JSD24

The thing my child had the biggest need for was reminders to use the bathroom as well as the ability to carry a water bottle. What's ironic is, with COVID, the school turned off all the water fountains and EVERYONE started carrying a water bottle. Water bottles were banned by the school many years ago because kids would put things other than water in them and you can't learn if you're drunk. They talk about pendulum swings in education. Makes me think this is going to be one. Extra time on tests was a game-changer too. Anxiety slowed her down. Extra time leveled the field.

If they want a health plan, why did they say they want the child to have a follow-up with a neurologist? The doctor isn't going to write a plan - they are going to give them clearance to attend school (just like the ER docs did). If the school wants a health plan, they need to say that. Things need to be in writing so everyone is on the same page with understanding what's needed for the medical suspension to end. Common sense says that the prescribing doctor is who should come up with a plan if this is due to a side effect of a med. (My feeling is schools are short on common sense in some situations. I've seen this with my own child.)

If school personnel feel that a student needs medical clearance to attend school, I believe you can request that the school pay for the exam. In addition, I would want this in writing. After 3 unexcused days, a child is truant and, if the parent feels they should be in school, they could not, in good conscience, write an excuse note for their child so the absence would be exclusion from school on the school's part. In other words, this is a suspension from school for medical reasons. You want it documented so you are not charged with truancy. (Parents needs to save their absence excuses for the days they feel the child needs to stay home.) I'd also ask the nurse for a referral to a pediatric neurologist. It could take months to get in to see a specialist so homebound schooling could need to be set up. In PA, I believe that after 2 weeks of illness, the school needs to provide homebound instruction. I feel the school nurse could say this but, like I pointed out, it needs to be in writing or email because I see a ripple of things that could happen as a result. Did the nurse explain what he/she was seeing where they feel it's neurological and not a side effect of the new medication? Are they aware of the med change? Is the nurse aware that the ER attributed this to the med change? (I've not dealt with this sort of thing before. This is speculation based on my best educated guess. I welcome others to chime in.)

I can also see where the school might need a bit of time to set up the new supports in the IEP. If a student needs a safety harness on the bus or a 1:1 paraprofessional, you want 15 business days to get things put in place. If a parent waives the 15 days, is the school now out of compliance with the IEP because the harness didn't arrive the next day? Are schools allowed to say no - they are unable to start the new IEP immediately given situations like this? If the parent has been trying to put a support in place, I see the waiver as a way to prevent further delays. Seems that things like this end up having pros and cons where it should be used when it's an advantage. My personal thought is to wait 24 hours to have time to think when it comes to things like this.

Students shouldn't be falling behind - it's a red flag. There is saying that ADHD never travels alone. 2 of my children got an ADHD diagnosis & proved this correct. One has ADHD & autism; the other has ADHD & dysgraphia. There are other disabilities that co-occur with ADHD and dyslexia and dyscalculia are 2 of them. His falling behind has me thinking that the school hasn't assessed all areas of suspected disability because, with a 504, it infers that students are being given accommodations and that's all they need to have the same access to their education as their nondisabled classmates. If the school missed something, a student might fall behind but the solution is the school doing additional evaluations. So long as they don't redo an eval that was done within the last 12 months, they can do more evaluations to help figure out why he has accommodations and is still falling behind. I'd request this in writing so you have a paper/email trail. (BTW, all states are required to have standarized testing in grades 3-8 and once in HS. It is part of ESSA and NCLB before that.) Maybe you can explain to him that these tests were put in place to see how well teachers are doing their job and it's a reflection on them - not the students - with how well he does. If your child does end up in a different school next year, there are ways to make that transition easier. This includes having him tour the school - maybe more than once. Introducing him to his future classmates and teachers. With being more familiar, it should help make the transition smoother. This could be an accommodation that's added to his current 504. And while you're at this meeting, you could ask for an accommodation that he stay in his current school because 504 & IEP teams can override school policy. (Just be aware that staying might mean the you need to provide transportation. My school has allowed this provided the parents get their child to/from school.)

In this situation, I'd write to the case manager/special ed teacher: Hi- I was looking at the IEP and it says the 1st progress report won't be done until June. I feel it's too long to go without knowing how the IEP is helping. Is it possible to get an update on progress in early April so we can see if the IEP is helping or if it might need to be tweaked? I'm concerned with getting this in June and then school is out for summer and not being able to meet to tweak the IEP until several weeks into the next school year. A parent/teacher conference to look at progress in early April would also be a substitute for this where I can discuss XX's progress with you. Please let me know which works better for you.

My suggestion is to enroll her back into the brick & mortar HS and at this same time explain that she currently attends a cyber HS and completes her work in 2-3 days. With moving to a 5 day per week school, you feel she will need, AT MINIMUM, a 504 and possibly an IEP. (The difference is that 504s provide accommodations. An IEP does too but adds specially designed instruction which I'm not sure is needed.) If she's successful in her current school, I can see them saying no to an eval. My other thought is to keep her in the same school but see if she's eligible to do extracurriculars at her local HS. I'm in PA & this is allowed. Not sure where you live so you might need to research this in your state. She's be able to do sports or the school play here. My state also has an option where homeschool students (this would not be for a student going to an online public school) can spend up to 1/4 of the school day taking classes in the local school. Not sure if other states have this option. In my area, most of the brick & mortar public schools also have a cyber school. The one in my district doesn't offer all the classes you need to get a diploma via the cyber school. This might be a good situation given her medical issues. She'd have some classes that are cyber and some classes that are in the school building. Transportation during the day would be on the family in this situation. I know you asked about an IEP for her but I wanted you do be aware that there are options that are outside of IEP & 504 for students like your child.

