Jgrubb

My child is in middle school. He has been diagnosed with autism and ADHD. He has not been diagnosed with disgraphia, but cannot write. He forgets how to form letters and writes big. He also has processing issues. I’m told this causes him to be unable to write and type his own work. He had a one on one assistant half the day from second grade through fifth grade. The assistant was working as a lunchroom monitor the other half of the day. In 5th grade, he still had the half day assistant. Then, he also started spending more time in a resource classroom. He had his re-evaluation at the end of fifth grade. According to the assessment, my child was FMD in math and writing. His other scores were in the normal range. The new director of special education stated that all of the kids with the most serious disabilities were the students bringing down the scores on the state assessments. These students, she also stated, were going to be put on the alternate assessment. During the ARC meeting, the superintendent (who had never attended a meeting), the resource teacher, and the director of sped kept talking about how well he would do on the alternate assessment as apposed to the regular assessment. The superintendent also said the regular assessment would stress him out. I was also told that he had went outside after recess by himself twice. This was despite the fact that he was not supposed to go anywhere alone. Instead of blaming the staff for not watching him better, it was used as a reason to put him in the Alternative Classroom. Because of my child’s writing and math difficulties, my husband agreed to this. I ended up agreeing, because he was the one I thought would side with me against all of them. Anyway, my child was placed in an alternate assessment classroom. Last year, he was allowed to go to two classes as well as lunch, club, special class, and Bible Release Time with the general education students. This year, the sped director and alternate classroom teacher said there is too much material to cover for him to go to any regular education classes, except for his special class. I never receive any work or progress monitoring from the class. I take this back. I used to get unfinished work. Then, I asked how he had unfinished work when he’s supposed to have a scribe and someone helping him work. I also got blank copies of booklets he’ll be working on. I’m always told to look at the standards covered by the alternate assessment because that’s what he’ll be learning. I told them orally and in writing I want to know what he is learning. I have went to the class a few times to see his work. It looked like baby work, so I asked the superintendent if she could find out what he was learning. After this, the sped teacher and director brought me a ton of folders that they said held his work. I was able to look at some but not nearly all of it because I had to work. Every nine weeks, I get a letter with some boxes checked stating he is making progress toward each of his IEP goals. I only got progress monitoring during the ARC meeting at the end of the year last year. He cried the night before school started this year. He did not want to be in the same class with the same teacher. I talked to a guidance counselor at another middle school in our county. He would not be any better off there. What should I do?

Anytime the teacher is having a student move a clip, or whatever they do for discipline, there should be a discussion about the behavior. The teacher should talk with the child about why the clip is being moved. They should discuss the reason the behavior is bad. They should discuss an alternate behavior. Our school uses a behavior monitoring chart for kids in behavioral RTI. The teacher uses the sheet to list the undesirable behavior(s) and tallies the number of times the behavior(s) occurred that day. If the accommodation(s) is/are working the number of tallies will decrease. If the teacher makes notes about the behavior(s), he/she might also notice a pattern in the behavior(s). Are the behaviors occurring at a certain time or when a certain thing happens? If the teacher knows this, it might be easier to avoid and/or correct the problem behavior(s). When your child displays the problem behavior(s) is he/she sent to a counselor? Our school has a guidance counselor and another group who does counseling. I believe at least one of them helps deal with problem behavior(s). This person could also help with the IEP and a behavior plan. I would think seeing a counselor should be done before a child is suspended.

A test is supposed to help the teacher. The teacher is supposed to see if there is an item or items that were missed by several students. If that’s the case, then the teacher needs to reteach the material covered in the question(s). Maybe, it needs to be presented to the IEP Committee, not in the IEP, that if other students are failing then the material needs to be retaught to everyone who didn’t pass the test. Then, everyone needs to be tested again. The teacher(s) can test over the same material but with a different test. The same thing is true for assignments. If a lot of people are failing assignments and assessments, the problem isn’t the students or your child’s IEP.