JSD24

With an IEP, there are goals & progress monitoring. You don't have that with a 504. There are also gen ed services called RTI & MTSS. There is a lot less paperwork with this & no evaluation is needed beyond what they do for all students. This might be a route to take. Just make sure that if your child isn't caught up by the end of the school year, that the school evaluates to see if an IEP is needed as it will provide a higher tier of instruction as well as the progress monitoring that is key to making sure the gap closes between a student with a disability & their classmates.

It's really about how the district writes the job description. It is possible that in your district, they can't per the job description. I was told if a district doesn't have something a sp ed student needs, they need to create it. (Maybe the IU has a para with this sort of training/job description.)

1) Most states don't have a timeline for arranging a meeting. At best, they have a timeline to reply to a request for a meeting which is around 10 days. There always are required members of an IEP team; you might not be able to get a quick meeting if they are not available. 2) Absenteeism is the reason they don't put names in the IEP. They will say 1:1 adult support - not Mrs Jones will provide 1:1 support. If your child is getting the services in the IEP, the school is in compliance even if the person is unfamiliar to the student and the time ends up being non-productive because it's spent establishing a trust relationship rather than having instruction happen. With a student needing help with anxiety, my thought is to have backups. If he usually goes to the TOR but has a good relationship with the GC & school nurse, have them be the backup when the TOR is out. 3) Talk to your child. Ask them what makes sense. Are there a stack of pads in the gym that he can punch if physical exercise helps them with anxiety? When a student isn't anxious, they should be learning what helps them so they can do that when they get anxious. There are calming apps and breathing patterns that can help. Maybe a quiet space where he can go & do this is the accommodation you put into the IEP. (Probably better in the long run to be able to self-calm than rely on talking to another person.)

I am in PA & familiar with some of this. A para can provide instruction but the teacher has to 1st instruct the para and then the para instructs the student. Right now, paras are in short supply and might not have the skill set to provide instruction. It really depends on the job description of the para. PA has wrap around/IBHS services. The RBTs that do this are only trained to redirect behavior and cannot do anything academic other than tell a student they need book X and page Y. I think you need to rewrite the job description of the para in the IEP. You need someone who can, in the moment, chunk an assignment or provide instructional support. Your district might call this a teaching assistant or Paraprofessional/Instructional Assistant. Then you'll need to hope they can staff this for your child.

I'd say yes, they can give a poor grade because the student did not complete all the assignments or didn't do great work. You would have needed to modify the IEP to reduce the workload for your child to be given consideration for needing to deal with the IOP. (When something gets modified like this, the school might not get the same credit as a gen ed student.) If she didn't complete the semester, can she earn credit for the classes she was enrolled in? I'm not sure that HSs offer part time options like colleges do where you can take fewer classes when something like this is happening.

You might want to look at the archived Facebook group. I believe there were posts that listed advocates. If not, there's COPAA.

Dear School- The enclosed/attached evaluation from XXX Center shows that my child, XX, has dyslexia, inattentive ADHD, and SLD in math calculation. Please place the following accommodations into place for her via a 504 while we work to find a meeting date where we can get together to put an IEP into place. Extra time on tests - 2X time Extra time (extended due date) for assignments All instructions read aloud All required reading material longer than one page provided in audio format Access to talk to text software for assignments longer than one paragraph No points taken off for spelling errors Calculator available for math assignments and tests as well as assignments that require math calculations like some science concepts that use math Thank you for putting this into place immediately so that XX doesn't need to struggle with her disabilities while we work together to figure out what remedial instruction is needed to bring her to the level of her classmates. Thank you, K-Tina And this isn't the end. After the IEP is in place, she should get comp ed. Five years ago, the school should have figured out she had dyslexia, et al. This means your daughter should receive compensatory education for the 5 years she should have been getting services but didn't because the eval done in 5th grade missed her disabilities. You might also want to talk to a doctor about medication for ADHD. It can help a lot with focus. I know my daughter was identified as gifted after we started treating her ADHD. This wasn't the whole answer because it took another several years to figure out that she also is on the autism spectrum. Unfortunately, the school was using grade school material to remediate a gifted high school student who was reading at a college level. She rejected the material they used and made little progress. She's good now - we got her outside services which really helped.

