Laura

Thank you for all this. In reality, it may not be his last year. But based on the previous 3 years at this high school, I believe they will pass him through. His post grad plans are to attend a four year university. Honestly, I'm unsure what accomodations will be helpful for him at the college level. He was identified as gifted in several areas in 5th grade, prior to us knowing he had a disability. At the high school, it seems like executive functioning is just prompting and reminding. He's in EF therapy that is helpful and will likely continue through college.

I’m trying to prepare for the school year because my son is entering senior year and turns 18 in early October. First day of school is Aug 21. Our family’s advocate suggested that my son write a letter to the school stating he wants me as his educational spokesperson, to receive all documentation. He should state that he wants me to attend all meetings, be included in all emails, and to receive all documents. It was suggested that this letter should be notarized. Should he include anything else in this letter? I want to make sure we don’t miss anything. We are concerned because the school district has been very difficult to work with. I expect to be left off communications as soon as he turns 18. He has autism and his needs are in executive functioning and social/communication. He also has some sensory issues. He receives private EF therapy weekly from an SLP, which has been helpful for the EF issues and a little with the social/communication needs. The EF therapy will continue through the school year. He also has therapeutic listening to address the sensory issues. He wants to go to a four year university. We are supportive of this goal and believe he is capable. This goal is in his IEP under Postsecondary Transition as well. At school, he meets with an SLP once per week and is in co-taught inclusion classes with a gen ed instructor and an intervention specialist. Most of the in-school support seems to be prompting/reminding him to get started or turn things in. He has a jam packed schedule in order to graduate. He will have a study hall every other day. One of those study hall periods he will meet with the SLP. He will also not have a lunch period. Also, his last ETR was in June 2022. Should I be requesting anything with respect to assessment from the school? I just want him to get through this (hopefully) last year of high school. We're in Ohio if that is helpful.

Thank you! Another question I have is who initiates the scheduling of the meeting for the annual IEP review? The review date on the IEP is early February, and I haven't received a request to meet. Am I the one that requests this meeting? Or, the school?

I’m looking for suggestions for my son’s annual IEP meeting coming up in February. Do I need to request testing? How are goals changed? I don’t know how to move forward. Maybe I need some encouragement as well. My son is in 11th grade and has autism with executive functioning being his primary need. He also has communication and sensory issues. He receives services from the school SLP once a week and has an intervention specialist. He has 3 goal areas on the IEP: EF, social communication, and social emotional (for anxiety). His EF goals/objectives are for prioritizing/planning, initiating, sequencing, and executing school tasks. Regarding transition, he wants to go to college. Although this is stated as a goal in the transition area of the IEP, I don’t feel that his IEP is preparing him for college. It appears that the IEP allows him to be passed through, instead of teaching the EF skills of planning, executing tasks, and being organized. I question whether the curriculum is preparing him for college as well. He’s in a drama class that somehow counts as English for graduation. He has also been placed in a vocational program. Outside of school he receives services from an OT, specifically he receives Therapeutic Listening (TL) for sensory integration. He started TL in August and it seems to relieve almost all symptoms of what looked like anxiety. He also receives services from an SLP that specializes in executive functioning 1x per week. His EF therapy takes a deep dive into planning and reflection. We had a brief meeting with the school team before the holidays because he seems to be shutting down. Historically, when he becomes overwhelmed in his classes he puts his head down, sometimes for the duration of the class. During these periods, he also does not complete classwork or homework. The head down behavior is now occurring in a few classes - preferred and non-preferred. I believe he is dysregulated due to his EF needs and sensory needs. Once he starts to fall behind on assignments, he starts to shut down like this. The school team is in unity that my son is choosing to put his head down and not complete work. I agree that his response may look like a choice for a neurotypical teen. However, I don’t think his behavior is neurotypical and I also do not think it is a choice. (When I’ve asked, he seems confused and says it is not a conscious choice). I believe he is dysregulated and don’t know how to communicate this to the team. They don’t seem to see it. Last spring 2023, his progress reports indicated that he “mastered” his EF goals/objectives. He has not. The observations the team used as evidence for each goal being mastered were unrelated in many cases. It is my feeling that the school team does not know how to address EF. At times, I feel like we are talking about different things. The present levels for the EF goal lists teacher observations and some data related to his BIP goals. (The BIP was created for work completion). The present levels do not contain any testing results. Some additional background: In middle school, he was in advanced classes. Then, he failed several classes in 8th grade, went to summer school for one, repeated another in 9th grade, and is currently in what he calls an “alternative” English class and a vocational program at his high school. He was not identified by the school district until 9th grade at 15 under the ED category (due to complete shutdown behavior – staring at walls, space, computer, sitting on the floor in one class, etc). An IEE at the end of 9th grade determined his difficulties in school were due to autism. His category was changed to autism shortly after. I have an advocate and she attends all the meetings with our family.

