JSD24

Just because a student has a medical diagnosis of dyslexia, it does not mean that they are sufficiently behind to qualify for an IEP when they enter school. (At least this is what I've seen as the school's perspective.) With no state education standards (in most states) for preschoolers, a student needs to be in 2nd grade before they can be 2 years behind which seems to be the benchmark to get an IEP. This is why your child went to the neighborhood school up to now. Schools are allowed to not have every program in every building. (Teachers in different buildings might have to same training but the programming - what they do - is different.) It looks like Integrated Co-Teaching is what the school has deemed 'appropriate' as far as IEP services go. With this not being in the local school, they are wanting to place your child in a different building with all new classmates. This definitely is allowed in IDEA. I'm assuming that MS reading is a reading specialist who does Tier 2 & 3 RTI intervention at the neighborhood school. This is general ed intervention and the evals the school did says she needs special ed. This is why there is an offer of FAPE - IEP services the school says your child needs. You have 2 options. (1) You can sign the IEP and send your child to the building that has appropriate instruction for dyslexia. I'm assuming they do something in addition to ICT like one of the O-G based IEP level interventions. The IEP will come with progress monitoring which is not required with RTI. (2) You can keep the status quo and have your child stay in gen ed with gen ed Tiered interventions. Just because an eval exists and an offer of FAPE was made and turned down by the family should not mean that your child cannot continue to get RTI and stay in their neighborhood school. From what I can tell, your school district is following special ed protocols with providing your child with an offer of FAPE which is probably why OCR & NY dept of Sp Ed is not following up with your complaints. I wish the system worked differently. You cannot have your cake & eat it too in this situation. When I refused FAPE for my son, my district wanted a form from me that was signed in front of 2 witnesses before they would stop the speech therapy he was getting and not making progress with. I wanted to take him to an outside therapist & didn't want him missing 20% of the class he was pulled from to get therapy - he struggled with missing class (and, my bad, we didn't have help in place so he was better able to make up the missed instruction given his ADHD). My suggestion, if you really want option (2) is to see about getting your child outside O-G based tutoring so your child can get instruction at a level called for based on their disability. An advocate or sp ed attorney might be able to help you reach a conclusion to the differences you and your school are having. I know of a family where their youngest child (they have 5 kids) was identified as dyslexic. FAPE, for him, was a placement in a private school ~45 minutes away by bus. He would have liked to stay in district & go to the schools his siblings went to but then he wouldn't have been taught to read in the way he needed to learn.

I'm not sure the TA was removed. The IEP doesn't specify in the related services grid how much time the TA will spend with your child. Under 'description of actions proposed or refused', it does say the TA will be there except when H is in speech therapy. What I feel is needed is clarification. You could do that in a letter/email: Looking to clarify that H will have a TA with her 2:1 except when she goes to speech therapy. The amount of time the TA will spend with her is not specified in the Related Services grid. I want to make sure we are all on the same page as far as when the TA will be helping her. My thought is that when your child is in therapy, the TA will be able to get lunch, use the bathroom and relieve the teacher so they can step out to use the bathroom. Often these paraprofessionals are scheduled for every moment of the day and get burned out. This allows them breathing room.

So the 2:1 was in the draft, discussed at the meeting as staying in the IEP, and was deleted from the final version. There definitely needs to be a explanation in the PWN as to why something agreed to was removed from the IEP. With a case manager leaving their job between having an IEP meeting & getting the final draft to the family, I would hope that the LEA would be the person to do the edits on the IEP so it's someone who was at the meeting.

Like I posted before: There is a saying in schools: If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. Make sure you have a paper trail. If you do have a phone or in-person conversation, follow it up with an email so you get important points in writing. I know this is a PITA but it's necessary.

