JSD24

There are schools where the accommodation is worded: Testing can happen in the resource room when requested by the student. Or: Extra time for testing and assignments when requested by the student before testing starts or when the assignment is given. If a student doesn't have the skills to self-advocate in a timely manner, the accommodation isn't going to help. I think this is what the OP is saying happened. 9 seems really young - even for a gifted student - to be able to do this. Self-advocacy can be an IEP goal but GIEPs are strength-based so maybe this student needs an IEP.

When I took advocacy training, my mentor told us that it's OK to write on the school's paperwork. I'd request a 504 meeting. Have the school write up the accommodations however they want. If the student has to advocate to be able to use the accommodation, you can ask the school for data that shows they have the skills to do this in an appropriate manner. If they won't budge on their wording, take the 504 to review at home & so you can go over it with your child/spouse - come up with a reason to bring it home to look over. Scan in a copy. Now, write on the 504 and fix what you you feel needs to be fixed. Sign this copy - make a copy for your records and send the signed copy back to the school. In theory, they should initial the changes and then you have a finalized 504 that works for your child. You might have a case against the school for failing to accommodate a disabled student with how things were handled which violates their civil rights. You could file a complaint with OCR but this might get you on the school's naughty list going forward.

Under McKinney-Vento, she should stay in her old school so she's not experiencing more changes than necessary with being homeless. There shouldn't be an analysis of her being in a stable home. IMO, the principal was wrong to withdraw her at a time when she was vulnerable with being homeless. My suggestion is to go to the disability right group in your state or the ACLU to help with getting her back in the school she's familiar with and has peer support. You can also see if your state rep or senator can help. This is a federal law so I'm thinking to legislators who work in DC are the ones to help but I'm not sure about this.

I remember being in a meeting with my Pupil Services Director. She said the school needs to meet the student's needs and if they don't have a program that does this, they need to create one. What data do you have to show he only learns in a 1:1 group? We have a private school in my area that's all done 1:1 - Fusion Academy. They have a few campuses. Goes to show he's not alone with needing 1:1 school. I've seen public schools pay for students to go there.

So the ED box is checked and there are no ED services or goals. If there are ED needs, there should be ED services & goals. If the IEP shows a student has a needed, the IEP should address that need. What testing did the school do for EF? My school does the BRIEF. Also, ED can prevent a person from being able to EF well because working memory is working on ED things and not EF things. They can accommodate the ED & EF by prompting to turn in homework if they are not remediating it.

Are you in PA (GIEPs are a PA thing - I'm in PA - my child had a 504 & GIEP)? When my child had a 504, I never signed it. Parents are not required members of the 504 team. A signature isn't needed. It is best pract to review the 504 annually so it can be tweaked as the student grows and school demands change. It might be school policy to get parents to sign off on a 504 and to discontinue it if the parent doesn't OK it by signing. You can request a 504 meeting at any time. Sounds like a meeting is needed to put support back in place.

IEPs should be individualized to the disabled student. If the disabled student is being distracting with using a fidget, they can be taught to use it in a way that's not distracting. If they don't learn to do this, I can see access to this fidget being limited. My daughter's school had a universal ban on water bottles (this was pre-pandemic, now they are allowed because there are no water fountains in the school). Because she had a need and it was in her IEP, she was allowed to have one with her. It didn't matter that other kids put vodka into their water bottle in the past. I would request that the specific fidget your child gets comfort/stimulation from be mentioned in the IEP & then you can ask that the IEP gets followed. Telling a student that they can't have a fidget due to their disability because a gen ed student abused the use of the same sort of thing doesn't follow IDEA. Diabetic students need access to sweets even if another child made a mess with candy in the classroom. You need to meet the need of the disabled student - not their classmates. I would see how the alt fidget goes. If it works, great. If not, they need to find something that meets the student's needs like the banned fidget does.

I've run into this. In order to do teletherapy or telemed, the provider has to be certified in the state the patient is in. I've seen it with ADHD meds and a student going out of state to college. Also happened during the pandemic with kids staying in another state with grandparents while the parents, who are essential workers, went to work. The therapist wasn't certified to work in the other state so they couldn't provide services. In theory, the teachers are certified in your state and shouldn't be teaching kids in other states either. I have a feeling that some parents get around this by not mentioning that they aren't home. I know when it comes to home/hospital education, the LEA is the district the hospital is in. The only exception I know is McKinney-Vento which covers homeless students who might be staying outside of the district where the familiar district provides bussing to the old school so they have some continuity and this doesn't apply to traveling. I know some virtual school cater to actors and athletes who might be out of state for work/competitions. Not sure how they get around the teacher not being certified in the state they are in.