You can get this into the IEP by writing a parent concerns letter & asking them to put your concerns into the IEP. If you can't change the PWN, does this make sense?

If they are already doing it, they should be OK with spelling it out in the 504. I'd write a parent letter of concern listing out what they are doing but is not in the 504. Let them put the 'already doing this' list at the end. After all, it's just a double check.

Placement needs to be the LAST decision made by the IEP team. He's got a lot of needs that the IEP has to address (because there seems to have been a delay in identifying 'all areas of suspected disability'). How will the areas be addressed? Is the only place that can do this a self-contained classroom? Answer the questions and you will figure out the LRE placement for your child. I agree with Carolyn about child find issue & that your child might be owed compensatory services. This would be for not identifying & remediating his LDs sooner when there were evaluations showing he had these issues. Goals should be for him to catch up to same-age peers/classmates.

Around here home/hospital has a teacher coming to you for ~5 hours/week. I think it's limited to 12 weeks (rule in my state - might be different where you live). You might want to talk to the school & see how much instruction they will provide, what the hours are (it's often after school) and if they have available teachers. Independent study should be more flexible. Taking 4 classes sounds like the better option as it'll be hard for her to focus on both school & the IOP.

Schools can do a behavior plan in gen ed w/o parent permission - it's like RTI/MTSS for an academic issue with a gen ed student. What they seem to be doing is delaying doing a full sp ed FBA by doing this. Just that USDOE has rules saying this isn't allowed. Here's the letter stating that rule: https://sites.ed.gov/idea/files/osep11-07rtimemo.pdf My best advice is to file a state complaint. He doesn't have access to his education when he's in the seclusion room. Also, these have been shown to cause trauma in students. He's in 5th and doesn't have AAC? I'd be frustrated and self-harming if I didn't have a way to communicate. I'm so sorry to hear that this school doesn't seem to be providing FAPE to your child on so many different levels. If your state has facilitated or moderated IEP meetings - where someone from the state comes to the meeting - I'd try to put this into place for future IEP meetings.

PWN doesn't make sense to me. (I'm hoping someone else chimes in.) It might be a way to CYA so the school is 'protected' given they are admitting to not following the IEP. The way I'm reading this is: we thought about following the IEP but we decided not to because we don't have staff to do it. When a school (at least in PA where I live) gets a state complaint & are found out-of-compliance, the state watches them closely which creates more paperwork for them - I think they do this for 6 months. This says 'we know we're not following the IEP' and it might prevent the extra paperwork.

How is this an accommodation of "extra time" if your child has the same due date as their nondisabled classmates? If the teachers are not willing to give extra time on the back end, they can provide it on the front end. They can pre-teach the lesson to your child 3-5 days before they teach it to the class and give them the assignment 3-5 days before the rest of the class gets it. This way your child gets a jump start on the assignment which gives them more time than their classmates even though they all have the same due date. The Social Studies teacher could have the rest of the class have a due date that's 3-4 days before they end the unit and then let your child hand their assignment in the last day of the unit. There are ways to provide your child with the extra time they had in the past that helped them to be successful and still not hand in work after the end of the unit. You just need to think out of the box. I also think you need to speak with the teachers to understand their restriction of the extra time accommodation. It's possible they think having to finish the old unit is too much of a distraction with keeping up with the new unit. If they do 3 units per marking period, you don't want the 1st unit's work finished 3-4 day after where the 2nd unit's work ends up 6-8 days after the unit ends. (Do they know your child's track record where farther into the marking period the lateness doesn't get progressive? They might be judging him based on a student they had in the past who was like this.) It's possible they don't understand the disability and why it's key for your child to be given real extra time where they have time to melt down, get anxious, perseverate where they make no progress and get through the assignment eventually. When you know their backstory, you'll be better prepared to explain why your child needs the past wording.

