslexia in her district. (I have a feeling they are not identifying these students & when they do, they aren't getting the researched based remedial programs required under IDEA.) She's looking at her child going to a private school as that's the most appropriate placement given the severity of the disability. If a school doesn't have what your child needs, it's not LRE. IDEA doesn't consider what's best for your child from a social/emotional perspective. They look at the student getting what they need/following the IEP. You might need to waive a service or 2 (ones that you neighborhood school lacks expertise in) if you want for your child to go there. This is the angle to use to sell the neighborhood school as the right placement for your child. (I waived FAPE for my son. I had to sign paperwork in the presence of witnesses. It took awhile for the school to prepare the paperwork. I don't think this happens that often. BTW, it was the best thing for my child. I took him to 1:1 speech therapy - school did group - and he was cured in 4 months. He had over 4 years of school therapy with little progress. He moved his tongue laterally. That was his speech problem. The school therapists didn't see this in group therapy.)

I think this is very typical. In the education world, they look at access to getting an education. Medical therapists look at this as well but also look at access to the rest of the world. Given the different criteria, you'll often find that outside therapy is easier to qualify for as well as being more comprehensive. EI tends to use a medical model.

This page has resources in KY for sp ed: https://education.ky.gov/specialed/excep/Pages/FamParRes.aspx Hopefully you can get answers from here.

It sounds like CA is different from where I am (PA). We get an IEP & we also get a NOREP (which is PWN) and it's the NOREP/PWN that parents sign. I found this on CA & PWN: https://serr.disabilityrightsca.org/serr-manual/chapter-4-information-on-iep-process/4-17-what-is-prior-written-notice-pwn/ It looks like you'd need to request a change of placement & have the school say no in order for PWN to be of use. What you really want is 'stay put'/no change the the current IEP or placement. I believe in CA, parents hold the cards with moving the IEP process forward because you need to sign that you are OK with the IEP for the new IEP to be implemented. I'm not exactly sure how the process works but my feeling is that you should write a parent concerns letter. You want your child to stay where they are because you just changed up support and you don't feel things have been in place long enough to say it's not working and your child should change schools. I'm hoping someone with a better handle on how things work in CA answers this too.

When Keystones were first introduced in 2013 (my daughter's class was the 1st class to take them - she was class of 2014), there was a project based assessment that substituted for passing Keystones. They tried it & realized you needed to pay teachers to oversee these projects & schools didn't have the funds or personnel to do this and that path faded away as implementation dates for keystones being a graduation requirement kept being pushed back. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't one of the alt pathways that was part of Act 158 of 2018. My school district just started offering the ASVAB as an alt pathway. What's cool about this option is the ASVAB also has a companion part which takes how the student did and comes up with career suggestions that match the things they are good at (per the test) with potential job pathways. Graduating based on meeting IEP goals is an option but these students are generally not headed to postsecondary schools or a career with a lot of opportunity for growth. There's a class you can take that counts as passing the Keystone but I don't feel that doing this really shows mastery of the subject.

In my district, we have RBTs who can push in behavioral interventions when a student is in gen ed classes. I don't see how this methodology would work with students who have emotional disabilities. I don't believe this is best practice. I'm surprised with reporting them to the state that they haven't pulled the teacher's license. (If reported to the school, they might not do much if the teacher has tenure.) One approach would be to show your child needs a firm but calm approach without swearing. Then you have the teacher follow the IEP/find a placement that fits his needs.

You're on point with this. I wouldn't look to change an IEP that covered Jan 22 - Jan 23. Every goal should have a service/specially designed instruction to help the student meet this goal. If the goal is to remain calm in triggering situations, there should services to help the child meet this goal - just like you would expect services to teach a child to read if that was their goal. (If they had the skill, they wouldn't need an IEP with this goal. IEPs are all about SDI - specially designed instruction - to meet goals.) There should be mention of the person & place associated with these services as well as a timeframe: Speech services once per 6-day cycle for 45 minutes provided by the SLP in their office. With emotional regulation, the school social worker or someone with clinical expertise & credentials might be providing services. https://adayinourshoes.com/emotional-self-regulation/ (They should be taught when the student is calm & receptive to learning not alongside of someone de-escalating the situation.) If last year's goal will continue as a goal & there was no detail on how the services were provided, I think they should correct this for the current IEP. The old IEP has lapsed. No use spending time on it. I do feel you are in your right to ask how often a goal was worked on, with whom and if it was in the classroom or during a pull-out session. The current IEP should specify what's being done going forward. The situation might fall under something that can be fixed with a state complaint.

