frustration!!!!

Oh boy.

Sounds like a screwed up school. First thing would be to move to a better school. The issues surrounding a child with learning differences are plenty difficult enough in a ‘good’ school, let alone one with so much internal strife.

This may sound drastic to you, but let me assure you that the school you’re in will only get worse, at the expense of your son and your family. Please, instead of wasting your time ‘partnering’ with an incompetent school, first look into your options regarding a better school.

Thank you! :) Believe me, that is definatly a possibility! I guess I am concerned that if it happens in another school, then what should I do? I would be adding to the dishovelment(is that a word?lol)
After I pick him up from school today, I am going to try to set up a meeting with the Guidance councilor from another school, to see if they can help him, and possibly transfer him. From what I heard, its hard to do this in Florida. Oh well, It will be worth it if I can get him the help he deserves!!
Thanks again:)

Sounds like your school sucks. I’d consider homeschooling if possible. Also get the scholl to pay for a tutor. Ask the right questions and record their answers. Also, keep everything in perspective….. School really is irellavant. Just make sure your 8 year old has more victories than defeats and more smiles than frowns and more laughs than tears. He’ll learn at his own pace. If anyone has a problem with that tell them to take a flying leap at a rolling donut.As long as your boy is making a sincere efort and is not too frustrated this crap that you are going thruogh may in time just end up being a blip on the screen.

ditto

Heather -

I would take it up to a higher level. Use all the screw-ups/changes to your advantage.

Use a timeline format to document all the events (YIKES!) in your child’s school history. To them, the important ones will be your requests for help with identifying possible LDs and their failure to follow through. They would never provide remedial services based on teacher changes alone, although you could throw them in for good measure. If you can document the forms you signed and when, that would be a big gun in your arsenal.

Then document all LD issues you can identify as concerns for your child and how little/no progress has been made in the problem areas due to all the chaos at his school and their failure to follow through on your formal requests. I’d spend some more time researching signs of LDs so you can use more powerful issues in your request. Many of your concerns (paying attention to directions, finishing his work) they can blow off by pointing to the ADD and putting the ball back in your court.

What you want to point out (if you can truly say this) is that there seems to be a significant discrepancy between his level of his intelligence and his level of achievement in both reading, computation (and any academic areas that seem to be a problem). Emphasize that you want a complete psych/ed evaulation to identify your child’s learning disabilities. Can you use the magic words “more than 2 years behind?” “If he’s not at least 2 years behind” seems to be their standard excuse for not pursuing the testing.

Send your write up to the Director of Special Education and copy the principal at your school. Send it registered mail. (Just a few days ago, I ran across a site listing the actual addresses for Sped directors in all 50 states - sorry I didn’t bookmark it. If your District has a web site you can probably find it there.) I’ve also run across templates for letters like this on other web sites. Wrightslaw.com maybe? Get the teacher out of the loop; in my experience they are impediments to the process.

Having said all that, even if you eventually get the school to provides services, they are often at levels that don’t provide much remediation, or they are provided by people who don’t have the appropriate knowledge or motivation, or the time is split among a group of children with other issues your child does not have. If you can afford it, I would look for a qualified tutor who can work one-on-one with your child on the specific areas where he has difficulty. We did, and it is really paying off now in middle school. Early intervention really is critical. If you spend years fighting the school system and you finally get services, you have lost some critical years and might let the frustration severely impact his self-esteem.

Time to start your notebook documenting anything and everything that happens. Keep copies of any communication you have with the school/district related to these problems (which should be in writing). Keep copies of all their responses. I’d try to avoid an adverserial tone if you can, but eventually you may have to escalate the rhetoric.

Best wishes to both of you.

P.S. Some sample letters are here, but they don’t quite fit this situation. (You might be able to use pieces of the “Request Evaluation” letter.)

http://www.nichcy.org/pubs/parent/pa9txt.htm

http://www.familyeducation.com/whatworks/item/front/0,2551,1-14376-11989-1,00.html

I got quite a lot of good hits searching on “sample letter to director of special education for evaluation” using google.com

I am sorry to hear that you have such a lousy school district. I found these for someone else and thought they might help.

K.

http://www.floridachild.org/mckayfaq/ also try https://www.opportunityschools.org/home.asp

Wow!! Thank you sooo much! You really gave me alot to think about, and to work on! I really can’t thank you enough:)
One thing I already have done, is the notebook. I started it this year, I have copies of every letter, to every teacher, and their replies. Also, reports from his reading group, and any other corespondence that deals with this issue. Now I know what to do with it all!
Like you said-even if I get the proper testing done or services that are needed, we will probably lose critical time. Arggggggggg! He has an appointment w/ his Dr. tomorrow morning. Hoping for a referral to an Audiologist. I asked at the school office if I could get a copy of his cumulative folder I was told “politely” oh- we don’t do that. I guess I’ll go back to the guidance hag (sorry, better venting to you than say that to her huh? :) And have her “go over it” with me, if that’s the best they can do. Im just curious if they still have the testing forms that I signed when Jake never got tested. We’ll see what happens. The tutor idea sounds like a wonderful idea! According to our county and district-grades 2-12 are provided a tutor free of charge through the school(they have done away w/ summer school for this new policy)
Funny thing is- that idea has NEVER come up in any conference I’ve had, even the one I had w/ the guidance hag. HHHhmmmmmmm. I’ll bring that up as well. Thank you again so much for your time and resources. I am very greatful, so is Jake. :)

Thank you :) I’ll check them out. I really appreciate your response:)

At some point someone from the school or administration should have given you a parents rights brochure. It should say somewhere in there, you are entitled to a copy of your child’s record. I am not sure about Florida but in Massachusetts, it is 48 hours. The only catch, if you will, is they can charge you for it, here it is 10 cents a page. It would be well worth it if you don’t have it or some of the things in it. I believe it is also in the IDEA regs.

