Carolyn Rowlett

I would reach out to the director of special education and relay what happened. If they are going to take away something that was agreed upon during the meeting, they need to hold another meeting - so request one. Also, at a minimum, the PWN should state that you requested a 2:1 aid, were denied this, and the reasons why.

Here are the three possibilities and pros and cons of each: 1. District provides the services without a 504 Plan or an IEP. The school district would have no obligation to monitor progress under this scenario, but they might. If they don't, she should monitor her child's progress in case these "voluntary" services show insufficient progress. If that case, she might want to request an evaluation for an IEP so that specific goals, minutes, and progress reports could be requested. 2. District provides the services by way of a 504 Plan. 504 Plans can provide "related services," which can include speech therapy. However, again, there would be no goals or progress monitoring with a 504 Plan. 3. District provides the services by way of an IEP. Specific goals, minutes, and progress reports could be requested. However, the IEP might be written so that the speech therapy is considered a "related service" and not "specialized instruction," meaning that goals and progress monitoring would not be required. My advise would be to go along with what the school is offering, but keep a close watch on progress. She can always request a 504 evaluation or an IEP evaluation to obtain data when she thinks that is warranted.

Let me preface my response with the fact that I do not have any experience with pre-elementary students. But a quick review of the IDEA shows that when a child reaches the age of 3, they move out of Part C (Infants and Toddlers) into Part B, which includes "all children with disabilities between the ages of 3 and 21." So I don't see how the LEA would not be responsible for FAPE in this situation. My first thought was to contact your state department of education. But I'm not sure what "IFSP" stands for. I'm guessing this is through the state? Even so, you could reach out to the department of special education and ask for clarification/correction on what you have been told by the case manager. If it is someone within the school district, I would go up the chain of command or jump straight to contacting the director of special education for the school district. My interpretation is that the school district is responsible for providing services AND transportation. However, you will need to establish that your child has a disability. I'm not familiar with what transfers over from Part C to Part B, so you may need to "start over" by requesting an evaluation, etc. Your state department of education and the district's special education director should be able to assist you with the process.

The Council of Parents Attorneys and Advocates would be the best organization to go to for a strong attorney recommendation in the areas of law you list.

Hello. Compensatory services are very complicated, but I will attempt to answer each of your questions below: 1. Although you should check with your state department of education, generally, compensatory services do not have to be provided on a 1:1 basis. It depends on how much progress (or lack of progress) the child made after being denied the required services. To determine this, you may need to request an IEE to show that the child could have made more progress had the required services been given. The goal is to get the child to the point they would have been had the services been provided, but this does not necessarily mean that make-up services have to be 1:1. 2. ESY and compensatory services are two distinct services based on two distinct determinations and cannot be provided concurrently. 3. Who can be a "Reading Specialist" is likely defined by requirements set forth by your state department of education. A general education teacher may very well meet the definition depending on his/her training in early intervention reading, etc., or whatever the state requires. But if the IEP states "Reading Specialist," it has to be someone that meets this definition. I do not think a PWN would be appropriate to deny something already written into an IEP. An amendment would be the correct route, but I would fight that. 4. If they are not using Wilson and that is written into the IEP, they are in violation. I'm surprised they stated a specific methodology if they can't/won't use it. The problem you might encounter, however, if you tried to enforce this by way of a state complaint or due process is that the state or hearing officer would be sympathetic to the school district if they could show the methodology they are using is comparable to Wilson. Again, they should amend the IEP if they are not going to follow it. A PWN does not give a school district a pass on implementing what's already written into an IEP.

A child should always get all intervention they require to make them successful regardless of the eligibility category. If the primary disability is SLD, they should still receive goals, services, and/or accommodations for anxiety if the evaluations show they are needed to access the general education curriculum. If the primary disability is OHI, they should still receive goals, services, and/or accommodations for SLD if the evaluations show they are needed to access the general education curriculum. Your child's life should not be ruined either way because they school district is required to provide needed interventions in all areas of need. Having said that, I feel the primary disability is important, because that tends to be how the teachers view the child. Do you want the teachers to think your child's anxiety is the bigger problem or the reading comprehension. Also, what do you as a parent feel is affecting your child the most - the anxiety or the reading comprehension? But it will also depend on what the evaluations say, and it sounds like the school district may argue that the data points to OHI -but make them PROVE that if you disagree. I'm also very suspect when school districts want to avoid the SLD classification. They may feel that this holds them to a higher standard, such as providing evidence-based multisensory structured instruction, even though my thought is this is required even if SLD is a secondary category. There also might be state laws that kick in regarding SLD's that they're trying to avoid. Go with your gut - you know you child the best. But also be prepared to back up your decision by referencing data in the evaluations and (if you think it will be helpful) asking the general education teacher what s/he feels is your child's bigger obstacle.