Rules like this vary from state to state. I'm pretty sure in my state, PA, that a gen ed teacher would only be required if the topic was moving your child to gen ed for some amount of time. So, no, this isn't typical. (It might be CYA on the part of the school because they were found to not have this when it was needed. IMO, you shouldn't hesitate to sign this.)

In my state, I believe there is a 2 week wait for homebound services to start. There is also a shortage of teachers willing to do this as they do it after school. Some schools offer cyber instruction in cases like this so don't be surprised if this is their solution. (It tends to be a max of 10 hours/week with a teacher coming to your home.) Cyber tends to be more hours. I'm not sure how they can accommodate sp ed instruction since the teacher would need to be sp ed certified.

My children are all high school graduates but my feeling at IEP meetings was that if the school did not see the need to remediate my child, it would fall on me and I have a lot less resources than a school district. I have anxiety and would often take anti-anxiety medication in order to get through an IEP meeting. I'm busy right now but will look at contacting you when things settle down.

Did they have evaluations that documented their position that he's met goals/isn't disabled any more? There should be a trail of him meeting goals and testing out of special ed. You can ask to see their info on this.

I tend to wear nice shirts or polos. Lots of option for pants but my choice tends to be jeans or pull-on pants or capris in warmer weather. In many schools, wearing a suit has you overdressed. If you ditch the suit jacket you might fit in better and still keep with a style you like.

You have a lot going on here. Where to start. First, there is a rule in education/sp ed: If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. It's great that you brought her medical provider to meetings with the school but it can be more powerful to have a provider write a report outlining what challenges a child has as well as how this can get in the way of access to an education. For example, I have convergence insufficiency like your child. Specifically, I have intermittent exotropia. Without the right glasses, I have double vision, dizziness, migraines and a lack of reading comprehension. When I don't get enough sleep, the glasses aren't enough to bring me to where I can read at 100%. A good accommodation for me would be audiobooks so I can close my eyes and still access written material. Since I'm not in school, I'm not sure if my ability to take notes would be affected but lecture notes might be a good accommodation since mine might not be great. These are accommodations (doesn't involve any special instruction) so I could have a 504 with these things on it to help me. When the school filed for truancy, they went to your child's file and see what's there. Was there doctor notes or reports that outline what the doctor diagnosed and how this affects her at school? I'm assuming you do not have credentials in mental health so the school can't tell where you got the idea from that your child needs accommodation from the school. If there was written info from a credentialed provider and they still brought truancy charges, shame on them. If there was nothing in her file, well, her paperwork makes it appear that she's cutting school for no reason or perhaps to cause trouble in the community or in this case, parents are looking to CYA for the child. You do not do sp ed advocacy as your career. Don't blame yourself for not knowing how the system works. (Even experienced advocates learn things by seeing how they play out. We don't know 100% either.) When you go to truancy court, be sure to support her reasons for not attending school by providing the judge with documentation of her mental health struggles from someone with appropriate credentials. This should help with this case. Initial meeting. I'm assuming it's to go over the screeners the school did. It's a start. It would be great if you had access to the results of these screeners beforehand so you can think about your response to what's there which I'm sure the school will do. (Send them an email asking them for this - do it today.) One thing about screeners is they don't take as much time as assessments so they do have a role but being quick, they are not comprehensive and are not as accurate as special ed assessments. It's great that you have had an IEE done but as an outside evaluation, the school will only consider it. I hope you have provided copies of this report to the school so they have time to review it as well as avoid duplicating any of the tests that were used because repeating the same tests within 12 months renders the 2nd test's results invalid. If the school doesn't see the same things outlined in the IEE report, you can request that they redo the assessments using a similar normed, assessment. Good luck with this. I'm not sure about an advocate in your area but COPPA has a list of advocates that went through their training.