Yes, you can get services w/o an IEP. Non-disabled students who need extra help can get this under RTI/MTSS. Let's say a student isn't keeping up with their class as far as reading goes. The teacher (and generally the child study team too) identifies the students and they get extra help. It's quick because there's less to do to get this in place. If it's just a concept or 2 and the student catches on quickly, they are exited from services before you know it. Because it's quick, there are no goals and no progress monitoring. In theory, if the student doesn't catch up they are referred for a higher level of services. This doesn't always happen. I've seen where the student falls further & further behind because it's not the right intervention. Also, there are no rules on who is providing the service as well as if they get the service - if another student needs an eval that week, this child doesn't have an IEP that says 1X per week for 30 min so they get nothing while the SLP does this eval. I can see the family saying this is an OK way to start the school year but, IMO, there should be an IEP put in place at some point if this is a longer-term need. With an IEP, everyone is in the same page with expectations on what services the student gets as well as what progress is expected. I'm curious how the parent/family knows the child needs speech services. Why didn't they have a preschool IEP for this staring at age 3? I always encourage families to start early - early intervention is best. With preschool services, the IEP is in place for the start of kindergarten and maybe the child catches up before starting K. Lastly, my experience with a speech IEP wasn't the greatest so I might be prejudice toward outside therapy. My son got his speech IEP in 3rd grade and seemed to make little progress. School speech services are group therapy so my child was one of 3 or 4 students the SLP was working with. This means that 30 min/week is 7-10 minutes working directly with the SLP. (For some students, they compete with the other students in therapy and work harder to make progress - and they progress faster.) In 7th grade, I pulled my son from school therapy & moved to outside therapy. (He had issues keeping up with the class he was pulled from to get therapy. This was a 'unified art class' but one of the classes was computer science.) The outside sessions were longer (45 minutes) and they were 1:1. The therapist noticed mouth asymmetry when my son mispronounced. By the 3rd session, she identified that he was moving his tongue laterally which was causing his articulation issues. After 4 months of therapy, he was cured. He had worked with 3 different school therapists from 3rd to 7th grade & they never identified his issue. In retrospect, group speech probably wasn't FAPE because they never figured out his issue in the 4.5 years he had school therapy. Telling him to practice talking without moving his tongue right or left was what he needed to hear. This was the therapy that was appropriate for him. None of the school therapists told him that. (Most of the time, fixing a speech issue isn't this easy.) If the family can do outside therapy, it might be better for the child.

If the evaluator has school credentials, it's a school eval. If the evaluator's credentials are medical, it's a medical eval. Some evaluators have both school & medical credentials which makes their evals school evals. The doctor letter sounds like it's medical & not an educational perspective. The district you pay your school taxes to is generally the district that does the eval but I know some states that go by the school where the student attends. (You could live in X district & send your child to a private school in Y district where Y has to do the eval.) I'm hoping you figure out his meds. We went through this with my child. Things got so out of hand that we looked into a residential placement. We upped the dose & things settled down. In my state, when you file a state complaint, you concurrently need to give the school a copy of the complaint. Follow the instructions with how this is done in your state.

I feel that transportation of preschoolers is a gray area. Transportation is expensive. Transporting one student to school for one speech therapy session multiplied by all the preschoolers that need this and other services is a logistical nightmare. Yes, the school district should transport but I feel many schools put this on the parent. From the perspective I've seen from other parents, it's scary to put your 3 year old disabled child onto a bus to bring them to school for services. I think lots of parents want to drive because of this. Given that parents have other things going on in their lives beyond tending to their disabled child, sometimes getting a child to therapy isn't a thing a parent can do for a lot of reasons. I think I've even seen case law that said schools should transport. My thought is that there should be transparency. Some schools just don't transport students. Others might only transport when it's for at least half a day. Whatever the policy, the school should explain to the parents what they can (and cannot) offer but that doesn't happen when transportation isn't discussed but rather dictated. We have IFSPs in my area. These are the plans for services with goals that are not school services. I've see Individualized Family Support Plans for Early Intervention - so everyone is on the same page as far as goals & services are. I've also seen this for services after kids age out of the school system. It's the paper trail for the services. The IRL page that everyone is on.

The eval done at a university is an IEE/outside eval. School 'consider' outside evals - including the ones they pay for. After providing the eval to the school, the next step is a meeting to go over the eval so the school can consider it. To have an IEP meeting, you need an LEA, a parent (optional if they don't want to come), a sp ed teacher (parent can excuse them in writing), a gen ed teacher (they can also be excused by the parent) and a person who can explain an eval if there is an eval to review at the meeting. It seems like they are using an old school eval to say he needs level 4 where there is a more recent outside eval that says level 3. They are allowed to follow an old eval rather than following a more recent outside eval - this is the school's choice as the outside eval is looked at as biased where a school eval isn't. PWN is generally provided after an IEP meeting but it can also be provided after other meetings. (In my area, I've seen it after a 504 meeting.) Did you request a school eval (in writing so there is a paper trail) so the school might see he's changed with therapy, homeschooling, different meds and time? Have you directly asked them why they feel he needs level 4 when you have an eval report saying that level 3 is needed? Keep in mind that school psychologists get the summer off so they might not have one available to do an eval. (My district has them working 5 days longer than teachers so they can be called in during the summer to do an eval or 2.)

