JSD24

I think you need to ask to see the progress reports for prior years as well as the SDI that has been provided to the student. It sounds like the remedial intervention through the IEP they have had for 8 years hasn't been helping. When was the student identified as needing help with reading? What level were they at back then? How much progress have they made? Do they have an intellectual disability that prevents them from being receptive to the special instruction in reading that has been provided? What has the school been doing? What are the teacher's certifications and/or qualifications to provide remedial reading services? It's great that they are changing the SDI in the IEP given that is sounds like they have not responded well to prior intervention. I would ask to see the evidence/research on this push-in protocol and how it will do a better job with closing the gap between this child's present levels and where classmates are. Given how far behind they are, the school needs to be doing something different/better to catch this student up. With the bullying that goes on in the MS grades, I would hesitate to do push-in IEP services. It could cause this student to become a target where they will start having mental health issues from the bullying in addition to the SLD. In your shoes, I would also look at how the school is accommodating the student's deficit areas with things like talk to text software and audiobooks. If these are not in place, they will not have access to general education material. My gut says that a child who is 6 years behind needs to be placed in a private special education school at public expense because it seems like the school has tried and failed this student. They need to start making 2 years of progress in reading each year so they can be caught up by the time they graduate. Given what the school wants to do, my feeling is that this student will drop out and never graduate. They will not be able to hold very many jobs with reading at this low a level given how important reading is. Would they even be able to fill out a job application if they don't start making better progress?

I would write a parent letter of concern. Dear School- What I see at home is my child, XX, will get overstimulated where behaviors get bad when she's allowed to use electronics. I'm not sure that allowing her to use her Chromebook during 'brain breaks' at school does the same thing. I do feel that allowing her to use her Chromebook at school for " non essential academic tasks", as stated in her IEP, does not follow her IEP. I would rather see her looking at a book, playing cards, playing with a fidget, punching a punching bag or other heavy physical activities rather than allowing her to use electronics would work better to reset her ability to stay on task when she returns to the classroom after taking a break. Can we try these activities and see if they work better than having her on her Chromebook? Thanks,

Common core methods can help students who are struggling because this tends to break things down into a more visual/concrete ways of doing math when concepts are more abstract/less intuitive. On the other hand, if a student can intuitively work math problems using other methods, they really don't need to learn another methodology of getting to the right answers. There are people whose minds see abstract math intuitively because their neurology has their brains with extra connections that typical people don't have. These connections show up on fMRI and are present in individuals diagnosed with ADHD & autism. It makes sense on many levels to let him do things his way. The exception to this is when a method appears on state standardized testing the child will take at the end of the year. I'd ask the school if this is the case and why they are pushing for him to learn things the common core way. (I did check if there are open ended math problems on the PSSA and there are. Your grandson might not get full credit for these if they are not following the rubric prescribed in the test.) A score of proficient or advanced is passing on the PSSA. These tests are used (to a degree) to see if teachers will get merit raises so this may effect a teacher but shouldn't effect your grandson. I'm not sure if this might be viewed as a modification that takes him off of a diploma track. If this is the case, it might be better of not being on a 504. Given his grades, has he been assessed for a GIEP? Given what you posted, he might qualify. If he does gifted math, he might not need to follow common core methods. This is a sample 3rd grade PSSA. It has one 3-part open-ended question. https://www.education.pa.gov/Documents/K-12/Assessment and Accountability/PSSA/Item and Scoring Samples/2023 PSSA ISS Math Grade 3.pdf If this is typical, I would let him do things his way. (Common core methods often require more writing and kids with ADHD will often not have the patience to do this.) Hopefully, they move on to other topics in math where he can conform to how the teacher wants questions to be answered.

Again for CMERC- Tell the school that you want a parent teacher conference. Ask them when this can be arranged. Your other choice is to request a 504 meeting. If there is something in the 504 that is not being implemented, an OCR complaint can be made. With things being removed from the 504, you can request to see the data that has lead to the accommodation being removed. Not sure if the lack of ability to communicate 1:1 with the teacher is something to go to the school board and mention at a public meeting.