If the placement the school has decided is appropriate for him has antecedents that trigger behavioral outbursts, my guess is that it is not an appropriate placement. You child is a "is very by the book follow the rules" person and he needs to be in a class where students who break the rules are disciplined. It is not appropriate for him to be in a classroom with students who have uncontrollable tics where he gets called names and cussed at - even if this is a manifestation of a classmate's disability and beyond their control. If they cannot get his classmates to stop calling him names and cussing him out, he needs different classmates. On the flip side, he needs therapy where he doesn't take a manifestation of a classmate's disability personally when he gets called names & cussed out. If they can't provide a different placement, he needs to be taught not to react to this. These are the only 2 options I see in this situation. You might want an FBA to see if you have the data on what's happening correct because if this isn't the trigger, the change you are requesting will not help. (I'm thinking that maybe the classmates cuss when they are given worksheets and it's the worksheets & not the cussing that's the real trigger.)

IDEA doesn't address the issue we have been seeing with schools looking to hire staff to provide services on an IEP where there are no qualified applicants. It's fairly typical that schools don't tell parents when this situation exists - again, no guidance in IDEA saying that schools should be transparent & keep parents in the loop. PWN gets written after an IEP meeting. It's the notice of what was discussed at an IEP meeting prior to implementing the updated IEP. I'm not sure the letter you got was PWN. Did they change the IEP? If they didn't, PWN isn't needed - if they did change the IEP, file a state complaint as it's not allowed without an IEP meeting that parents were invited to. My feeling is that this is a letter telling you they haven't followed the IEP and they owe services to your child - not PWN. https://adayinourshoes.com/iep-prior-written-notice-pwn/

I would write a parent letter of concern and ask that it be copied into the IEP. Make sure that it includes these points: She has nerve damage and cannot feel when her bladder is full. If she wets herself, changing clothes will mean more lost instruction time than a planned cath break - you also have concerns about teasing/bullying. If she is only emptying her bladder 0-1 time at school, she can end up hospitalized and/or with permanent damage to her kidneys. We had similar issues with my child and needed a letter from her doctor saying she needed to be told to use the restroom 3X per day. We worked with the school to make a schedule. Her whole class used the bathroom in the morning. She was told to use it around lunch time. She was sent to the nurse's office to use the bathroom in the afternoon - one of her classmates needed an afternoon snack & they went together. In MS & HS, we found logical breaks - when her classes were near the nurse's office. She eventually learned to go at prescribed times - I know she went at lunch & again before 8th period when they did a pm announcements. Her 8th period teacher started class when she got there.

School attendance laws vary a lot from state to state. I would see if this is OK per you state's laws. I'm in PA and I know the school nurse can excuse an absence if a student is sick. If they do end up suspending your child, I would want Monday to count toward the suspension. I would ask the school to document what they said during the call since a phone call isn't tangible proof the school said for him to stay home & the absence will be excused. This can be done with an email: Dear School- I'm looking to confirm the call from (school administrator) that I received on Tuesday requesting that I keep my son, XX, home on Monday, 11/27, so the school can investigate a fight of some sort that happened on Tuesday. I was told this will an excused absence but I thought that could only happen for medical reasons. I don't want keeping him home like (school administrator) requested to turn into a truancy issue since I only have a call as proof that the absence will be excused. If I have understood things correctly, there is no need to reply to this email. Thank you, There is a saying in schools: If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. This email puts things into writing.