Also, when you go to guidance, bring your request in writing!

K.

Here is a sample letter for requesting records.

http://comnet.org/local/orgs/sac/request.htm

K.

1002.31 Public school parental choice.—
Is a Florida Statute that allows parents to choose which school they would like their child to attend. It is contingent on how many childrten are already there,transportation could fall on the parent if you are way out of the bus route etc.,but the important part is in Florida,it is part of the educational law that parents have a choice. Good thing too,because Florida schools,STINK!

Okay Heather,let’s go down this list of all the violations so far,
If you signed a consent for evaluation and the school has not evaluated your child,they are in violation of child find provisions of IDEA.This section of the law states that every child must be identified. They are in violation of Florida Law that states a student must be evaluated in all areas of suspected needs,they are in violation of Child study team procedures. If you have never recieved the parental safeguard rights then they violated your parental safeguard rights.

If you requested the eval in writing to the school,then they were obligated to inform you of when they were evaluating,what test they would do,and what timeline there was.They were obligated to do this within 30 days.
According to what you describe,I would say they violated lots of laws,gee,wondering if you live in my district:-)

There is an organization named STAND(statewide advocacy network for disabilities) it is an organization that helps parent advocate for their children in Florida. They have volunteer advocates that will go with you to IEP meetings. Give them a call(813)258-5700 fell free to email me at either the above address or [email protected],I live in Florida and have been there and done it before. Good luck

AJ,

your advice certianly makes sense however, I wolud have some fears of reprisals from the school. Sometimes a mom being strident gets labled as a bitch. Perhaps Dad should get involved. People get pisse when someone goes over their heads and gets their buut in a sling.

School teachers don’t always have the corner on maturity and proffesionalism. SOmetimes when you deal with a Prima Donna that is holding all the cards you often have to walk on egg shells.

Ditto from me, too. Something is terribly wrong with this much turnover. I’d get my chidl out of there NOW.

Janis

Heather,

If you suspect auditory processing disorder, you probably need to find an APD specialist audiologist to test him privately. All audiologists are not competent to give a good diagnosis and you may waste your time having the school district send him to just anyone for the testing. You can go to the site www.ncapd.org and there is a referral list on there. Generally, university APD clinics will cost less than private clinics, btu sometimes insurance will cover the eval if it is listed as hearing testing. If you live within driving distance of Washington, DC, I can refer you to an excellent person.

Janis

Ball -

I totally agree with you. It’s best to try to find a way to positive working relationship with the school and work together to addressing the child’s issues. Heather might try sending one of the standard requests for psych/ed evaluation to the Sped director (without a lot of finger pointing) and be able to get the same result.

You can just about see all the staff scatter when one of the adverserial moms comes in.

Heather - by the way - the tutoring we arranged was private tutoring which we paid for ourselves. The services the school finally provided with a resource teacher (1 hour 3x a week shared with 5 other children) just didn’t make a dent in our son’s issues (dyslexia and dysgraphia).

We also learned several years later that he had ADD-innattentive so I can’t even be sure how much attention he was paying during those school sessions.

Tutoring really helped his self esteem. We had two tutors over the years and they really worked on making him feel capable and pointed out this strengths while remediating his weaknesses. I really wanted to help him myself, but he just resisted with all his might. But he would happily hop into the car to go see one of them!

I guess I understand your point, to a point- Yes, I am aware that if I go in there with my finger pointed, and an accusitory tone, the response would not likely be favorable. Especially for my son. HOWEVER- If being a well informed parent (about my rights) and wanting the answers to questions that I have the right to ask in the first place, lables me a bitch-so be it…Im a bitch who has a son that is entitled to an education, and if he has special needs that need to be addressed….I certainly don’t need a MAN to advocate for me.
Don’t get me wrong-Im not one of those extreme feminists who is determined to make the world “hear me roar” My husband is very involved with our son and is my strongest supporter- I am doing all the research I can to be well informed, so that Im not walking in there throwing a temper tantrum- but getting my voice heard as a PARENT- Gender is not going to be an issue believe me.

Thank you for that resourse..I will definately check it out. Unfortunately, I live in Florida so driving to DC, even though I’d love too just isn’t an option :)
But I have found two private audiology centers near me, Im going to try that- instead of wasting my time waiting for the school to send my son to anyone incompitant…My Pediatrition gave me a referral this morning…wish me luck :)

Heather,

I just wanted to tell you that we had our daughter evaluated at the U of FL at Gainsville APD clinic. At that time (last fall), Dr. Deborah Moncreiff was the director of that clinic, but I understood she moved to a new location this year. So I am not sure who is over that clinic now. But the university clinics usually charge less than private. Regardless, just be sure the clinic you choose specializes primarily in APD, not just general audiology. Let me know if you need other info re: UF.

Janis