If parent training is needed, you have a few options in a virtual school. You can hire someone local to the parent and do in-person training at their place of residence or a library or other public building. You can do training over Zoom (or similar platform) which could be for just for these parents or a group of parents with similar needs. This can be done by school personnel or someone the school hires. My county does parent training but this is more-so geared toward parents found to be abusive or neglectful toward their children. It's free and they make sessions available to anyone. It might not be as targeted to these parent's needs since you're inferring they need autism-specific training. Another option is a book club with virtual meeting. A book like Ross Greene's The Explosive Child is a great parenting book for every parent. (He also wrote Raising Human Beings. I haven't read this one but I'd recommend it too.) School social worker could also work with families on this on an as-needed basis. I think getting the point across that these are required for the parents is going to be the hard part.

For CMERC- I met with teachers either before or after school. Teacher work hours start before classes for students start and end after students leave. This is also when school-wide staff meetings take place. You should be able to meet with the teacher then. (It's a PITA for parents because they'll need a sitter since their child(ren) aren't in school at this time but it is doable.)

The parent should really be asking for an eval and not sending a parent concern letter. Parent concern letters are generally written when a student has an IEP and the parent feels the IEP needs to be updated. When requesting an evaluation for special ed, the parent should be pointing out the areas of suspected disability which overlaps with areas of parent concern. This site has a good template for asking for an eval on the last page: https://www.elc-pa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Special-Education-Evaluations-2024.pdf PWN is provided by the school to the parent before (that's where the 'prior' comes in) a school changes or starts or refuses special education evaluations or services.

If this school district has a rule that a student needs to be on a 504 for a year before they will do a special ed eval: 1- Get this in writing. 2- File a complaint with the state using 1 as evidence. 3- Ask who the school's 504 coordinator is and request a 504 meeting so a 504 can be drafted and put in place. 4- Request that the prior school send a copy of the 504 the child had when the IEP went away. See if they can tell her the date it started. (It might exist - parents are not required members of the 504 team. And if it's been in place for a year it might be time for an IEP.)

Dear School- Can you please send me a copy of the PWN that explains why accommodations of enlarged font, directions read to the student and 1:1 testing were removed from my son, XX's, IEP? These accommodations were removed during the 2023-24 school year and I do not recall a discussion at an IEP meeting or what rationale was used to make this change in his IEP. His vision issues have not gotten better and my feeling is that these provide access to things like state testing so that his growth in learning as measured by these tests accurately reflects the effort the teachers and my son have made during the course of the school year. Additionally, not having these accommodations made him very anxious about taking the standardized testing required by ESSA last spring. I realize that, sometimes, testing through digital means can come with the option like enlarging the font on the screen as well as text to speech where these accommodations are available to all students. If this is the case, XX needs to be shown how to access these options. These digital options for access are not available on the testing done outside of what is required by ESSA. Depending on the reason these were removed, I feel that they may need to be added back to XX's IEP so that he has the same level of access to testing and other school-related printed material as his classmates. Please send me the documentation requested. Once I review the material, I will get back to you with my availability so we can schedule an IEP meeting.