You could try asking for a meeting and agreeing to excuse all the required team members who, by contract, are off for the summer. But I don't know who that would leave you with or if the school would even agree to a meeting under those circumstances. You might also try asking for an informal meeting with the director of special education IF s/he is contracted year-round and IF s/he would agree to it.

You need to file a state complaint alleging a compliance violation in that the school district did not allow the general education teacher to attend the IEP meeting.

First, I would want to confirm that this was purposeful and not just a mistake or technical glitch. Did they actually PROHIBIT her from joining the Google meet when she attempted to? Also, was this teacher listed on the Notice of Meeting? Second, how old is your child? The reason I ask is that if s/he is in grade school age and only has one general education teacher, then yes, this is illegal because a general education teacher is a required IEP team member. But if your child is in middle or high school and another teacher was present, it might not be illegal, because only one is required. We try not to guess why school districts do what they do on this site, but my guess would be that the general education teacher was bringing data to the meeting that they didn't want presented. For instance, the teacher would have information on how far behind the child is academically or how much the disability is affecting his/her participation in the educational environment (without knowing the specific disability, it's hard to say). They should want this information, but they might not if they don't want to provide services.

Are you inferring retaliation? Ask for the policy/standards for determining academic achievement awards. (It's hard to say just knowing the GPA and percentile ranking, as I'm sure every school has different standards and there are all different types of "achievement awards.") If your son meets any of those and didn't receive an award, there's your grounds for retaliation.

First, you need to make sure you are keeping a log of all of these incidents. Second, as soon as you are made aware of an incident, ask for a copy of the nurse's report. All the scenarios you mention above should have resulted in a visit to the school nurse. Third, request a team meeting. It's not clear from your post if she is on a 504 or an IEP. Either way, a discussion needs to be had about how to keep your child safe. She may even need a 1:1 aide. Also, tell the team you are going to put a body cam on your child because she cannot convey verbally what is happening. Check with your state department of education regarding this because all state laws differ, but the consensus is usually that children can wear these in areas where there is no expectation of privacy, which in a school is just about everywhere except the bathroom. Finally, there is probably a way to report these injuries as potential abuse that should be investigated - either through the school district's own procedures or through the state department of education.

Welcome to the group! You might check with your state department of education, special education division. Sometimes they have a list of when a PWN is required.

If a behavior is related to a disability, you absolutely cannot punish that student for the behavior, which includes prohibiting them from participating in activities in which his non-disabled peers are participating. That is discrimination based on his disability. If he has an IEP with behavioral goals, that means the present levels show he struggles in that area due to his disability; therefore, excluding him based on behavior stemming from the disability would be discrimination. You need to reach out to the director of special education who should know this.

The first question this site would need the answer to is: Are you overseas 3-4 years at a time due to one of you being in the miliary?

Hi Stacey. In my opinion, you're not at the point of needing a lawyer. An advocate, maybe, but see the below first. The school doesn't need a "program" to work on written expression goals. I'm assuming from your post that your son has a goal for written expression. If so and he is not making sufficient progress, the services should be changed in some way (sufficient progress is not necessarily meeting "his potential"). The school shouldn't "always" be able to show progress if the goal is written is a correct, measurable way with a baseline and the child is not, in fact, making progress. When you say the "psych eval," do you mean the school evaluation or an outside evaluation you obtained? If it's the school evaluation and you believe that evaluation is not enough to get him the necessary services, the first step (even before getting an advocate) might be requesting an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE), which the school has to provide at no cost to you (or take you to court to prove they don't have to provide it). Once the results of that evaluation come in, the team will hold a meeting to consider those results (they only have to consider; they don't have to use them) and at that time you can (hopefully) show his lack of progress and push for different services.

Usually what occurs (but you might check with your state department of education), assuming you can give the new school district a copy of the current evaluation and IEP, they must provide comparable services to what is listed in the current IEP until they either accept this prior IEP or develop and implement a new IEP. If they do not agree the current evaluation report, they must initial a re-evaluation. During the the time the re-evaluation is being conducted, the school district must implement the current IEP or provide comparable services. Bottom line: There should be no gap in services until and if the new school district has data supporting removal of the services.