There are studies that show anxiety comes with an ASD diagnosis a lot of the time. The bar for a school ASD diagnosis is different from a medical diagnosis. This is why a school can see a student with ASD as a student with an ED disability. In theory, additional ASD testing is what's needed to get the school to see that ASD is the accurate disability category. In my state, the state dept of ed penalizes schools that over-identify students in any IDEA category - my district was dinged for too many Asian students with an ASD box checked. I think this might play into why students are misidentified. The CDC keeps coming out with new numbers on how many kids have autism - latest is 1 in 34. I'm not sure if states adjust their 'over-identify limits' when this happens.

RTI & MTSS are general education things so no need to tell PDE anything about this in the report that covers sp ed. The Child Study Team (your school might give it a different name) should have a rubric for identifying students for RTI & MTSS. You can ask for a copy. If you suspect autism & issues with pragmatics, you want something like the TOPL to be done. With a bright child who masks, you want the optional extended assessment to be done or they might say your child is average. I speak from experience. Applying for Medicaid for your disabled child and having them cover speech therapy outside of school is also an option in PA. This is the application if you want to do this: https://www.dhs.pa.gov/Services/Assistance/Pages/Apply-for-Benefits.aspx

I think sticking with terms that are used and defined in IDEA is good. I do like your term 'learning boundary' where the term 'boundary' is inferring that something extra is needed to move things ahead. It's like saying 'he hit a wall' and we need to figure out a way to get around it with the way being support via IEP (or 504) services. If you use 'boundary', be sure you define it.

Forgot to mention ESY. ESY is to work on IEP goals during a time when school isn't scheduled for general ed students. Summer school for credit recovery is not the same as ESY. If he does take a summer class, he should get the same support that is in his IEP during the reg school year. You do need to have all required IEP team members at a meeting in order to make changes to the IEP. Small/minor changes could be done via a no-meet revision provided everyone is OK with this change. You need to figure out how he went from advanced 95th percentile to not participating in school. To me, it looks like anxiety is at the root of his issues.

At age 16, he should be at his IEP meeting and the loudest voice in the room. To me, anxiety seems to be his biggest issue. It looks to be what's between him & success in school. At 16, they should be looking at transition so jobs, driving, etc so this is appropriate but he's still got to pass HS & earn enough credits to graduate. Sitting in a classroom & not being engaged in learning what the teacher is teaching is not "access to an education". I think you need to talk to your son and see what his perspective is on what's getting in the way of school success. From there you see if data is needed in the way of evaluations or if you can move straight to adding support and goals so your child can be successful.

With a 1st IEP, parents do have to sign off on their child receiving sp ed services. The school cannot provide IEP services w/o written permission from the parents that it's OK. With a 2nd or 3rd or 27th IEP, another signature generally isn't required. If your OK wasn't required, they should have already started services after your March meeting.

I saw a similar post in another group. IEP meeting was on Wed & the school wants him in a new building on Monday. My state's regs say 10 days notice is required to change placement. Looks like other schools are looking to do this as well. If your child is currently in a placement outside of your local school, it means that the local school couldn't provided the services the IEP said were needed. I'd ask what changed? Did the school hire someone? Did he needs change where he needed X and has met goals so it's not needed? I don't think this is predetermination if things changed where he doesn't need the same things he did when he was placed at this other school. LRE is the law so if the local school is LRE because something changed, I don't think you can fight that. Find out what changed so you can see if the school's perception is correct or not.

You are correct that Child Find is on the school so they should be identifying students with disabilities and requesting that parents sign a PTE so they can do an evaluation. I have seen where a student's needs were no properly identified and the student graduated and they did come back & get an IEP & services. Not sure if an attorney is needed to move forward with a situation like this. (Most do offer a free 15 min consult.)