I was talking with a parent and I generally have a good idea what to suggest but I'm stumped. The child has ADHD & anxiety and the IEP report said emotional disability which the parent disagrees with. The child started kindergarten with a 1:1. One day, the child was leaning on the aide. This was early in the school year and this was a new school but the aide was her aide in preschool. I viewed this as a comfort situation - a way an anxious child might self-regulate. The gen ed teacher didn't like this. She contacted the crisis team and moved the child away from the aide. The child got upset and acted out. They ended up being restrained. This was not the only restraint that happened this school year. The child was prevented from having free movement 7 or 8 times that school year but only one restraint was reported. This is in Pennsylvania where PDE has people who review restraint reports and look for patterns of abuse. Obviously, if the occurrences are not reported, they will not see a pattern. I was shown a video of 2 adults holding a gym mat against this child as she stood next to a wall. She was screaming that she couldn't breathe. The video did not show what happened before this. This, the parent was told was not a restraint. This was not reported to PDE. They were just preventing her for getting hurt. The nurse's office had several (5 or 6) records of this child getting hurt at school when this happened to this child. Academically, this child is bright; there doesn't seem to be any academic issues. The parent reported what was going on to Children, Youth & Families (other places call this Child Protective Services - CPS). They were unable to investigate this because the school district has a contract with them and as a result, they cannot be impartial. The family did arrange for another county's CYF department to investigate and they concluded that personnel at this school did abuse this child. The family filed for due process and the school counter filed. The judge (hearing officer ?) dismissed the case after hearing only the school's side of things. Nothing happened to the staff member who abused this child. They continue to work in their same role at this school. The student was placed at a different school building. This school has an alt ed school within the school. The goal is to integrate students into the gen ed environment from this more restrictive placement. The other kids on the bus to this school are all strapped in (I'm assuming a harness to prevent them from getting out of their seats). They would scream for the entire ride. This upset this child so the parents ended up driving them to school. They were placed here for 1st and 2nd grade. For 3rd grade, the parents moved their child to a catholic school. They have been there a month & so far so good. The thing is that the parents would like to request accommodations but they do not want to share that the child was previously in alt ed and is labeled as emotionally disabled. They would like a new evaluation but they don't want their district to do it. My question: Can a parent go to a charter school & request a special ed evaluation? They are public schools. Is there any reason why they cannot do an evaluation on a student who attends a private school? My other question: In Pennsylvania, the CYF department is in charge of investigating child abuse in schools (it used to be the police but that changed with Gerry Sandusky). Should they be allowed to have a contractual relationship that prevents CYF from doing their job with impartially investigating abuse in schools? Other questions: Why did the teacher touch this child and pull them away from her comfort person? The child was not a threat when the crisis team was called - the teacher provoked the child into a crisis. Why were there no incidents reported in 1st & 2nd gared? Was it that the child changed or were there incidents but they weren't reported? Why is a person who was found to abuse this child still working in the school? Why is this stuff getting brushed under the rug? Should I go to the parent in this district who runs a hidden/private support group on Facebook and ask if they know of other instances like this? Why are kids screaming on the bus for 35 minutes? Thanks for reading this. Is there more that I can do?

I asked for a goal: Handing in 100% of the homework assigned. The LEA said she needed to talk to the district solicitor before it could be added. They added it. (He has a twin brother who was doing this. It's what's expected of students.)

The arrow that points right & up opens the post with more info on Ross Greene. Wanted to make sure you knew how this worked.

I'm a big fan of Ross Greene's protocol called Collaborative & Proactive Solutions. It's a way to get people to open up and talk about the root cause of the "problems" they are having. With an FBA, you look at what is going on and try to come up with a reason for it. Let's take test avoidance as an example. Lots of reasons for this. One could be anxiety over tests where the thought makes you want to just throw up. Another reason could be that you just don't feel prepared. It could be that you can't read so you don't understand the instructions or the questions and staring at the paper for the time allotted for the test is boring where you know you're either going to misbehave and get sent to the principal's office or start to cry and get bullied for that (in addition to the F on the paper) and you just don't want to go there. (It could also be that the test is supposed to be read to you as an accommodation and that's not happening - or it is happening & you're embarrassed by it or how it's being done.) I'm sort of in agreement with the school on this one - an FBA will see the avoidance but will not read his mind to understand the root cause. If you were to follow the CPS protocol - well it takes a good 5 months to master so I'll try to give you a mini lesson. Don't mention the behavior. When your child is calm & in a decent mood simply say: What's going on with tests at school? Your child's answer will probably be 'I don't know.' You come back and say something like: You're smart & I think you know what's going on. I'd like to help you...when you're ready. Then drop the subject. A few days later, you might say: I believe you have a test in math tomorrow. Do you want to talk about it? Then follow his lead. It might take a while for him to open up & share the root issue. You can also go to Ross Greene's website & see if there is a trained practitioner in your area. More info on that here: My feeling is that when the BCBA does observe, it will be a lot like an FBA. You can request that you be provided with a written report showing when your child was observed as well as what the BCBA felt was going on. BTW, write down what your son's responses are when you talk to him about tests. This is also data the BCBA can use to plan how to address the behavior. (The example with throwing up is how I felt about tests. I finally was prescribed something in college so I could get through finals. I like to keep a supply of this on hand for other stressful situations like IEP meetings.) Lisa has a blog post with a lot more info about FBAs on her website. Notice the Ross Greene quotes scattered through the article: https://adayinourshoes.com/school-fba-behavior-plan/