Districts follow their data. Their data says that he needs a AN program (not sure what AN stands for). The truth is that his levels from before are not 'present levels' as a lot has happened since then plus it sounds like the last eval wasn't all that accurate in the first place. My perspective is the IEP has lapsed so they shouldn't be using all that much of the info from it but it's all the school has. Is there an outside eval that's more recent? Has the parents asked the school to consider this eval? What parents can do is sign to exit him from his IEP where he could go back to school & be in gen ed w/o support - a 504 could be put in place so he'd get accommodations but no IEP & specially designed instruction until the school does an eval. Family can advocate that the right 504 accommodation is to put him into the school's autism program since that's his medical & school diagnosis. IEP evals do take 90-100 days - parents can ask for the eval to be done over the summer but schools are not obligated to do that - this would definitely be worth asking for. Lots of hard advocating to get him into the placement the parents feel is right for him. And you are dealing with school data to the contrary. I'd say it is worth trying. Not sure about CO rules but here in PA, parents can homeschool & enroll in public school for up to 25% of the school day. If this is allowed in CO, it might be a way to wait out the 90-100 days the eval will take & ease the transition back into the public school. (Lots of 'creativity' in what I posted it might be hard to implement this.)

Have you looked on Google Scholar for cases that involve retaliation? It's pretty easy to go there and do a search. (I'd put in a link to the site but whenever I put in a link, there's a delay with posting the comment in this site.) I'm curious if there is a request in your child's file that 'given inappropriate behavior of XX as observed by outside professionals, can my child not have contact with XX in the future?' In bigger schools, there tends to be more than one teacher with the same credentials where your child can be assigned to a different teacher rather than being put into a situation where this teacher could again be inappropriate.

From what I've seen, trauma needs to be processed. When you process it, you find a place for it where you can live with it. Without finding a place, it sneaks up on you and the surprise of seeing it overwhelms. Until it's processed, avoiding will prevent triggering. There is a saying in schools: If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. You experienced it with the half day/2 hours per day 'policy' that you were told. My best advice is for you/your son to put into writing that (A) is a trigger and you would like for any assessments to be arranged to be done at another building. Mention the ADA in your request and ask if the school needs any additional documentation (like from a practitioner of the healing arts) so the accommodation can be put in place for him. (Not sure about requesting it go into his IEP as an accommodation. This couldn't hurt but it's asking a lot.) And as long as you are writing, mention that there is another student who is a trigger - you don't want to find out this students is at (B) when your son goes there for testing. Do mention the student by name if you know this student's name. There is an article on the Adayinourshoes website that says about summarizing phone calls and in-person meetings to get what was told verbally into writing so it doesn't come back later as a surprise when they backtrack what was said. Lots of things qualify an an IEE. From what I've seen, a doctor's note saying a student has PTSD & XX is a trigger is an IEE - at least schools treat them like an IEE. If it's a school eval, then the school follows it. If an eval exists that can support your perspective, share it with the school. Schools need to follow what their data says. Seems like their data says your son needs a Level 4 school. Request an eval so they can assess and see if their new/recent data might say something else. Do it in writing so there is no confusion about your request for new eval at a building other than (A).

So, it seems (if I got this right) that your son's IEP wasn't followed & he ended up at (A) because of the agression he developed w/o the right support. While at (A), he was traumatized because he was attacked by a classmate. He sometimes does OK at (A) and other times, it's a trigger for him. I'm not sure if this is the building triggering him or a lack of support or possibly his classmate that's the trigger. My feeling is this really needs to be figured out so that 'his needs' can be addressed. You can't address a need if you haven't pinpointed what that need is. You seem to want to avoid (A) because of the director there and you feel it will not be a place where your child is supported. You also say they don't seem to have academic rigor if he's taking 2 hour naps. I'm also reading that the school wants to use old evals to base placement where you feel present levels changed since then. My gut says he needs a new school eval to figure out what's going on. He's on meds (that keep changing). His antecedent to being aggressive is unknown. Until you and the school are on the same page with his present levels, needs, triggers and what's going to help him, you are going to go in circles. Keep in mind that schools only 'consider' (not follow) outside evals - the one from Nystrom and Associates is an outside eval. Have you shared this eval with the school? A doctor's note is also treated like an outside eval. If they offer to redo evals - sign permission for that. If he's not getting homebound services, I would think they would set him up with virtual, online classes so he can get an education.

