Smiley74

Is pre-determination only a thing with IEPs or does it also apply to 504s?

I think the District is trying to be difficult and claim requirements that aren’t required to be proven for other students. It almost make me want to draw up a state complaint just so they are forced to go into other files and see the requirement to quantify minutes has never been required of any other student. The teacher barely sees the misbehaving on in the classroom so I have no idea how on earth the teacher can say they notice or don’t notice educational impact. The impact would all be student reported for things like focus and emotion.

School is asking that the educational impact of a disability be quantified in terms of minutes (ex can’t focus for 15 minutes after episode). Two questions -is this a reasonable ask to quantify with specifics ? -what is the “rule “ or “standard” that needs to be applied when proving educational impact?

I am pretty sure one reason is because the teacher is not doing the accommodation for “frequent check-in to assess for on task behavior” as the student is frequently left to work independently.

Is there a cheat sheet of when a 504 complaint is a state dept of ed complaint versus federal OCR complaint?

I’m pretty sure there’s only one student in a like ability peer group that has a specific academic accommodation, but the accommodation is being applied to the entire group (chunking). It doesn’t bother me that the entire group gets a weekly assignment as part of chunking, but teacher says only the student with the 504 is the one who often comes unprepared not having completed the work before the group meets. My gut say the chunking for the student with the 504 should then be different than the general education experience, but school is disagreeing because they say they are chunking (they could give monthly to do or longer check points)

Child is 10 and really bad at self advocacy. Teacher had the document just didn’t follow it. Score absolutely would’ve been at mastery had the environment been appropriate. My kid usually takes pretests in the afternoon while this particular teacher has planning time, but on this occasion to the pretest with the rest of the class for some unknown reason. The tapping of others pencils, others whispering, etc are distractions not present in the 504 environment

School acknowledged they didn’t follow the 504 when administering a pretest which then caused the child to sit through instruction that was not appropriate (child should have received alternate higher level work when mastery was demonstrated). School asked me what they could do, but I’m drawing a blank. The next unit is already in progress and enough time has been wasted so I don’t want the higher level packet to be given after the fact (it likely wasn’t that meaningful anyway). Is there anything appropriate the District should be doing as a result of not following the 504 that could make up for having to sit though a week’s worth of instruction not at my child’s level?

I already did, but there were assessments and other classwork that had been administered without accommodations so I’m trying to figure out if there was anything that compelled the District to implement the 504 with just text that said “I agree”.

But can they not provide them specifically because I didn’t check the box and instead wrote “I agree with the above, but…” and checked the Informal conference because I wanted a conference? I know they could’ve and that would’ve been the right thing to do, but they seem hell bent on not giving anything they don’t absolutely HAVE to. Is there anything in IDEA or Pa code that says if I write I agree they need to provide?

I returned a 504 draft from checking the informal conference box and noting this in text, "I agree to the above accommodations, but believe they are not wholly inclusive of her necessary accommodations and those currently being provided to her during the school day." School is still calling it a draft, saying I didn't agree because i didn't check the I agree to proceed box, but I literally wrote 'I agree to the above" and signed the document. Is the document still a draft and can't be implemented and shared with the team until I check the I agree box?

Yes they discontinued the IEP. proposed 504 is still garbage. A lot of items I am asking to be in there they won’t because they say teacher is doing it. I work on the “hit by a bus” logic that it’s super if one classroom teacher is doing XYZ today because that’s how he manages the classroom, but he could be hit by a bus at any point so XYZ needs to be put into the 504 as an accommodation. And school is concerned about the length which with multiple add I’m not sure how accommodations can always boil down to less than 10.

Yes I’m in PA. School tells me because the IEP ended in May (where the accommodations were embedded because IEP is king) that means so did 504 accommodations and an initial new 504. They checked off initial plan and not modified plan on the 504 draft paperwork. School doesn’t dispute her 504 status, but just says she has she has no accommodations in place because I don’t sign in agreement to the draft in May (because he wrote it as her needing to self advocate to get accommodations).

I just came from a school meeting on another topic where the teacher informed me the 504 plan is expired because I did not sign it in May 2023 revision. I did not sign it because it was a crappy unilaterally driven plan from the principal which stripped away any remotely helpful accommodation and rephrased everything to have either a 9-year-old ask for the accommodation herself, or for it to only be administered if it was convenient for the teacher. It is not the initial 504 plan it was just an update, because IEP was being terminated, so the 504 and GIEP pieces needed to be split out into their own separate documents.

School is trying to mandate a specific type of fidget/soothing object that may not necessarily be a preferential object for my child. (Main issue is teacher had allowed the entire class to play with putty and then some children were making popping noises with it so she put a universal ban on it including all children who had 504s and were allowed fidget objects.) I provided a formal recommendation letter of need for putty specifically as requested and still school is coming back with changing to a different fidget. Can school force an arbitrary fidget on a child or does the fidget have to provide benefit to the child?

