My 8 year old daughter completed 2nd grade this past school year and will be starting 3rd grade in August 2023. She has always enjoyed going to school but her behavior towards school this past school year changed in a negative way. My daughter would almost be in tears in the morning while getting ready for school because she didn't want to be at school all day. She gets picked up early from school at least 2 days a week for her therapeutic horseback riding and her occupational therapy and on the days that she doesn't get picked up early my daughter would be very upset about having to be at school all day which was very unusual. I reached out to her teachers about the behavior changes at home and they assured me that everything was fine at school. Her teachers were giving her extra support in the classroom and she was making good grades because of the extra support from her teachers. My daughter has a 504 but I felt like her behavior at home warranted further evaluation by the school and when my daughter had her appointment with her new Developmental Specialist in March 2023 the Developmental Specialist agreed that my daughter definitely needed to be evaluated by the school ASAP. I immediately submitted my written request to have my daughter evaluated by her school and she was evaluated for an IEP by her school in May 2023. When my daughter school psychologist emailed me a copy of the FIE report earlier this month she stated in the email the following "The evaluation supports that your child meets eligibility as a student with a specific learning disability in the areas of basic reading and written expression, as well as the characteristics of dyslexia and the related disorder of dysgraphia.
While the evaluation report supports the presence of a disability, the need for special education services is an ARDC decision. We will hold your child's ARD meeting within the first 15 school days of the 2023 - 2024 school year." I am looking for advice in all areas related to my daughter learning disability, upcoming ARD meeting and how I can help her in general. I am hoping that they will provide her with an IEP but there will be a lot of new administration at my daughter school this upcoming school year so this makes me extremely nervous because the previous administration was really understanding and willing to go above and beyond to make sure my daughter gets the services she needs. Also, I need advice on how to handle requesting a shorter school day for my daughter. My daughter school decided to do a different academic calendar for the 2023-2024 school year that involves a 4 day school week during the months of September - April and a five day school week during the months of August and May. School start time is 08:00 am and end time is 04:15 pm. Previous school start time was 08:00 am and end time was 03:30 pm. Because of a medical condition my daughter needs to leave school no later then 03:30 pm like she has since kindergarten. I have a letter from her doctor that states she needs a shortened school day during the 2023-2024 school year and I had already made arrangements with my daughter principal before the school year ended but I recently found out that the principal is not returning to my daughter school district so I am going to have to start over with making arrangements with a completely new principal. When I spoke to the previous principal she really didn't know if she could approve my request because she had never experienced this type of request before. I did share with her the information that A Day In Our Shoes website states from the OCR website on shortened school days specific to hidden disabilities and I believe that helped with making the principal not object my request but with the new administration I don't know what to expect. I also want to mention that with my arrangements for a shortened school day I will be requesting that my daughter teacher keeps track of any missed teachings and school assignments that she will miss due to getting picked up at 03:30 pm and that on the last day of the school week the missed teachings and assignments be sent home for my daughter to attempt to complete during her school break days. I thank you in advance for your assistance with this matter.