1. Do compensating services not have to be 1:1 in compensation? Compensatory services bring the student to where they would have ended up if the services were provided as specified in the IEP. 2. Can they just cram these services into regular curriculum during ESY along with 1:1 individual? Meaning, she will sit individually with the Reading Specialist then they will incorporate what she is learning in her regular daily activities and count this as compensation. ie; games, computer work, etc. They can so long as your child ends up were they should have been if the IEP was followed. It's not best practices to 'cram'. For example: Wilson Reading's protocol is 45-60 minutes daily. You want time for a student to absorb the material. (There is research to support taking breaks when doing tasks. Walking away helps the brain to think better by resetting. When I was getting my MBA, I learned about this. You increase employee efficiency when they take breaks. The same works for children who are learning things at school.) 3. Can they tell me no in reference to having a Reading Specialist? Would PWN apply? If I had a child who needed IEP level of instruction due to a reading disability, I would want to have a special ed teacher who is trained it a remedial O-G based protocol. A reading specialist is not trained in special ed as part of their training. They are trained to help non-disabled students who struggle to read. 4. Are they violating the IEP if they aren't using the Wilson Program as stated in it? The University of Florida's Literacy Institute program is a good program. I don't believe it's equivalent to Wilson Reading. It's a free resource for teachers to get them up to speed with structured literacy. It's a great resource for districts/school that cannot afford to purchase a structured literacy curriculum. Schools are required to do what is in the IEP. They are out of compliance with the IEP if the IEP says Wilson and they end up with another special ed program that is at the same level as Wilson. You can file a complaint for non-compliance with your child's IEP if the IEP says Wilson & the school is using UFLI. IMO, it's an oxymoron to have a reading specialist provide Wilson. I wouldn't expect any reading specialist to be certified to provide Wilson Reading (unless that are both a reading specialist & a sp ed teacher). It's like expecting a person who cuts lawns to also have expertise it taking down trees. They might do OK with the smaller, easier ones but not the ones that are bigger.

Chapter 14 specifies maximum teacher caseloads under § 14.105. Personnel (c) (2). They list 9 IEP categories but there are 13 in IDEA/on the IEP. Developmental delay, TBI & OHI aren't mentioned in Chapter 14. (ID also isn't mentioned but they do have a Life Skills Support category in Ch 14.) What are the max caseloads when the box that's checked is DD, TBI or OHI? Where did you find this?

Did the school psychologist provide a reason on why they want this category? I'm in PA & what I've found is they have regs on teacher caseloads. Autistic support has a small caseload, learning support allows for a bigger caseload. Sometimes the school will push for a category so they have an easier time meeting caseload requirements. I looked up PA regs and they list 9 categories & their caseloads. OHI isn't listed. I know the category is important. The thing is, IEPs are based on what's in the eval report. If there is a need for reading help per the eval and the SLD box isn't checked, the school still has to set goals & remediate the reading issue. The wrong box being checked shouldn't have much effect on your child. So long as the IEP eval is both complete & accurate, all your child's needs should be met by the special instruction & services in the IEP.

I believe that NJ has the clock run in the summer but, in other states, where there is no gen ed teacher available, the timeline clock is stopped. Are they willing to give you a meeting date now for the fall so the training can start asap?

My child had enough credits to graduate but walked with their class & did a 5th year program at a college campus. We are in PA - not WA. I thought that this, per IDEA, would be an IEP team decision. Since this would be a decision to be made a year from now, the family could maliciously comply with this supposed rule by dropping a required class where they are not eligible to graduate. #9 says that students who have not met IEP transition goals can stay for extra time to meet the goals: https://www.sbe.wa.gov/faqs/graduation It also has an email for additional info. I'd make sure the IEP has a transition goal that this student hasn't met a year from now so you have documentation showing that transition goals haven't been met. My child's IEP was for social skills. Is there a program that can address the goal? Time is not SDI.

A gen ed teacher is required at an IEP meeting (unless the student spends no time in gened). You didn't have an IEP meeting if this person didn't attend. Now if the gen ed PE or music teacher was there, they too are gen ed teachers and would meet the requirement for having a gen ed teacher present at the meeting. This is a procedural violation (no gen ed teacher) so filing a state complaint would be a way to go. You could remind the public school that you did not, in fact, have an IEP meeting since there was no gen ed teacher present and request to meet at an IEP meeting where his teacher is allowed into the virtual meeting room. I actually had this happen and the supervisor arranged for another IEP meeting in less than 24 hours because the following day was an in-service and they day after that would have missed the timeline for the annual meeting. Turned out that the scheduled teacher was called into another meeting. It dawned on me that there was no gen ed teacher as I was walking to my car after the meeting. I wasn't asked to sign a waiver to excuse the teacher - this is a way to get around the gen ed teacher attending.