If an IHP is attached to an IEP, you might need the whole IEP team to make changes to it. I hate IHPs. There is no agency to oversee that they are followed. Is there a way to put some of the accommodations in the IHP into the IEP? You could write a parent letter of concern that you didn't get a copy of the IHP to review. You can also mention that your concern is the IHP not being followed since it doesn't seem to be as accessible as the IEP. Sending a PWN with a draft IEP sounds like predetermination...

There was a stretch of time that schools in my area weren't sending parents finalized IEPs. I think attorneys got involved & that changed. I know my district sends most things via email. Did they email it as an attachment? Did it go to Spam? Was it too big for your email box?

There should be an IEP meeting with all required members where placement gets discussed. The PWN to change the placement should be issued soon after the IEP meeting. I think an email is in order. Dear sp ed teacher- We met on October 20 and discussed changing XX's placement to 2 days of ABA & 3 days of Pre-K. I have yet to see the IEP & PWN reflecting these changes. Please send me a copy of the IEP ASAP. Thanks.

District of residence is based on where a student sleeps. If they are sleeping at a RTF or hospital, the district the RTF or hospital is in is the LEA. When they sleep at home, the district you pay taxes to is the LEA. (I've not seen this written but I used to meet regularly w/ my Pupil Services Director. We have a RTF in my district & she explained how things work.) Not a red flag bad vibe in my eyes because I've seen it before. (Most districts have policies where a student can live/sleep in a district their parents don't live in and they can go to the other district's schools. It's also how foreign exchange students get to go to US schools. If you sleep in the district, you can go to school there.) Not sure if this applies but a students needs to be available for evals. 'In the hospital' is not available.

The school might need to assign a teacher from another grade to work with this student. If the wording says 'sub', they can hire a temporary teacher or a guest teacher - so long as they aren't a sub - so they technically are following the IEP. (The IEP was definitely not written with a baby boom in mind.)

Mini lessons with the teacher are OK. If they are with a sub, you are not following the IEP and this opens the school up to a due process suit. Subs cannot instruct this student or they are not following the IEP. With the IEP, the school & family agreed to this. It is a binding contract that the school should be following. If you want to find balance, you need to redo that part of the IEP. When my sons were in 3rd grade, their teacher was on maternity leave. They started the year with a sub. Their teacher was due to come back for the last few weeks of school but the parents advocated that she not come back to her classroom so the sub they had from Sept - May could finish the year with her class. If this was the situation, this child would miss a full year of instruction. My twins also had an English teacher in 7th who went on sabbatical for 1/2 the year where they had a sub. Long Term subs aren't like a daily sub, maybe the IEP should have covered this happening. It's a situation where you are between a rock & a hard place. Do your job & teach this student so they can learn which violates the IEP or follow the IEP & don't provide instruction for a months long maternity leave and that verges on educational neglect. Teachers are not paid enough to make this decision themself. It really requires admin to figure this out. Do you know the backstory on why this is in the IEP? Did a sub contradict what the teacher said which resulted in a shutdown of the student? Knowing this might help the IEP team come up with something appropriate to the situation.

504s are quicker to put in place. Using the nurse's bathroom & having assistance with cleaning up bowel movements makes sense at his age (and until around 12 or 13 when he can clean himself up - might be later w/ ASD and it being a developmental delay). This is an accommodation. Bathroom is not something an aide (unless they are a PCA) can help with - laws might be different where you are. Most schools don't do both. Any 504 type accommodations can go into an IEP. See if he qualifies for the IEP. This tends to take 100 days. It he qualifies, put the accommodations with the bathroom into the IEP. For a long time, I was following an incontinence group and kids really can't do an adequate job with cleaning up bowel movements w/o showering. If there is poop on the skin & a pee accident, this is how diaper rash develops. You might need documentation from his doctor to get the school do provide the help he needs. (Schools are data driven. You can ask if they have assessed how well he cleans himself so you can review their data on how he's able to do this himself. If you don't think their data is accurate, you can ask for an IEE at school expense but this might not work with a 504. Asking for their data is where to start.)

If I saw this on an IEP, I would think the school's obligation would be to provide instructional material to the family and they would homeschool during any teacher absences. (I'm shocked it got into an IEP given that teachers can get pregnant or have an accident that could leave them out of the picture for a long while.) It does make sense in a co-teacher situation where the odds of both teachers being out would be slim. My thought is to follow the IEP. That's the school's obligation or they will get into hot water with the state. Notify the parent to not send their child to school until your coworker is back from leave. (Let the sp ed director talk to the school's solicitor about the implications of following this clause in the IEP. It's really at this level IMO.)