If it's not in the IEP, the school doesn't have to do it. I would have encouraged you to ask for this to be put in the IEP if you had posted when the decision was made to allow the siblings to ride together. Do you have anything in writing, like old email, showing the thought process behind why this was decided? I'm curious if there is any data showing your younger child had issues with anxiety on the bus (or with getting to school) before the sibling started riding with them. IEP decisions should be based on data. The accommodation of having a sibling on the bus might be providing access to their preschool IEP. As they say in education: If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. This is why we encourage a paper trail of the things that are helping or trials that have failed. It becomes proof in situations like this that the accommodation serves a bigger purpose than being a convenience for parents.

When a public school modifies curriculum, this often takes a student off of a graduation track and puts them on a 'certificate of completion' track. From what I know, accommodations - like extra time, where the same work is expected - are different from modifications. Accommodations provide access and fall under the Office of Civil Rights. It's often a matter of perspective if something is a modification or an accommodation. I'm not sure if a private school has to answer to OCR or not. I know that churches are not required to be ADA compliant & I think that falls under OCR. Definitely a murky area - especially w/o an example of the modification.

With younger children, especially, it's been shown that you need to correct behavior 'in the moment'. My child started having wetting accidents at school as they were coming home on the bus wet. I asked the teacher to make sure they got changed when they were wet. The teacher said that with 25 kindergarteners, she couldn't do this for my child. The teacher had said she had seen this in the past and that it was a phase and would correct itself. I didn't know about special ed back then. I probably should have asked for an IEP or 504 but I just didn't know they existed. My solution was to buy pull-ups and have my child wear them to school - kindergarten was a half day so they wouldn't need to be changed at school. With using my strategy, the accidents got worse and my toilet trained child stopped being toilet trained. This teacher retired 2 years later but the "phase" persisted past graduation from HS. Mine is a great example of a behavior strategy fail in working with the school. I'm not sure if having the school cooperate and correct this behavior (peeing their pants rather than using the toilet) in kindergarten would have prevented this from getting worse and worse as it was partly due to a medical issue - constipation. The behavior & medical issue was so intertwined it is hard to tell when one left off & the other started. Holding in going #2 put pressure on the bladder which caused it to spasm resulting in wet pants accidents. We would need for a doctor to recognise this and properly treat the constipation before we could stop the accidents from happening. (We needed more than one OTC med to stop the cycle of constipation.) Other things contributed like not taking in enough fluids and not being in tune with interoceptive signals due to autism (autism was diagnosed at age 13). We did put this into a 504 in 4th grade. They identified the autism in 8th grade and this transferred into the IEP when we met for the 1st IEP meeting in June of 8th grade. (The reminders didn't happen in 8th grade which led to the autism being recognized by the school and getting the IEP.) A classroom aide that monitored my child for accidents might have been the solution. Instead, we did timed voiding - where the teacher told my child to use the bathroom once a day at school (and later 3X a day when school became full day). We'll never know if this strategy would have got us to a solution sooner. What helped is having the school use timed voiding - same strategy we used at home - to manage wetting accidents. This didn't eliminate them though. There were a few times where there was a change in the schedule like a field trip or event at school where a reminder didn't happen and there were accidents.

