re-evaluation

If you want the school to pay for the IEE you have to allow them to test her and then request the IEE if you don’t agree with the results. Even if you let the school test her first doesn’t guarentee that they will honor your request for an IEE. Of course you can always have her tested privately at your own expense. Keep in mind that the results of many tests are only valid if they aren’t given again within too short a time period. Of course, you are right about not trusting the school to test her. Their agenda isn’t always to do what’s best for your child and that often is reflected in the tests they give and the results they get.

She was tested at OUR expense about 2 years ago and the results were also given to the school (and they tried to argue the results). THis is for a re- evaluation and I’m not sure how often they can test (it’s been about 3 years). The testing that we had done was by a neuro-psychologist at Strong-Memorial Hospital in Rochester NY. The testing done by school indicated a slight problem and they suggested retention (which we refused). Neuro-psych found visual -perceptual problems among other things and with a diagnosis of amblyopia and esotropia from her opthamologist we were able to get services (although amblyopia and esotropia have nothing to do with the visual-perceptual problems!) Just wondered if I had to sit through all of their tests first. Thanks!
Erin

Hey Erin,
Just thought I would tell you from current experience about our school district. Yours may have different time tables of course, but our district hands out the Special Education Handbook for the District which usually uses the Federal Laws as it’s guide. It states in it that they can test every three years. Maybe that is true for your district as well, and that might be the reason for the re-evaluation request.
From what I just read on Wright’sLaw.com, it is always best to be cooperative with the school, or at least appear so, despite their often obvious lack of having your child’s best interests at heart. I agree with Rose, you probably need to let them have their way in the up front, but, you are right to immediately seek outside evaluations and expert opinions should you not approve of their recommendations or proposed course of remediations. If they do not provide your daughter appropriate interventions, you can take your case to the next level, unfortunately long and time consuming as that might be. Good luck and keep us posted.
Deb

Thanks everyone. Just so you know, I have been down the long road before. I had the Dir. of Sp. Ed try to negate the testing results from an expert while I stood in his office with my chin on the floor! I eventually had to hire an outside professional to assist me in meetings as I had a difficult time getting the powers to be to listen and because I caught the Dir of Sp Ed in a lie (in writing) that had potential grounds for suit against the district (my paid professional agreed with on this and really just attended meetings with me so that I could be heard )! Anyway, he has since retired and some of the services that my dau receives have been downgraded to 2x a year consults, so I am nervous that they may pull her from the sp ed classification in the near future. Thanks for all of the support and I wil patiently wait to see what they have planned for us this year!

Since the law is every 3 years for eval, just write them a nice letter saying you will agree to let them test her at the 3 year anniversary.
They probably want to test her at 2 years so they can justify taking services away.