So you're saying his teachers need training in how kids with autism mask & it's exhausting for them to keep it up the whole day at school. I'm hoping he's got a medical ASD diagnosis in case the school says he doesn't qualify under ASD on his IEP.

PA has a system of APS - approved private schools. Districts seem to like these because PDE helps with extra funding. They might not be looking at discharge paperwork that's separate from the IEP. IMO, you need a meeting (and I think you'll want to ask if you can record it) so you can get more details from the school on this. If he's not in a building, the district shouldn't be ignoring him. Education in the home might be something to ask for so he has access to an education. If you are in SE PA, this might help: https://adayinourshoes.com/iep-private-school-placement-list-chester-county/ BTW, when a student is hospitalized, home/hospital should kick in. The thing is that he's residing at the hospital so their school district needs to provide the education and this might not be the one you live in. It is a messy situation & I'm glad the state has this on their radar. My district is emailing IEP related documentation to parents. Be sure to be checking Spam in case your IEP invite ends up there. I've also seen where a parent didn't get an invite & the IEP meeting was held w/o them. (In this case, the school was unable to show that it was sent. Parents are divorced & neither got it.) I was thinking about suggesting a charter public school but it might cause further delays in figuring out what his IEP needs to look like.

The big con is a lack of time for the school to provide access to the state curriculum where your child might fall behind with learning the state standards. Since is seems like this isn't a goal and your child will most likely graduate with a certificate & not a diploma, it's not a con to consider too strongly . Another con would be if this didn't mesh with state truancy laws. Is he in a self-contained life-skills classroom? If he is, they have to have the right ratios in the room - even if he's only there part-time. It could rub the school the wrong way. Would homeschooling make more sense? What benefit is he getting from his attendance in school? The pro of any child's education is for them to learn the skills they will need after they graduate HS. Every student needs different skills depending on their life's path. If ABA is the thing your child needs, that's what they should get.

I'm also wondering why they are redoing an autism eval. Isn't it a life-long disability? Has there been improvement where the level changed? Teacher training can be an IEP service. An autism inservice for this teacher would benefit your child & others like him.

The new school has to follow the old IEP. The old school messed up if they didn't have an IEP meeting to change the placement following release from the RTF. "They felt my child was ready for a less restrictive environment" but failed to document this so the new school district knew this. Schools (teachers and subs) should not be expected to be omniscient and magically figure out how the other school felt. Without documentation, this appears to have been the expectation. There is a saying in education: If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. To facilitate moving forward, you might want to email the KS school and tell them the 'New school is having difficulty following the plan to move to a less restrictive placement following discharge from the RTF. Can you please show me where this was documented in the IEP? Was there a letter or email that stated this? If there is no documentation showing that this was the plan, can you please create it? New school is attempting to follow the old IEP and cannot find a similar RTF with an empty bed to place XX in. Meanwhile, XX doesn't have a school placement to go to. Help!' Not sure if a no-meet revision to the old IEP is appropriate since it doesn't seem to say that a self contained classroom within the public school following discharge from the RTF is where he needs to be.

I think you need to contact Marcie Lipsitt - https://marcielipsitt.com/. She should have ideas on how to get this child an IEP w/o needing to fail first. They need to be behind - not failing. Limited participation and ADLs makes them sound behind. They need access. You might end up with a 504.

Let's start at the beginning. What does the old IEP say is the placement? What are the supports & services? This is what the new school needs to do. Ask to meet with the sp ed supervisor and go over what's in the IEP that's holding your child up from attending. Write a parental concerns letter outlining that your child graduated from an RTF and was looking forward to the move and consistency of being back in the neighborhood school. Meanwhile, she regressed because she has no structure with being out of school. Ask them what needs to happen so she can start attending. PA has facilitated IEP meetings, I think you might want to ask for that.

Create a paper trail. Email the teacher & cc the SLP. Hi- I'm waiting for the Permission to Evaluate form from the school since I requested an evaluation for speech verbally. We have a hard to understanding XX & feel she should qualify for speech therapy services once the evaluation is complete. I'm looking to help move this forward. Thanks,

Does the person doing the current reeval have experience w/ the ADOS? If they don't, the results won't be accurate & you don't want it done by them. I'd ask which teachers will be doing the GARS. The homeroom teacher might be one of 3.