Not a myth but the worst parent request. I saw a post the other day that went: I think my child has dyslexia. What screener should I ask the school to do? My reply was (1) You don't want a screener. They aren't accurate. If you suspect a disability, ask for a special ed evaluation. (2) You want the school psychologist to do evals (or screeners) that they have been trained to do. If you request they do a test they aren't familiar with, the results may not be accurate. Better to ask what tests they plan to do and then do a search on what the evals cover. If it doesn't cover what you want assessed, more testing can be done. The big myth I see is that school psychologists can assess for dyslexia. Their practice act doesn't allow them to diagnose. The best they can do is determine if a student has a learning disability in reading. A person who doesn't follow their practice act, can lose their credentials and no credentials means no job and they aren't going to risk their job. The problem here is you want a program that remediates dyslexia if that's what your child is dealing with . A student identified with LD in reading might not get that. There aren't enough teachers who are trained to deal with dyslexia. How to do this tends to be taught in a masters program and most special ed teachers won't have a masters degree. I guess this is another myth: All special ed teachers can remediate dyslexia. The corollary myth is: Reading specialists can remediate dyslexia. These teachers are not trained to remediate disabilities - they are general ed teachers.

My kids graduated in 2022 but I remember getting a FERPA notice annually when I updated info on the parent portal. This was electronic. I also was given procedural safeguards at the IEP meeting. (I refused them. I can look it up online if needed.) Not sure about getting PPRA and Rehab Act or the OPT notices. A few years ago, PDE changed mandated school age. You need to be 18 to quit & take your GED. I think there is a loophole where you can quit if you have a job. This: Section 1330 of the Pennsylvania Public School Code states that a 16 year old student "who is regularly engaged in any useful and lawful employment or service during the time the public schools are in session, and who holds an employment certificate issued according to the law" is exempt from compulsory attendance. There is no specific number of hours given in Section 1330. Therefore, each school district should have a policy that specifies how many hours of employment are necessary in order for a student to withdraw at age sixteen (16). From: https://www.pa.gov/agencies/education/programs-and-services/schools/school-services/child-labor-law.html#accordion-0e098facc6-item-a27ab6a14c Pretty sure charter & reg public schools have the same rules on this. I'm more familiar with reg public school - that's where my kids went - this is what I'm referencing. Homeschooling is also an option. I'm not understanding your question about IUs. Kids that go there, their IEPs are written by their SD. IUs don't get progress monitored by PDE. The IEPs would be looked at via monitoring of the public school/charter school. Always good to communicate in writing/email so there is a paper trail of what was asked for when. This would include FERPA records requests. Schools do regularly destroy records. My district has a records retention policy. They might not have what you're asking for.

The school is right. The rules are for initial testing. I'm in PA & once a parent signs a PTR (permission to reevaluate) it's the same timeline as an initial PTE. Definitely a gray area and w/o knowing where you live, I can't even say if you count school days or calendar days. It does make sense that they complete this before the IEP meeting or they will need to meet for the annual and again for going over the updated eval so they can meet the timelines for having meetings.

No matter who is running the program, a disabled person is required to get reasonable accommodations under the ADA. It isn't right, IMO, for the program to unilaterally decide what those accommodations will be. In other words, you should be able to negotiate the support your child will get. Ex: if you have another adult who can go as her support person, this should be OK to do - it shouldn't have to be a parent. They don't need to follow her 504 but it can be used as a guide for what support she'll need. Does it make sense for the 504 to be amended to include that the school provides a 1:1 on school trips given it's needed with trips this program does?

I'm not aware of another school with a DP Specialist so I'm not sure what the normal is with this person attending IEP related meetings. I can make an assumption that DP costs the school a lot of money because they need to have an attorney and they charge $180/hour in my area where costs add up quickly. They might be present so they can avoid DP and these costs. I can see this person's main responsibilities being to gather paperwork needed for the lawyer - like a law clerk who is paid less than an attorney - which saves the school money. It might be good to ask them who will be attending from the school so you know what to expect at the meeting. (I remember a meeting for my son where the psychologist & special ed teacher both had interns/shadows and the school math specialist attended even though there was no reason given for this. We ran out of chairs and possibly violated fire code. I wasn't prepared for this big of a crowd.)

I'd be looking to change the remedial program/approach. Modifying the curriculum can take a student off of a pathway to getting a diploma and 2nd grade is way early to do that. You really don't see students getting back on track once they start getting a modified curriculum. Has he been assessed for apraxia? That can cause some of the issues you're seeing. The remediation for apraxia is very different from remediation w/o apraxia. He might not be getting the right interventions if they haven't correctly identified all the pieces of the disability.

I wouldn't want a child with an IEP who gets special ed services (5x30 push-in services for reading) to also get general ed Tier services with a reading specialist. It doesn't make sense. If he's making progress and is on track to meet IEP goals after a year of these IEP services, the school isn't going to see a need for more services - either gen ed or special ed. IMO, the focus should be on how and when the gap will close if he continues at his current rate of progress. When will he catch up if he stays on the current trajectory? Isn't motor planning an OT or PT sort of thing? If they agree, I can see asking to add therapy to the mix.

The data makes me wonder about a few things. Could this be a blip where he's getting used to the new class? Could this be a different person evaluating him where they are using a different bar to measure him? Looks like he's due for another data point soon. I'm curious to see where this one lands. I'd be less concerned about getting accommodations and more concerned on how he's doing relative to same-age classmates. Is the gap getting bigger or is he catching up? Is the ROI goal appropriate?