Students who are post secondary - high school and middle school are secondary level so this is college level - do not get IEPs. In college, they expect students to self-advocate. This would include students who are 14. I'm confused with you saying your child is a high school freshman. I believe you meant to say your child is a freshman secondary school student and is transition age. Assuming that your child is 14 & in HS, I would include in any email that you will be following up in 6 school days if you do not receive a reply to your email. This sets an expectation that the school will be replying in a week which I feel is a reasonable time to respond. There are no timelines that I'm aware of with how long schools have to get back to parents. What I've seen is 'a reasonable period of time'. This tends to be defined by case law. (PA defines it as 10 calendar days; OH might be different.) I can see the school saying they got your email & will get back to you once they look into what you said where they reply in 6 days but not w/ an answer to your questions. (I've also seen in my district where email was delayed & received by a teacher months later where a timely reply wasn't possible. This teacher is a friend. She was frustrated that she got an email months after it was sent.) Not sure about saying to 'reply immediately so I know you got this in the email'. The way things work (I'm in PA, so giving their rules) is that the IEP that includes the 14th birthday is when students must be invited. In looking at the Ohio Invitation form (it's on this page: https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Special-Education/Federal-and-State-Requirements/Ohio-Required-and-Optional-Forms-Updated) it does show the student being invited. I'm not sure if the invite was handed to your child on paper or emailed to their school email address but it is possible they got it and didn't read it. (I have an issue with Ohio Dept of Ed using Word for these forms as it requires you to pay for Word to have access.) If your transition age HS child was not invited to their IEP meeting (double check it wasn't emailed or they lost the envelope it was in), filing a state complaint is a better solution than telling the school they messed up. I've also seen where schools don't do well when an email covers more than one topic. They tend not to address everything when this happens. I'd number your questions so the person reading the email knows that it covers a few topics. For non-compliance with the IEP/not following it, filing a state complaint is a good solution if working with the school district isn't working for you.

Gebser letter with bullying from school staff.

IMO, coaching the parent ahead of time can mean you can sit back & watch the parent advocate. You can offer a reminder here & there and let the parent do the speaking - or at least most of it. Maybe, when the parent feels they can't advocate, they can turn to you and ask you to 'please cover this - you know how to say this better than I can' where you pinch hit when they request. I also like what Carolyn said: "thank you for your suggestion, but we will still be bringing our advocate as the IDEA allows parents to bring whoever they want to the IEP meeting."

Fidgety is a behavior. You want data on the behavior. What's the antecedent? An FBA is what's needed to get this data. He misses access to his education when he's sent out of the classroom so this should be kept to a minimum. Does he need a fidget? A weighted blanket? (OT can work with him on how to fidget less - especially if it's sensory.) Has a sensory eval been done? Schools follow their evals & consider outside evals. IMO, the school need to do more evals because 'all areas of suspected disability' weren't assessed. My feeling is his education isn't FAPE with the lack of classroom accommodations for fidgeting.

Where do you get data to show there is an EF issue? I thought the BRIEF was normed and provided that data. And I do agree that schools aren't great at teaching EF. I started watching the video: https://www.facebook.com/ADayInOurShoesIEP/videos/1034056741123429 and didn't finish it.

If a student gets expelled, it's still on the public school to provide an education. Not sure how long it should take to get transportation set up to get him to the new school. (If his IEP wasn't FAPE, it might not have had enough support to prevent this from happening. This is where an attorney can help.) It might be the public school who is causing the delay in the start date as they are the ones who might need to transport.

The way this was explained to me was using the word sponsored. My school has an activity fee. If you need to pay that fee, this is sponsored by the school & they need to provide an aide/support similar to during the school day. (My friend's daughter is diabetic so the school needed a nurse to be there with her activities.) There were also clubs that didn't need a fee & this was also where the school had to provide support. If the PTO/PTA/HSA had an event, this wasn't school sponsored. And the scouts rented space in the school - this also wasn't sponsored. Things like the sports teams & cheerleaders, the school band or school musicals & plays would be school sponsored. The Dear Colleague letter (https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201301-504.pdf) has a lot of details and starts out explaining the importance of extracurricular activities to all students. I'd start by reading though this & the other info in Lisa's link ^^. If the school pays a stipend for a teacher to be there when a group meets, you can take this as being something that is endorsed by the school. My district spells out who the teachers are, what they are paid & what things they oversee in their school board meeting minutes. You can probably get a list for your district to see if something is 'endorsed' through a Right to Know request if it's not publicly available - if you are looking to see if an activity is endorsed by the school.