I need advice or help or something. Next week, we have a meeting with the school to discuss ESY or repeating a course in 11th grade for my son. While the year isn’t over for another 10 days, it looks grim. My son will probably fail Chemistry for the year and need to either take it in summer school or retake it next year. I’m not sure which route to go and have not presented the options to my son yet. (I am waiting to have this discussion with him when he has definitely failed the course. In the past, these discussions are not motivating to him and have the effect of causing him to shut down and not do any work for the class.) I fear that this is going to be devastating for him, as it was the last time this happened (going from 8th to 9th grade). I'm also wondering what the purpose of this will be - it seems to be just to pass him through. I am at a complete loss and honestly didn’t think this is where we would be this year. I have been fighting with the school all year to include supports that were suggested from an IEE last school year. While they changed his IEP category to autism immediately upon receiving the IEE, they did not include additional appropriate supports without me constantly prodding and having meetings with them. And, it seems they are unwilling to make changes without a meeting with the entire team. In Nov, he had a panic attack at school and I went to the superintendent and then the school board in order to get a communication system in place and speech services at school. (He is receiving speech and executive functioning therapy outside of school as well). My son has autism with significant executive function deficits. His goals are related to initiation, sequencing, execution, and prioritization/planning. He was identified at the age of 15 in 9th grade (last spring). He is currently finishing 10th grade and is 16 years old. He was in advanced courses through middle school, and struggled. He failed 3 courses at the end of 8th grade (Covid year with multiple modality changes through the year). He went to summer school for English in order to move up to 9th grade. He retook Algebra I in 9th grade (even though he already passed the State test). The third class was Spanish - he has taken no language in high school. He was identified as gifted in Mathematics and Reading in middle school and used to test in the 95-99th%tile for most standardized tests. He is currently in really low level inclusion courses – Geometry and English. But, these courses are not typical 10th grade courses. For example, he is passing English because 90% of his grade is spelling tests. (He was in inclusion classes last year and they weren't like these classes - these are different). He completely shut down last year after being removed from advanced courses and being placed in inclusion classrooms. I found out in his IEP in Feb 2022, that he spent most of the school year in his English class sitting on the floor in the corner surfing the internet. In Q4, he did not do a single assignment in several classes. I am really concerned about how this current failure is going to effect him. We had him in therapy 2-3 times per week last summer and 1 x per week through the school year until his SLP went on maternity leave a few weeks ago. Throughout this school year, his gen ed teachers keep asking me what they should be doing or how they can help him. The intervention specialists, coordinator, and director of spec ed are vague in their responses about what they are doing and what is helping. Instead of sharing what they are doing to support his executive functioning, they seem to be talking to him about unrelated things – summer job, weekend plans, learning to drive, etc. While they are now sending me an almost daily email, they are not collaborative with respect to sharing what they are doing and they are not receptive to suggestions from outside professionals.

How do I find or request the Special Education budget or spending for my school district? I suspect my school district is diverting money towards legal fees, settlements, and administrative fees instead of special education services. There were several OCR pending complaints from my school district about a month ago on the OCR website. Now, they are gone and they are not listed in the OCR resolutions. My thought is that the school district settled with the families involved. I am aware of several families working with lawyers and I've heard from many families about their fight for services. I want to bring Special Education spending to the attention of the Board of Education. There are no recent procedural complaints or due process complaints for my school district on my state website. I find it hard to believe that no one has filed these types of complaints and is why I suspect the school district is settling instead of going to due process. How can I verify that though? I've had moderate success approaching an individual Board of Ed member in my school district. I met with her one-on-one. I'm wondering if I should go to a Board of Ed meeting and share my experiences publicly. If I publicly share our experiences and concerns, is there any obligation by the BOE to address those concerns?

