IEP Supports

[Learning Style M-Fam]

Hello community,

 I have been looking for IEP support advocates and groups for a long time now. The question I want to ask is why would a students school/IEP team reject over and over providing a student with full Support who is currently receiving itinerary or supplementary support. Even though they have been struggling consistently. Rejecting the request of the family and child when performance and records show serious struggle.

[Carolyn Rowlett]

We are going to need more facts for this.  What do you mean by "full support" versus "itinerary or supplementary support?"

I can respond in a general sense...  You need data to show the student needs the support you're asking for.  What do you mean by "records" show serious struggle?  Has there been a school evaluation?  That is what you need to refer to in order to show a need.  Point to struggles/deficiencies shown by the school evaluation and other data (grades, teacher comments, etc.)  and make sure it is documented in the present levels.  If it's there, it needs to be addressed with accommodations.  Ask the team:  "Why aren't you providing the support that the present levels show the student needs?"  If the school evaluation/present levels don't show a need, you can disagree with the school evaluation and request an IEE (Independent Educational Evaluation) at school expense.  Unfortunately, school districts do not have to follow the recommendations in an IEE, but they do need to consider them.

[JSD24]

IEP changes are based on data.  If there isn't sufficient data to move a student who is getting itinerant (special ed for less than 20% of the day) support to supplemental (special ed for between 20 & 80% of the day) support, the student stays where they are.  Similarly, a student getting a supplemental level of support will not be moved to full support (special ed for 80% of the day or more) if there is no data to show this is needed.  (The terms you used are from PA Chapter 14 of the school code which advocates outside of PA might not know about.)  Full support is given to the most severely disabled students.  My district has 3 types of full support classrooms:  Autistic support, Life skills support (generally for a downs syndrome diagnosis) and multi-disability support (this room tends to have nurses as these are the medically complex students).

Special ed services should be increased gradually.  Schools shouldn't be moving a student from under 20% of the day getting special ed services to over 80% without trying a supplemental level.  A big jump might give the impression the prior IEP wasn't FAPE so a school would most likely only do this if there was a significant change to the student's needs.

Struggle can be hard to measure.  Struggle is a good thing too.  It means the curriculum isn't something the student already knows.  You want to see students grow and they grow with the appropriate level of struggle.  Do you feel the homework requires too much parental assistance?  If the school sees homework getting done and the parent doesn't note that it took 3 hours to get through the assignments and the parents helped a lot with it, the school assumes the student did it with minimal help.  A specific example of the struggle you are seeing  might be helpful with providing more suggestions to get this student more support.