I think I know the (subtle) difference. A support person helps when needed. A 1:1 would be by the student's side throughout the school day. A support person could have other duties or be a 1:2 where they help 2 students at the same time. 1:1 might not have that flexibility. If your child only needs support in gen ed, they don't need a 1:1 given this perspective. My district will rotate 1:1 paraprofessionals where the student could have a different person in the afternoon or with a particular class. Not sure if this is good or bad. A consistent person would be better able to know the student and anticipate needs or recognise an antecedent and intervene before things go off track. It might be important if a student has absence seizures which can be hard to spot. Rotating helpers allows the paraprofessionals to have more breath of experience and learn how to support different disabilities. Also makes the transition easier if the aide ever misses a day and the child has a sub-aide.

I do seem to post on here frequently. Each & every time I post a link, the orange warning pops up that it needs to be okayed by a moderator. Sometimes, the link is to the Adayinourshoes website and the bots even block that.

They can restrain her. Students who are a danger to self or others can be restrained. If she's hitting her head or smashing her fingers, she is a danger to herself. The person restraining her would need to be trained on how to properly restrain because people can get hurt if it's done wrong. Redirection should be what's tried 1st but you don't stand by and watch a child hurt themself. Restraint should be the last resort. It is possible that they don't have trained personnel. If they are not trained, they legally cannot restrain. Pretty sure this falls under child neglect if they are not intervening and allowing your child to get hurt. You might want to call the CPS people in your state and ask them what's legal.

You can file a FERPA complaint since your child's confidential information was shared. Just be aware that when this happens, people get a slap on the wrist. Back when my sons were in elementary school, the principal shared class lists where he should have deleted the columns that said who had an IEP or a 504 or a GIEP. The remedy is generally training for the person who did this. (With my situation, it was an accident - he did know better. They were late with finalizing class lists this summer. He was in a rush & sent out the teacher list where it should have been edited.) I could see the principal sending a head's up email/letter saying that there is a student who will be attending school with a service dog. If students have a fear of dogs, the parents might want to talk to their child about this. I could also see including info that this is a working dog and that the dog shouldn't be petted while working. This is the link on filing a FERPA complaint: https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/file-a-complaint This is something a parent can do themself. I've been told they are fairly to fill out.

I view assessments as the 'tests' the school psychologist would do 1:1 with a student. While Rating Scales (questionnaires) can be part of these 'tests', I'm not aware of any that would be done to determine if a student has dyslexia - neither ones a student would do alone nor tests that parents or teachers would do. Dyslexia is defined as follows: “Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by the difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge” (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003, Annals of Dyslexia, p. 2). Note the part about 'in relation to other cognitive abilities'. This means that a person with low IQ cannot be dyslexic. If their reading ability is on par with their other abilities, it's by definition not dyslexia. IQ testing should be part of an initial diagnosis so the school can tell what cognitive abilities the student has. Since IQ is fairly stable after age 8, there really isn't a need to redo IQ testing. I feel the best types of tests for dyslexia involve listening to the person read and seeing what sort of errors they make. Or reading what they've written to see if the errors are indicative of dyslexia. A dysgraphia assessment would be done by an OT. Testing is required triennially so it's not typical for a school to do this every year. If we had the names of the tests, we could see what the tests assess. Or, you could search the internet and look at this yourself. Did you sign a permission form for this testing? Could they be testing for something that would be in addition to dyslexia?

The logical place for this to happen would be the resource classroom. (Not every school has one.) Students should be supervised by an adult while at school and the hallway isn't appropriate due to lack of supervision as well as it not being safe should there be an intruder. The library does sound like it would work. Resource rooms tend to have a paraprofessional there and students use the room for extended testing time or a quiet place to work. If he has a 1:1, it would open up other places in the building as an option. Would an audio book work? He could read and listen. This could be done in a classroom with headphones.

Per the way IDEA is written, if you ask for a reading goal (and services to meet the goal) this should go on the PWN if the school says no. If they say yes, I don't think PWN is required. If you are asking for more of the same service your child already gets, what you are asking doesn't seem to fit with something that needs a PWN. (I feel how much of something falls under 'professional judgement' and they have the professionals to determine this. If there is no progress with the service, then you have data that something different is needed & that might be worthy of going in PWN.) https://adayinourshoes.com/iep-prior-written-notice-pwn/ My district would write out the PWN before the meeting. Not sure what crystal ball they have where they know what we might discuss & I might ask for for my child.