In school, home school, back in school with an IEP

[Linette]

Hi everyone and thank you for reading this.  

I have a student, B,  who was in kindergarten and part of 1st grade in  in-person school. He was diagnosed with Autism by Children's Hospital, but for the first year of school  his eligibility fell under  ADHD. The parents paid for additional testing, asked for a reevaluation in first grade and his eligibility changed to Autism. During his year and 3/4 or so in school he was put in holds continuously, placed in isolation, and written up as a sexual predator because of sensory processing needs he was seeking. The parents took him out and I homeschooled him along with his grandmother who is a retired teacher. He's doing well and has expressed a desire to attend the same school as his sister who is in first grade. We would like to make this happen, but upon talking with the district, they will only put him in an AN program which is stated in his IEP. They can do a reeval, but this could take up to 90 days. This was clearly the wrong environment for B, and the parents were basically told to agree to this option when he was in school,  as they knew it would be the right fit for B. There was a small isolation room in the classroom and B was in there a lot and the parents not informed. They would like him to be in the autism program at his sister's school, not an AN room that cannot meet his needs.  The district is refusing. We are trying to get this figured out this summer, so B is ready to go to school when is sister does and we don't make things more difficult for him with lots of transitions. 

Can the district do this - can we ask for a reevaluation over the summer, what are our options? We live in Colorado. B and his family have experienced much trauma during all of this, especially, B. Thank you so much for any help and advice you can give me. 

[JSD24]

Districts follow their data.  Their data says that he needs a AN program (not sure what AN stands for).  The truth is that his levels from before are not 'present levels' as a lot has happened since then plus it sounds like the last eval wasn't all that accurate in the first place.  My perspective is the IEP has lapsed so they shouldn't be using all that much of the info from it but it's all the school has.

Is there an outside eval that's more recent?  Has the parents asked the school to consider this eval?

What parents can do is sign to exit him from his IEP where he could go back to school & be in gen ed w/o support - a 504 could be put in place so he'd get accommodations but no IEP & specially designed instruction until the school does an eval.  Family can advocate that the right 504 accommodation is to put him into the school's autism program since that's his medical & school diagnosis.  IEP evals do take 90-100 days - parents can ask for the eval to be done over the summer but schools are not obligated to do that - this would definitely be worth asking for.

Lots of hard advocating to get him into the placement the parents feel is right for him.  And you are dealing with school data to the contrary.  I'd say it is worth trying.  Not sure about CO rules but here in PA, parents can homeschool & enroll in public school for up to 25% of the school day.  If this is allowed in CO, it might be a way to wait out the 90-100 days the eval will take & ease the transition back into the public school.  (Lots of 'creativity' in what I posted  it might be hard to implement this.)

[Linette]

Thank you so much - lots of very creative ideas there - which I will use!