Contact your legislators here to show your support for federal bills that can help end harmful, traumatic crisis management practices in school. Here's a link about several bills from Lives in the Balance: https://livesinthebalance.org/take-action/

I’m just another parent and live in OH, but wanted to offer some support. You are going through so much. The school absolutely should have contacted you when your baby tried to jump out a window – they know it and that’s why they just stared at you. I am angry and heartbroken for you. I have twin 16 year old boys. When they were your girls’ age I kept them in the same classroom. They are at the same high school now. I can totally relate to removing both from the school in solidarity, for safety, and maybe just to keep things a little easier for you. Jada is clearly unsafe there. They are either unable or unwilling to help her, and made the situation worse. If Jade isn’t having any school problems, it may be ok to send her. I say trust your gut. If you feel it is unsafe for her, don't send her. It sounds like you have an OCR complaint with the hospital. Have you considered an OCR complaint for the school? Maybe call the state dept of education too. I wish I could do something to help you.

I'm considering filing a Child Find violation against my school district. My child was identified by the school in 9th grade. Now, the school can't meet their needs because the needs are so great. My child was in advanced classes not long ago. Now,they're in remedial classes and not on the college track. They're failing a class and will likely need to re-take it next year. They don't have the skills to execute work, although cognitively they are able to understand and do the work. I am working with several outside specialists and spending hundreds to thousands on therapy and advocacy every month. I will need to spend this kind of money for the foreseeable future. We are not wealthy. My child's trajectory has been completely changed because they weren't identified when they were younger. I want my claim to be successful. I have an email from a teacher telling me to look into ADD specifically. It's from almost 2 years ago. And, I don't want to throw her under the bus. I know she was trying to be helpful at the time. I have emails from over the years that express various concerns. Perhaps something there will be helpful. We didn't know about special ed and how to request services. I feel like someone should have told us how to request an evaluation for services when my child was younger. What other documentation would show that the school knew my child needed help and should have been referred for evaluation? I'm meeting with a lawyer in a few weeks.

The school team devised an elaborate note card system for data collection. My son is being tasked with this data collection. I’m not sure how to address this with the team. Background: my son has significant executive functioning deficits. At his last IEP meeting a couple weeks ago, his executive functioning goal was changed to “When provided fading supports (visual, verbal, gestural), student will use his executive function skills to complete academic tasks in the classroom and tutoring room, for 80% accuracy, over three consecutive weeks, as measured by running records.” The objectives for this goal are broken down to initiating, sequencing, executing, and prioritizing the academic tasks. The school has him using a daily note card to record assignments each day. It’s organized by class period. He writes his assignments next to each class period number. The current note card system has been successful and he uses it. The new card system has pictures one side and the letters P E S I next to each class period. I think he’s supposed to circle a letter for the executive function task he is working on or did or something. I’m actually not sure what he’s supposed to do with this and he is unable to explain it. I understand that they have to collect data, but they are tasking him with it. I feel like this burdens him with an additional executive functioning task. They tried to say that this is for him to 'self monitor'. But, self monitoring is not part of his executive functioning goals. I’m not sure what to ask or how to address this.

What happens after the facilitated meeting? Does the facilitator write or share a report with anyone? Or, is the information just filed away?

Thank you so much! Our meeting is this coming week. I think it will all go fine but I'm really nervous about it. I feel like it's an opportunity to resolve a lot of issues and I don't want to miss anything. The school team was really resistant to most of my concerns until after I met with the superintendent and then a BOE member right before Christmas. They have become a lot more collaborative, especially after my meeting with the BOE member. But, there is a lot of distrust on my end. It sounds like this process may be really helpful.

Also, is it typical for the facilitator to request a teleconference with us before the facilitated meeting?

Another strange thing on my son's draft is the last ETR date. He received his first IEP last year and we received an ETR around that time. Pretty quickly we knew something wasn't right and an IEE was done. Based on the IEE report, his category was changed to Autism and we received an ETR. This was back in June. On the draft IEP, the original ETR date is shown. It may be just a sloppy error and they may have forgotten to change the ETR date on the IEP. But, it's making me question whether they actually changed his category. For most of this school year, I have felt that the school team doesn't really see my son's behavior as autistic behavior. I'm wondering if part of that is due to the ETR not being shared or something. I guess I'm just confused on all of this.

In Ohio, we have the Autism Scholarship Program and the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship Program. The Ohio Dept of Ed website has a list of all the schools that accept either. These programs are limited though. Unfortunately for us, none of the schools we thought would be a good fit would take my child. And, it seems like most of the private schools on these lists are at their capacity. I'm hearing that there are years long waiting lists for some schools. But, a list does exist. Maybe your state has programs like these?