DOE or parent training center? I'm not sure if every state has a hotline to the DOE for these types of questions but I do know there is a parent training agency set up in every state. If the poster mentioned which state they are in, it's easier to come up with state-specific answers.

My child had a disconnect with her body. Not sure if hunger signals were at a low level or not recognized but I'd see 'hangry' and check my watch to see it's been hours since I last served food. Food fixed the hangries every time. I think you need to write a parent concerns letter that your child will be dysregulated & might elop along with other 'bad behaviors' until they are comfortable with the new adults in his life. This way it will be anticipated at the beginning of each school year as well as if the teacher takes any time off. Meet with the teacher and see if they can tell your child that you might be modifying homework and he can do that homework or what was sent home but no complaining about homework or not doing anything. (Taking things literally is definitely an ASD sort of thing.) I think the 'NO' might be a sensory thing as he wants the food he's familiar with and not what he's being offered. Does the school have data on how 'wait & see' works? When I've seen this done, it generally ends up bad but I've not seen a research study on this that shows it's evidence based. I'd say he's 2E and I feel they are the hardest kids to figure out what to do with.

Find out what the school is doing for the remedial reading instruction he should be getting via his IEP. He needs an Orton Gillingham based remedial program that's more intense than what students in general ed are getting. Multimodal is what works so the material is presented with reinforcement. Wilson Reading has a protocol of 40-60 minutes of daily instruction. Whatever program the school is using, they should also be following the protocol for that program. Read what the IEP says. Is the school doing what they said they would do to remediate the disability? Look at progress reports. Is he catching up or falling farther behind? You want to see the gap closing at a rate where he'll be at grade level sooner rather than later. He could have an IEP but be getting RTI/MTSS for reading if he's not far enough behind to have an IEP level of intervention.

If the behavior is coming from academic instruction that isn't at an appropriate level of rigor for a student, the fix would be to provide appropriately rigorous instruction. Has the school done an FBA? A BIP/PBSP needs to be based on data and an FBA is where this data comes from. I'm not sure what state you are in so I'm not sure what the rules are on how gifted has to be done. I'm in PA & GIEPs go from K to 12 even though the formal gifted program in many schools doesn't start until 3rd grade. I do have a suggestion for homework. Modify it to his level. If the assignment is addition of single digit numbers, find a worksheet with double digit addition or change the one he brought home and have him do it and hand it in. Write a note that he was bored and uncooperative with the assigned homework, so you modified it. This also provides data on how mismatched his ability is to the work the class is doing. If you feel your child needs sensory breaks and enrichment, figure out what the school needs to do to come up with data on that being the need so they can tweak the IEP so he has the right support. There are evals for social skills. Has any been done? I'm also thinking that this might not be ADHD & anxiety. My oldest was like this - got an ADHD diagnosis in kindergarten. As it turned out, she's on the autism spectrum. She was diagnosed with Aspergers in 7th grade. This was changed to autism level one when the DSM 5 came out. She's 2E. Very bright - had a GIEP. Communication skills & social skills were low. It's a hard combination to deal with. The school saw the intelligence but not the deficits. She finally got an IEP at the end of 8th grade.