Is there a requirement that when doing an evaluation, the child has to have input? School did a sensory evaluation consisting of only the school companion of the Sensory Profile 2, but did not provide the parent or student with any opportunity to participate in the sensory evaluation (10 yo). Is the Sensory Processing Measure a better evaluation? Does anything take into account the child feedback versus solely relying on a teacher to be noticing? Seems a little one-sided if only one person is asked to evaluate for a concern, especially if there's very subtle things happening and kid "flies under the radar". Child is not an obviously distracting kid due to anxiety surrounding getting in trouble and fear of being sent to principal. Child is a fidget object user, but it's very tiny and discreet so I'm not sure teacher is even aware it's in use (though allowed by 504). I know school is oblivious to times child sits out of recess due to social issues (kid tells parent teachers are elsewhere and no adult approaches them to ask why alone, etc). Child is also bothered by classroom distractions (noise, actions of other kids, etc), but not by loud or sudden noises. Enjoys certain rhythmic noises when self-made (ASMR sensation), but finds them irritating when made by other people (typing on keyboard, fingertip tapping) Is there a chicken and egg thing here-anxiety causing sensory issues/needs versus having both anxiety and sensory disorders? How dos it get teased out in an accommodation when school claims nothing is seen as academic impact?

Are the completed teacher rating scales viewable under FERPA? Scales were only given to one teacher who spends far less time with my child and school refuses to reissue observation scales to the teacher present for a longer duration of the school day with my child. (Note my child splits classrooms so neither teacher is present with the other one.)

My District had started to default to virtual meetings, are there any provisions that can force all participants to be in person? I personally dislike when District participants are together in the same office for a zoom and parents are elsewhere. It seems unbalanced and ripe for sidebars parents aren’t privy to. It was convenient to have meetings virtually during covid and convenient now if someone can’t make it to school, but in person is still very much my presence.

I think I remember reading somewhere that a school can still provide accommodations even if a 504 plan has not been put in place. Is that correct? The request has been made and diagnosis and suggested accommodations supplied from a licensed provider , but just waiting on the school to move forward with the meeting.

Formal diagnosis by made by outside nueropsych and then shard with school. School then denied 504/IEP despite discrepancy from IQ (no academic failure, but only performing "average" which is below expected based on IQ of 130+ 2e kiddo). After being pressured, school now only offering RTI, but nothing else. Since the diagnosis is already known prior to RTI, should thee now be a 504 at minimum since reading support is being offered and there is a known diagnosis?

In PA, does a diagnosis (say dyslexia) a documented thru nueropsych/academic testing, can scjool tefuae a 504 or IEP request and only offer RTI reading support (pull out small group to the reading specialist)? As a side note, district does NOT use the RTI model to identify SLDs-they use discrepancy model.

I know there is specific language in PA Dept of Ed ch16 regarding gifted ed that says the below. Is there something similar for 504s? I didn't see anything in chapter 15 that says the district can only offer accommodations that are convenient for them to do so as opposed to providing/agreeing to accommodations "which are needed to afford the student equal opportunity to participate in and obtain the benefits of the school program and extracurricular activities without discrimination and to the maximum extent appropriate to the student’s abilities (ch15 PDE)". (e) Gifted educational placement may not be based on one or more of the following: (1) Lack of availability of placement alternatives. (2) Lack of availability or efforts to make educational or support services available. (3) Lack of staff qualified to provide the services set forth in the GIEP. (4) Lack of availability of space or of a specific facility. (5) Administrative convenience.

The entire meeting is set up as unbalanced and there’s not much luck to even the number of people at the table for both sides. The District always looks like it is ahead from a number of people at the table view. I’m tired of academic failure being the only path to an accommodation. By the time a kid gets there, there could be so much more “damage” done and now so much more work to do to right their path and support them. I’m tired of hearing staff go on about how well they know my kids when they don’t have a clue that they’ve brought them to tears multiple of times and they just used time at their locker or in the bathroom cry.

I don't know what going's on other than achievement isn't matching IQ (the kid is doing the work). A comprehensive language processing eval was done which did CELF5, LCT2, LPT3, TAPS4, and articulation. It looks like only the CELF Formulated Sentences is the one subtest that may look like it addresses pragmatics. The score was in the 98th percentile.

In Pennsylvania, does a district have to have documentation somewhere that specifies how they identify kids for RTI versus IEP versus nothing? Is that something that has to b in the special education plan they send to the PDE every couple of years? I know IDEA says you don't need academic failure, but in the case of 2e kids it's hard to hit whatever magic testing threshold the District is looking for to warrant an IEP because "average" on language processing evaluations is dismissed because WISC Verbal Comprehension Index is over 130 and there is likely some self-compensation going on.