Elemeno

I think this may be a situation that will wind up as it will be, but I am working with a parent (actually, a grandparent with custody) who is sadly trying to get her grandchild as little help as possible. She is at war with the school right now. She has an older child who is in a reduced day situation with mainly extracurriculuars in addition to a life skills class. The younger one, the child in question, is at a different stage and seems very capable of being at least in a resource program. Grandma insists the general ed material is too hard and wants what the older child has. We have the data. Grandma doesn't care and is so far planning to homeschool instead. Our state does have an educational neglect law, but I'm not entirely sure how that is defined.

The state is Idaho. Compulsory age for school is 7, though districts can start kindergarten as early as 5. I've never actually seen a state that didn't have a compulsory age that's different from kindergarten minimum. That's interesting.

No extreme safety issue, more of educational concerns. Parents want a guaranteed 1:1 first.

Grade: kindergarten. This family is refusing to take their child to school until an IEP is in place. The child has about another month before they are required by age to be in school, but the worry is by then the kid will have missed a lot of introduction to school. School is honestly trying to get all the testing and evaluation done as fast as they can, but parents' schedule are impacting the ability to get to evaluations. For how long can an IEP be used as a reason not to attend school?

Honestly, I think just assuming the special education team would limit Chromebook use is a rather big assumption akin to mind-reading, no offense. The fact is a lot of parents highly promote screens and computer use, with the best of intentions (it's soothing, a great way for their child to interact, etc.) So I wouldn't read too much into it and just go forward with a notice you want limited Chromebook time.

The way you wrote this makes it sound even more ridiculous as an accommodation., so thanks for pointing that out. Pure basic extra reading time without any real extra help isn't going to do much. Oh, it might help later down the road where it's appropriate to need extra time to read to learn about XYZ subject, but not when we're needing some specific reading instruction.

I must preface this with some background. A local elementary school is getting upgraded. As in, it has been torn and is currently being rebuilt. The students were bused to a few other schools in the district. Torn-Down school was situated in such a way in the community that it did not require a bussing program. Now, a neighbor of mine is in a pickle. Her background: her child is in special education, and she preferred the program at another school, to be called School B, not the aforementioned torn-down school that her child is assigned to. I believe there was some IEP agreement to this, but it seems it was mostly her choice to fight for a boundary exemption. Because our Torn-Down school does not have a bussing program and because this is typical for boundary exemptions in our area, the onus was on Neighbor to handle transportation. This was all well and good until her husband's work schedule changed. He was the one dropping off and picking up the student, but now is on a different shift... and Neighbor doesn't have a car. It's about a forty-minute walk to School B, across a busy highway. Now, School B here is in fact one of the aforementioned schools taking in students. Neighbor hoped that she could just have her student take that bus, but apparently the school district's perspective is that the bus is for Torn-Down School's students, which Neighbor's kid is not among them. So, the pickle. She can't get reliably or safely get her kid to school, but doesn't want to lose access to this school (her child is not in the grade bands that go to School B). She has also for whatever reason has been hesitant to call an IEP meeting about this. Is this something an IEP meeting could help with or will this likely ultimately end up with "you wanted the boundary exemption, figure it out"?

With a cursory search I still can't find just what Massachusetts' law on toilet training is, but it's likely in your best interest to get the doctor's note. A lot of states have buckled down on students, with no active documentation on medical/development issues with toilet training, being ready in that regard for school.

As for college, I would venture to say most courses would have him reading on his own study time with class time used for lectures/discussions, so it might not be an issue. Audiobooks are often just as available as the regular textbooks.

The first thing that popped into my head was stuff like tests/worksheets with individual questions to be read. I'd look into a separate testing room for those as not to disturb others.

I'd have to have more details, but I don't think an outside program can require a school to do anything without, as Carolyn said, getting this all approved and put into the IEP, which is basically the choice of the IEP team to do so. I'm more inclined to otherwise assume the other program would have to work around school. Which is easier accused than done, of course. If it's not convenient to do the other program outside school (and all that time during school hours doesn't sit right with me unless this is in fact FAPE for this case) I'd definitely see how this would support FAPE and get it into the IEP. Until then, it's likely the program's problem. My guess is any state help would likely look towards the IEP possibilities anyway, so that's the route I'd go.

How old is the last set of data? I can't fault them for wanting present levels of information.

Thanks for the information!

I'm trying to look for any resources on the matter. I read the articles about requesting homebound services and this is a situation that is a bit off the norm. Student is attending a cyber charter through the state and has an IEP for behavior, education autism. Parents have an upcoming evaluation for a medical diagnosis of autism. The school is the type that requires a parent or someone they provide to be the "learning coach". The parent is completely overwhelmed by the student's behaviors and is at the point where they can no longer effectively help with the student and are looking into officially requesting 1:1 in-home help from the school. The school hints that this is a huge change in LRE as this would be effectively homebound instruction with the usual parent helping being dropped in favor of an in-person teacher. The idea has come up to move to a traditional district, which the parents are opposed to, preferring the in-home situation for personal reasons (hence the cyber charter). Traditional school, even with any potential self-contained class, might be considered an increase in LRE. Theoretically, the district school would have greater ability to provide homebound services if the IEP team went that way. But that seems an awful lot of bouncing around in LRE levels. The cyber charter has offered increased virtual support and parent training, but parents are worried it won't be enough. My concern is that the request for an in-home 1:1 is based more on the parents' needs and less on the student. While by state law the cyber charter can't counsel the student out, it seems the IEP team could recommend a different school. Any advice on where to take this?