Suzanne

In this situation, she has already completed 1 full year of half day kindergarten with ABA therapy in the afternoons. She continues to do exceedingly well in ABA Therapy at the clinic. What she gets and learns at the clinic, FAR EXCEEDS the majority of what she gets from school. If we take her out of the clinic and send her to school for a full day, the amount of ABA therapy she will get every day will be cut in half or more. Not to mention the credentials of the 2 possible ABA therapists available at the school have not received any praise from any of the parents of children who have received ABA therapy from them. In every case, the parents had to seek additional ABA therapy outside of the school environment. So our motivation for using the School ABA Therapists in lieu of clinic she currently attends is not choice in her best interests. I have never heard of a kindergarten readiness assessment, so I'm guessing that was not done in between preK and kindergarten. As for an IMO, I don't know what that is. The school she attends is NEVER going to just "Offer" an extended school year for any special needs child. Like a 1:1, there will have to be a lot of documentation accumulated and used to argue for it. As for the documentation I am using to ask for a 1:1, it comes from her teacher's assessments, the OT's evaluations, and other documentation collected by the school during the past year. Not to mention, our consistent ask for this since the end of her preK class (April 2022).

I attached a copy of the parent concerns letter that we will be sending to my grand-daughter's IEP team over the weekend. We are asking for a 1 on 1 paraprofessional educator and a few other things in the letter. The school she attends is known for not being receptive to parents requests for their special needs children. If during the IEP meeting, they say something to the affect of "My child is diagnosed with ASD and ADHD, and therefore she will take too much time meeting the requirements to graduate kindergarten and further grades." I want to be able to reply to that intelligently, rather than out of anger. Our fear is they will say we are asking too much and try to get out of most of it or throw in the towel or who knows what. I have read tons & tons of the info on your blog and links posted in your blog. And still learning, which I suspect is what I will be doing for years to come. I totally understand "a knowledge base/skillset I wish I didn't have to have". I think I may need to be more specific on what we want the paraprofessional educator to do. Could really use some insight on that and anything else that jumps out. 2023-08-02-ParentConcernsLetter.docx

I emailed you a copy of the parent concerns letter that we will be sending to her IEP team over the weekend. We are asking for a 1 on 1 paraprofessional educator and a few other things in the letter. The school she attends is known for not being receptive to parents requests for their special needs children. If during the IEP meeting, they say something to the affect of "My child is diagnosed with ASD and ADHD, and therefore she will take too much time meeting the requirements to graduate kindergarten and further grades." I want to be able to reply to that intelligently, rather than out of anger. Our fear is they will say we are asking too much and try to get out of most of it or throw in the towel or who knows what. I was not aware of the link you sent above, but will be reading it shortly. I have read tons & tons of the info on your blog and links posted in your blog. And still learning, which I suspect is what I will be doing for years to come. I totally understand "a knowledge base/skillset I wish I didn't have to have".

We are requesting an immediate IEP meeting via a Parent Concerns letter. We have asked for a 1:1 and used past documentation from previous IEPs, school evaluations, and our repeated request for a 1:1. What if the school says, "My child is diagnosed with ASD and ADHD, therefore she will take too much time meeting the requirements to graduate kindergarten and further grades." I know this is illegal, but I really need a good response to something like that and am not sure what that should be.