School not allowing student to attend

[Mandy]

We recently moved here from Kansas, and my child has an existing IEP.  They were discharged from a residential facility prior to our moving because 1)we were moving to PA and 2) they felt my child was ready for a less restrictive environment.  The current district has had the IEP since August 30th.  We moved here on September 16th.  As of today, my child still has not attended school or been provided with any educational opportunities.  We have not had an IEP meeting, there have been no evaluations, the school personnel have never met my child, and as of this morning the person most heavily involved in refusing to allow my child to attend school had yet to read the IEP.  I have been emailing them regularly trying to get updated information and they either don't respond or give excuses as to why they can't move forward.   They referred us to an outside placement, but that facility determined my child was not a good fit.  The school has made additional suggestions for placement that also do not seem appropriate.  
Basically, what do I do now?  My child not attending school has resulted in a 2 week stay at a hospital and I don't feel like we're any closer to a resolution than when I first began this process.   Any help or insight is appreciated!  

[JSD24]

Let's start at the beginning.  What does the old IEP say is the placement?  What are the supports & services?  This is what the new school needs to do.  Ask to meet with the sp ed supervisor and go over what's in the IEP that's holding your child up from attending.

Write a parental concerns letter outlining that your child graduated from an RTF and was looking forward to the move and consistency of being back in the neighborhood school.  Meanwhile, she regressed because she has no structure with being out of school.  Ask them what needs to happen so she can start attending.

PA has facilitated IEP meetings, I think you might want to ask for that.

[Mandy]

The old IEP has the placement at a special needs day school in Kansas.  Current supports and services are: transition services, life skills, adaptive physical education, special education services, health services, extended time to complete assignments, multiple, individual breaks, modified work load, headphones, questions read out loud, assist in understanding prompts, fidgets, calculator.  I've met with the supervisor and she only continually repeats that the school is not an appropriate placement, not why, despite saying they can provide comparable services but won't (because it's not an appropriate placement).  

I have written parental concerns letter almost weekly, usually also using it to summarize a phone call the supervisor wanted instead of continuing the conversation via email.  I have pointed out the regression (although the supervisor says the hospital stay is why they couldn't do anything).  I have asked what needs to happen, she only responds that my child cannot attend the school.  She said she was going to set an IEP meeting, and I believe she even mentioned a date, but has not sent out any notice of meeting as of now.

I have spoken with the ConsultLine (this morning), who has just now sent a letter on my behalf to the supervisor, the person for monitoring and improvement, and the person for the bureau of special education.  She also provided me with a complaint form.

I'll look into the facilitated IEP meetings, thank you for that!  I never dreamed it would be so difficult to even get my child through the front door of the school.

[JSD24]

The new school has to follow the old IEP.  The old school messed up if they didn't have an IEP meeting to change the placement following release from the RTF.  "They felt my child was ready for a less restrictive environment" but failed to document this so the new school district knew this.

Schools (teachers and subs) should not be expected to be omniscient and magically figure out how the other school felt.  Without documentation, this appears to have been the expectation.

There is a saying in education:  If it's not in writing, it didn't happen.  To facilitate moving forward, you might want to email the KS school and tell them the 'New school is having difficulty following the plan to move to a less restrictive placement following discharge from the RTF.  Can you please show me where this was documented in the IEP?  Was there a letter or email that stated this?  If there is no documentation showing that this was the plan, can you please create it?  New school is attempting to follow the old IEP and cannot find a similar RTF with an empty bed to place XX in.  Meanwhile, XX doesn't have a school placement to go to.  Help!'

Not sure if a no-meet revision to the old IEP is appropriate since it doesn't seem to say that a self contained classroom within the public school following discharge from the RTF is where he needs to be.

[Mandy]

I'm sorry, I should have clarified.  The discharge paperwork from the RTF (included with the IEP) says they are ready for a less restrictive environment.

[JSD24]

PA has a system of APS - approved private schools.  Districts seem to like these because PDE helps with extra funding.  They might not be looking at discharge paperwork that's separate from the IEP.  IMO, you need a meeting (and I think you'll want to ask if you can record it) so you can get more details from the school on this.  If he's not in a building, the district shouldn't be ignoring him.  Education in the home might be something to ask for so he has access to an education.

If you are in SE PA, this might help:  https://adayinourshoes.com/iep-private-school-placement-list-chester-county/

BTW, when a student is hospitalized, home/hospital should kick in.  The thing is that he's residing at the hospital so their school district needs to provide the education and this might not be the one you live in.  It is a messy situation & I'm glad the state has this on their radar.

My district is emailing IEP related documentation to parents.  Be sure to be checking Spam in case your IEP invite ends up there.  I've also seen where a parent didn't get an invite & the IEP meeting was held w/o them.  (In this case, the school was unable to show that it was sent.  Parents are divorced & neither got it.)  I was thinking about suggesting a charter public school but it might cause further delays in figuring out what his IEP needs to look like.

[Mandy]

We do have an IEP meeting scheduled for Wednesday.  I've sent a new parental concerns letter last week, and this morning sent a request for agenda and any draft IEP they have created.  

The hospital did provide a mix of what they called homebound instruction (at the residential setting) and their private academy, but the short amount of time they were involved did not generate any progress reports or report cards.  I have provided the school with this information, and they are still demanding access to the medical records.

I know most of this IEP is going to be them talking and me listening and making notes.  I've spend the whole weekend going through this weekend and toolkit to get ready.  We'll hit 28 missed school days as of the date of the meeting, and my primary focus is rectifying that.  I'll keep you updated, thanks again for your help!

[Mandy]

I just got an email from the LEA representative stating that "only took on Local Educational Agency (“LEA”) status when (child)was discharged from her inpatient hospitalization", which was several weeks after registration (registration on September 25th, discharge occurred October 18th).  

I can't find any information on when a school district takes on as the LEA other than when a student transfers, and it doesn't have provisions for hospitalizations.  Part of me thinks she's just posturing in a weird way that doesn't matter, but I'm still getting red flag vibes. 

[JSD24]

District of residence is based on where a student sleeps.  If they are sleeping at a RTF or hospital, the district the RTF or hospital is in is the LEA.  When they sleep at home, the district you pay taxes to is the LEA.  (I've not seen this written but I used to meet regularly w/ my Pupil Services Director.  We have a RTF in my district & she explained how things work.)  Not a red flag bad vibe in my eyes because I've seen it before.  (Most districts have policies where a student can live/sleep in a district their parents don't live in and they can go to the other district's schools.  It's also how foreign exchange students get to go to US schools.  If you sleep in the district, you can go to school there.)

Not sure if this applies but a students needs to be available for evals.  'In the hospital' is not available.