Federal law defines educational impact broadly and that it can include social, behavioral, and emotional domains. There is no quantifying measure. But you might check your state's eligibility indicators. I do not think 15 minutes is reasonable. That's a lot of instruction time that is being missed in a one hour class. What you need to get the team to focus on is whether the student can access the educational environment the same as his/her peers. If not and it's due to a disability, then it is an educational impact. Other factors than time should be considered - are grades dropping, is s/he understanding the material, can s/he repeat back instructions, etc. Besides, how would you know how much time the student isn't focused? How are they going to measure that? Other than pointing to the things listed above.

First, you need to insist that the IEP be followed in terms of your student getting the teacher notes. I don't know how it reads, but unless it states "upon request of the student," they should be provided automatically. It doesn't matter that he's in high school now - not an excuse for not following the IEP. Reach out to the case manager about this. If it does state "upon request of the student," try to get the language changed, which may require data that he is not able to self-advocate yet. But I understand that from a practical standpoint, it may not happen. In that case, in most high school now, teacher notes are provided on Canvas or some other platform shared with students. (I do realize there would still be the problem of reading those notes, which I will get into in the next paragraph.) As far as tools for note-taking, if notes are on the whiteboard, ask for the accommodation of taking a picture of the notes. If they are lectures, as for the accommodation of recording the lecture. I don't know of any tool that will determine the important information from notes. Does your student have access to text-to-speech? That accommodation reads text to students and is very widely used by not only special education students, but all students. You definitely need to ask for that accommodation, as well as training for your student on how to use it and how to use it without embarrassment (earbuds?). You didn't mention this, but another common accommodation for dyslexic students is speech-to-text to help them with their writing. There are tools (such as a C-pen) that will read a paper document back to a student. Ask for such a tool to be included in his IEP accommodations. But those would not have the ability to take notes and determine important information. Maybe there is an AI program out there that could do this? You may need to ask for an IEP meeting to discuss your concerns. A dyslexic student should not be expected to take notes if the note-taking process is so difficult that it keeps him from accessing all the information that is being presented. The IEP needs to be followed. Tell the team what he is struggling with and ask what can be done.

I would not want the category of ED on my child's IEP (even if not primary), unless the child truly does have an emotional disturbance. There is a big difference between seeing "ED" on an IEP and writing off behavior as something that is inherent in the child and instead working to address the issues that are causing the behavior (failure on the part of his team to understand him/relate to him, frustrations with dyslexia/dysgraphia and lack of instruction/support, etc.). ED may give the IEP team and his gen ed teachers an excuse not to address the behavior properly. Request an IEE. When the results come back and an eligibility meeting is scheduled, make sure you have read and understand your state's criteria for ED and use the specific criteria and the results of the IEE to strenuously argue that he does not fall under that category.

Perhaps you need to request a Functional Behavioral Analysis and then a Behavioral Intervention Plan? So that the underlying causes/triggers of his behavior can be fleshed out, a plan can be put in place to address the behavior, and teachers can receive training to implement the plan. Instead of just sticking the label of ED on him to explain the changes in his behavior.

I believe you would need to get the program written into the IEP in order for the school district to be held responsible for transportation to the program. It being "required by an outside team" is probably not enough. I would try to get a provider (maybe by way of an IEE?) to say that the child needs this program in order to receive FAPE. Then you could get transportation covered. If not, is there anyway to get the state to provide something?

Great question! I haven't come across this issue or researched it, but my thought it that since it is the home district's responsibility to implement the IEP, it would be their responsibility to provide transportation whenever the out of district placement has school and the student is expected to attend. However, from a practical standpoint, I would give a little grace depending on what the transportation is. Such as if it's a school bus and under their contracts the drivers don't drive on certain days, etc., or if it's a cab or Uber that can't get there due to snow, etc.

There are several PA people on this site that I'm sure will respond, but my advice would be to call the state department of education and ask.

I'm not sure that the goal to stop what she is doing and Cath relates to this particular situation where she was asked to begin packing up and leave, but I may not have all the facts. l would suggest adding an IEP goal about following instructions (within so many minutes, within so many prompts, etc., and gradually reducing the minutes/prompts) and relate it so the present levels of executive functioning and task initiation. I would also add an accommodation for being late to class. But in the meantime, if you can tie this behavior to her disability, then no, this is not an appropriate response from the teacher.

The law governing special education (IDEA) states that re-evaluation MUST occur every three years UNLESS BOTH the parent and school district agree it is not necessary. So I would suggest reaching out to the school district and asking if you can agree not to do a triennial re-evaluation. State your reasons for it being unnecessary in your email - progress reports and other documentation is sufficient to determine continued eligibility and revision of IEP, etc. Also, if the testing is difficult on your child or s/he would miss too much (maybe they're in high school now?), you could point that out. You might also reach out to your state department of education (special education department) for any guidelines they might have on this issue.