Regular Ed or Special Ed?

There is always options. Always. If he doesn’t qualify for special ed services,he would still qualify for a 504 plan. OR you could secure an inedpendent evaluation.

But the biggest thing to remember you are the parent. You have rights. You are an Equal member of the IEP team. Or any team that is making a decision regarding your child.

Different situations in different schools can be extremely different. All that has to happen is a change of teachers (and lets say turnover is pretty high — Washington State did a survey and found that more than half their sped teachers expect tobe doing something different in five years).

I agree to one of your replies, you do have a option! You can make any change that is best for your child.

I myself am involved in an almost similiar situation. I want my son moved the spec. ed. to Regular Ed. Or left in Special ed with extremely heavy mainstreaming on a daily basic.

The one thing that I have to say that is very helpful, try to find a friend, a relative or someone close to you that is either a spec. ed. teacher, ot, PT ot Speech Therapist (if you are not)
that can advocate for your child because I as a parent DO NOT KNOW ALL THE LAWS. They do.

Good Luck

Sometimes it’s difficult to know the right place. My son does not qualify for special ed (or even special services beyond reading intervention). Next year he will be starting at an extremely demanding school and I’m very concerned the expectations will be too high and he won’t get the attention he needs.

Also, I worry quite a bit about his self-esteem. Fortunately, he’s still somewhat unaware of how his skills compare to his peers, but eventually he’s going to realize this.

The services of sp.ed can be given in different ways, in different settings. My son was in a pullout resource room for lang.arts/reading and supplemental math, also for any standardized testing. He was in reg. classes for everything else with accommodations. That was in 5th grade, in 6th and 7th grades he has been in all reg. classes with sp.ed support and accommodations, resource room still only for standardized testing, and an option if needed for other class tests(less distracting location). The setting can run a full spectrum, from very restrictive like a self contained school, to very unrestrictive like just consulting with reg. teachers. You and the team decide what is best, the school can’t make the decision by itself.

I guess it depends on the child and the programs the school has to offer. Since my sister is a special education teacher I am not afraid of the special ed. system. I have used the system to tailor my sons education to his meet his needs and I hold the school to the IEP requirements.

My son was pulled out of class in 3rd grade and 1/2 of 4th grade for reading and writing instruction one on one with the resource teacher or in small groups of children with similar learning styles .

He has been fully inclusive with modifications from mid fourth grade on, this includes a taking a foreign language this year (grade 7) and since he’s been successful this year (yes the school said he would not be) next year he will take a second year of foreign language and will start pre-algebra.

I have found the most important thing I can do as a parent of a child with a different learning style is to be in constant communications with the school. They know I expect them to follow his IEP and advise when problems arise.

My son is in special ed classes for math and language arts, but goes to the regular classroom for the rest of his classes. What kind of modifications or accomodations do your children have listed on their IEP’s? I have made lots of requests and been told, by accomodating my son they are being unfair to the rest of the class. Guess it doesn’t matter they can read on grade level and is four years behind. Any suggestions would be appreciated

Kathytoo,

Who told you it was unfair to the other children for your child to have accommodations? It is not unfair, it is leveling the playing field.

My daughter, who had writing problems, was allowed to only fill in the word in English in lieu of writing the whole sentence - because it took her just as long to do that as it did everyone else to write the sentence.

She also does 1/2 of the math questions - as long as they are representative of the group. Why does she have to do 50 questions instead of 25 if she can pass the test - especially when it takes her 2-3X longer to do the written work?

She also gets extended time for book reports and long written assignments. In other words if the class is going to start a book report the teacher will often let her know the week before because it takes her longer to read than the other children.

To be honest, I have not had any problems and my child has been given every accommodation I have requested.

Kathytoo,
if you can get on the added support bulletin boards (it’s an msn community, go to msn as a browser, then type in ADDed Support) I copied my son’s accommodations down for others to see what you can get. It is listed under the home/school section titled ‘I don’t know what’s available’ posted by
ecarpenter. I thought it might help folks there and it might help you also. My son has add/inattentive and mild/mod capd, he just turned 13. I figure info is info where ever you get it. Hope it helps.
BTW obviously any one is welcome to look, I just thought this would help kathytoo in this specific instance.