Intermittent Homebound (parent question)

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

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My daughter is in high school, a freshman, and is so severely Bipolar 1, that she requires multiple hospitalizations a year, has frequent emotional breakdowns especially in school and is point brilliant in math and science, but below grade in reading and spelling. She’s currently in resource education for most of the day, but the two mainstream classes she’s in cause most of the meltdowns. When we began this whole process two years ago, we requested intermittent homebound and got the required documentation from her doctor about OHI and recommendations for tutoring.

We were told that this small country school district didn’t have the resources necessary to provide for such a thing. We bought it, foolishly, and watched our daughter’s mental health deteriorate and her grades barely skim along. I just found out from a spec ed consultant that the school was required to take the request seriously and provide the resources to accommodate.

I don’t want to take an adversarial approach, and have so very much encouraged her educators and administration to learn about Bipolar Disorder. I’ve bought books for them, emailed links especially geared toward teachers, and still, as of last week when she broke down (again) in a home-ec class, I talked with the teacher and asked her if she was familiar with Bipolar Disorder. Her reply floored me! She said, “Why I’ve never even heard of that!” and was incredibly snotty about the whole thing.

What do I do? Any suggestions you have will help, and certainly any online or telephonic resources for contact information would assist us in this what is now becoming a battle with her school.

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/17/2002 - 1:31 AM

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There are some parents who send their children to school part-time and homeschool part-time. It sounds like your daughter only handles the resource classes well. I wouln’t think it would be worth it to keep her in any classes where her mental health is deteriorating.

I actually had a student with bipolar disorder a few years ago and she was absent all the time. She hated school. She told me she really wanted to homeschool but her grandmother didn’t know how to go about it. I called a homeschooling friend and got all the contact numbers for information and sent it to the grandmother. In about a month they pulled her out. I lent them some old textbooks to get them through the end of the year and even offered to give her the required achievement test to send into the state at the end of the year. When she came back at the end to return the books and take the test, her grandmother told me how much happier she was and that they had made the right decision. As an educator, I believe in appropriate placemnt…and that even includes homeschool and self-contained classes, contrary to current trends.

Most homebound instruction is very minimal anyway. I think ours gives 5 hours a week.

Janis

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/17/2002 - 3:13 PM

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Hi…I’m real new to all this, even though my daughter has been in special Ed for a year. I guess I just got tired of playing a Dickens character asking, “Can I have some more please, sir?” So, I got educated with a crash course in parent advocacy. This letter is a result of all that, and I hope it might help somebody else in our same situation. It’s fairly self-explanatory and not too long. Pass it along if you know of any folks that could make use of it. And thanks for all the feedback.

Bonita
––––––––––––––––––––––-
Date:

To: The District Director of Special Education Services
CC: The District Superintendent; High School Principal; High School Counselor; Special Education Services Teacher

From: Parents

Subject: Request For Intermittent Homebound and Hospital Bedside Tutorial Services

According to the Texas Education Code, Chapter 25.085., Compulsory School Attendance, if a child is exempted under 25.086., then the rule does not apply. Our daughter is specifically exempted under provision 25.086.(a)(3), which states:

“A child is exempt from the requirements of compulsory school attendance if the child:
Has a physical or mental condition of a temporary and remediable nature that makes the child’s attendance infeasible and holds a certificate from a qualified physician specifying the temporary condition, indicating the treatment prescribed to remedy the temporary condition, and covering the anticipated period of the child’s absence from school for the purpose of receiving and recuperating from that remedial treatment.”

Further it states in Chapter 25.086(b) that:

“This section does not relieve a school district in which a child eligible to participate in the district’s special education program resides of its fiscal and administrative responsibilities under Subchapter A, Chapter 29, or of its responsibility to provide a free appropriate public education to a child with a disability.”

Given the severity of our daughter’s mental illness and her periodic but frequent absences due to manic-depressive episodes with or without medication instability and necessary short-term hospitalizations, it is harming her IEP goals achievement to deny her the right to intermittent homebound or hospital bedside tutorial services.

We have requested these services from the very beginning of her initial evaluation up to the present day and have provided the necessary documentation (see enclosure) dated 03/09/01 in which the doctor attests and is witnessed by her therapist that our daughter has a qualifying OHI (Other Health Impairment) namely Bipolar Disorder of a severe type and is expected to be absent for a period of over six weeks in the school year, not necessarily consecutive.

Our daughter has maintained passing grades in all her classes despite these absences and shows remarkable spirit and maturity in trying to achieve good academic results by immediately making up her missed assignments. The point is that she shouldn’t be ‘missing’ any instruction or experiencing breaks in her education. The lapses occurring are due primarily to the absence of having a teacher instruct her on a continuing basis. Intermittent homebound and hospital bedside tutorial services would greatly relieve this educational deficit in view of the fact that her neurological condition makes it unrealistic for her to attend school as regularly as other non-disabled students.

Our daughter has proven her personal commitment to learning. Is it too much to ask that the school district demonstrate its own plan to educate her, as her mental illness requires?

Enc: OHI statement dated 03/09/01
Additional and current statement from her psychiatrist
Supporting statement from her psychologist
Chronology of hospitalizations

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/17/2002 - 4:15 PM

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Also, I did the homeschool thingie with her from end of grade five to end of seventh. That came about at the recommendation from the school staff at the elementary school she attended in Plano. Boy, how illegal was that? Anyway, I plunged in with my usual panache, joined the support groups, talked curriculum to total strangers and actually had a handle on it. Consistency was the issue, and with her high school coming up, my competency to give her the education she needed to go on to college came into play.

So we moved to this rural Texas hayseed town (we love it out here actually), bought a chunk of land with a pretty house, and enrolled her in a small but quaint public school. It’s been a nightmare ever since, not just with the school, but with trying so hard to get my daughter stable on her meds. I just would love to kiss the man who invented lithium, and drop kick the guy who first prescribed her mega doses of anti-depressants without control medications. Mania in a 12 year old can get so ugly, and she popped off the charts on manic attacks…psychotic, delusional, the whole thing. Learning about Bipolar Disorder in kids took up about a year. Now that I’ve got a handle on it as much as any parent can, my next maneuver is to take a bite out of special education and give the apple to my kid.

I’m waxing way silly here…haven’t slept all night. Living on relief and easy breathing from finding the articles and studies and codes I need to frame up a darn good plan. This should be like a special science taught at colleges…how a parent negotiates through to success in special education. Or, well, I’m a writer…maybe there’s a book developing here.

I’m taking my silly butt to bed, but thanks again for the assists. I’ll probably mumble in my sleep…regression assessment…remediation…remediation.
Bonita

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