Things like this don't work the same way in every state. I know that in Delaware, the school district the private school is in does the eval & writes the IEP. Pennsylvania works differently. The district you live in does the eval & the IEP no matter where the private school is located. (I didn't realize there was a scenario where one district would do the eval & another would write the IEP.) I have also seen where 'enrolled' means that you show the school that you live in the district because they will only write an IEP for families who pay school taxes to them. Enroll does not mean attend in this situation. What you might want to do is verify with the school what the process is to get an IEP written so a private school can use it as the framework to provide a service plan to the student. Also, my advice is to communicate via email so you have a paper trail of what's going on. If they do call you, write an email summarizing the call to verify what was said. If you do file a state complaint, they will want evidence of what happened. You'll be able to copy the email to show this. I feel you need to do a bit of follow up with the school that received the evals - to see if a step in the process was missed - before you move forward with a state complaint. I've seen where not everyone is aware of the nuances of all situations. I'd make sure the pupil services director/head of special ed as well as a special ed supervisor gets copied on email correspondence when you ask your questions.

I'll add to what Carolyn posted. If audio recording isn't allowed (it's hard to get this accommodation in a 2-party state), allow the student to take photos of the board so they do not need to copy what the teacher has written. Teacher provided notes might be cloze notes. Writing by hand has been shown to help students remember things better than typing the same notes. Allow for homework (any/every assignment) to be typed rather than handwritten. Software & a device that works with the math being taught so math assignments are more easily able to be completed. Access to this for tests would be needed too. Use of a scribe - this might be a personal preference. I'm aware of a student with shoulder issues that resulted in arm & hand weakness. This person preferred extra time to the use of a scribe which is what was offered for taking the Bar Exam. This person had brachial plexus injury from shoulder dystocia at birth. I feel extra time is going to be key with this disability. As your grandson moves through high school, someone will need to makes sure that the school applies in advance so the accommodations provide by the school extends to SAT, PSAT, ACT, AP, state mandated testing, etc. Colleges will often look for a recent evaluation in order to provide accommodations. The high school he goes to can provide this so the family doesn't need to pay for this. (It tends to be very expensive if you need to pay out of pocket for this.)

Temple Grandin talks about a gentle push. With younger kids you want to see growth and they might need to be pushed a little to grow. Ex: if they can count to ten, you might encourage them to learn 11 to 20. If they recognise letters of the alphabet, you can teach what sounds the letters make. At any age or ability, you need to have a growth mindset. My mom was a bookkeeper. She had worked for a company for over 10 years when they went from manual records to computerized records. She was around 60 when they did this. She learned the computer at this age.

I'm not in NYC and my district put into their school board policy around the same time they started giving all students in grades 7-12 a laptop that all teachers will post all assignments online. Checking the assignment book was a thing with my oldest but it wasn't needed with her younger brother with the change in policy. They even made assignment books optional for all students when they made this change. If K-12 is getting students ready for college, I'd say that 99.99% of colleges have their assignments posted online. My other thought is: are teachers posting the assignments on the portal when they are assigned? If they are, you & your child could be checking the portal to see the assignments. Pretty sure our portal said if the assignment was an in-class assignment or a homework assignment. This could also be an IEP accommodation: Teachers will post all assignments on the school portal when assigned or they much check student's assignment book that all assignments are written in the book. Like Carolyn said: teachers need to follow the IEP. If they are supposed to check the assignment book & it's not happening, they are out of compliance with the IEP. The solution is to go up the chain of command or file a state complaint. You can also do both & file a complaint if talking to the school isn't working.

My school district policy is if you want your child to go to a different school other than the one assigned to your home, you need to provide transportation. (And most of the time, they will not give the OK for this.) If the district/IEP team decides on a different school from your neighborhood school, they provide transportation. I'd ask if there is room on the bus for an extra student and if there is, can my child ride the bus so there is one less vehicle going to the school/less traffic on the road. I'm not sure what this school's policy is with this sort of situation. Is biking to school an option? Should take less time on a bike than walking. Another option is to say that going to school B is no longer an option due to the change in work schedule & you want your child back in the neighborhood school because getting him there is now a hardship. If torn down school is their neighborhood school, you'd be at the district's mercy as to which school the child gets bussed to. This gets them out of the 40 minute walk to school which might not be very fun in bad weather. I think an IEP meeting is going to be needed with a lot of these options.