Refused IEP

Did your son have a school done eval? Did they do an OT eval? How is he doing in school? What is his reading level per the school eval? If the school did not do an eval, then they have no basis for refusing your son eligibility. Your son’s diagnoses would also have to be documented by the school. Schools don’t have to follow a doc recommendation as far as services but it should at least be looked at. This may be a case for due process. Go to parenting an ahdh child and as this question of Socks, she should be able to be more specific as far as what to do next.

Dear Frustrated Mom,

No, they are NOT right! If you look on this site, in the LD In Depth section, you will find many resources discussing children who are academically gifted and also have learning disabilities. Look particularly at the US Dept. of Education letter (also known as the Lillie Felton letter) which says that a child’s entitlement to services must be evaluated in light of his IQ.
Here’s a quote: “As required by
Part B regulation (34 CFR §§300.540-300.543), the multidisciplinary evaluation team is responsible for determining
if a severe discrepancy exists between a student’s ability and performance. Under Part B of IDEA and Part B
regulations there are no “exclusions based on intelligence level in determining eligibility.” In other words, a
student cannot be excluded from consideration of eligibility for special education services solely on the
basis of a high IQ; no child’s IQ can be too high for that child to be considered for eligibility for special
education services — even an intellectually gifted student may be considered for eligibility for special
education.”

Here’s another quote: “A multidisciplinary team may find a child has a specific learning disability if “the child does not achieve
commensurate with his or her age and ability levels in one or more of the areas listed in paragraph (a) (2) of this
section, when provided with learning experiences appropriate for the child’s age and ability levels …” 34
CFR §300.541 (a) (1). The Department of Education, in its letter to LDA of North Carolina, wrote that it is
“generally” appropriate for the multidisciplinary team to include in its written report (to determine eligibility)
information regarding “outside or extra” instructional help or support which “may indicate the child’s current
educational achievements reflects the service augmentation, not what the child’s achievement would be
without such help.” Such information should be considered by the team in deciding if the child has “a severe
discrepancy between achievement and ability that is not correctable without special education and related
services.” If, for example, a student with an IQ of 125 and significantly lower achievement scores maintains
passing or even exemplary grades, the team should consider whether or not the student achieves only because of
special assistance or support. If the student receives no special help, the multidisciplinary team might conclude
that student would not need special education. If, on the other hand, the student has tutoring several times a
week, works for three to five hours each night on homework with parental assistance, and must have extra time to
complete tests in order to pass or maintain a certain grade level, that student might be considered to have a
“specific learning disability.” His/her grades may reflect all the assistance the student is getting rather than the
student’s actual achievement level.”

I hope this helps!

Andrea

I hate hearing stories like these…I suggest that you get an advocate and push for the services he needs. The post above is right- if he needs a lot of support for academic subjects to maintain grade level, then you are eligible for academic support services. At the very least he needs OT to address fine motor and sensory issues (the second is typical of PDD kids). He requires intervention to address the dysgraphia as well as keyboard lessons to eventually compensate. He needs accommodations to address attention and organizational issues. Check and find out if social skills groups are available in the school- they are often run by the adjustment counselor or school psychologist. They may be considered a regular ed service and not related to the IEP. However, social and behavioral goals can- and should- be put on an IEP. You are right to push now for services- PDD kids respond quite well to intervention- especially early on, but the impact of his deficits may increase as he gets older and the academic and social challenges increase. You may need to request a consultant specializing in his issues to come in and work with the school to develop an effective program. Good luck.

Andrea is right. I have (do I dare say it ?) a gifted severely LD daughter. She makes A’s and B’s; however, her performance is approximately 20-30+ pts. Lower than IQ in ALL areas, therefore she is LD and eligible for an IEP. I has NOTHING to do with grades, it has everything to do with IQ/performance discrepancy according to the law.

Forget the advocate, unless you get good anecdotal evidence that they are much more effective and interested in being effective than they are in the Central Ohio area (where they spend much of their energy trying to rein in parents and “teach” us how to be cooperative, submissive, etc. when dealing with school officials).

This seems to be clear case where your child is afforded protections under I.D.E.A. Find a educational rights attorney in your area. A good one will consult with you at least once for about $100-$200 (the best money we ever spent), point you in the right direction, and you can do most of the other work yourself. He/She will also know their way around most local school districts. We found that much of what we were told by “direct service personnel”, i.e., the people who come to the meetings at the school regarding your child, isn’t really the case when “push comes to shove”. But you must be willing to push (and/or shove). Our attorney guided us several times in the right direction, said right direction having been couterintuitive to our own best guess, in who to direct Administrative Review Requests and other such issues. Find out how due process works BEST in your area, and pursue every service that your child is legally entitled to.

My husband is a 28-year-veteran teacher. He knows of instances where Central Office personnel met with direct service personnel for the sole purpose of instructing the direct service personnel (i.e., teachers, tutors, therapists, etc.) in how to deny services to children and how to deal with parents “effectively” in the course of denying said services.

Go to battle! No one loves your child as you do; therefore, no one can advocate for your child like you can! Take no crap!

I just wanted to add the reason that schools fight giving so many children IEP’s is due to money. The governement passed the IDEA law..where every child be given the best possible education they can have..and promiosed the schools so much money to pay for these extra services. Well the government hasn’t follow through on this..they only gives the schools a very small percent of that money. So the schools really don’t have the money to provide these services…that is why so many are doing fund raising, ect. Now they can’t come out and say we don’t have the money to do this..cause they would get them in trouble legeally though it seems to me it would be the truth and you can’t augre with that. So instead they seem to come up with sneaky ways to denie these services to our kids instead. I think its low handed myself. I have just started homeschooling my son who has LD problems and behavioral problems too. I went through my 12 yrs of school with a severe ld problem and never got any help for it and can’t see making him go through the same hell I went through. I had hope after all these years that things had changed…now at least they do have the services if they would just let anyone use them. sigh.
Julie

I totally understand the emotional battle that you go through everyday, and the heartbreak. Knowing that your child could accomplish so much if given the help that they deserve. My son is LD and Gifted. I asked since Kindergarden for the help that he needs. He FINALLY got tested the last part of 3rd grade and we are STILL bringing up the rear now with his behavior. He is in 4th grade now. He is getting all A’s and B’s and is in the AT/G at his school.

How did all this come about? I finally started to write letters to the school superintendant, my cousin in Congress (you could choose your Congressman) and the principal. I kept after them and made copies to each person. I used the email and made hard copies. The thing I think did it was the communication between me and the superintendents office. It has been harrowing. I know how hard it is on the family to get the child to go to classes that they cannot function in and feel no success about. It is hard to get them to go to bed at night and hard to get them to go to school in the morning. Then everyday you pick them up from school and if it is not one thing it is another. Always something negative. And it is NOT the childs fault.They cope the best way that they know how. That creates more problems because their coping skills are not developed to handle this situation. Why they don’t just test these kids is beyond me.

I agree with Charity. I have written letters to the principal, district superintendent, FDOE, and cc’d everyone. Everytime I had a t/c with someone at the school I sent a confirmation letter and cc’d everyone. It is like “A Day in the Life” of __________, ESE student at ___________ Elem. It has been frustrating but it has been effective and my daughter has been able to (so far - only 4th grade) succeed in school and keep her self esteem intact. If necessary, as Ball said above, I would even be willing to contact the education journalist at our local news program. I’m sure they would not want the media poking around and investigating this - thought it would make a GREAT story!

I want to thank everyone SO much for your response to my post about my son. It has taken me awhile to catch up because I have been overwhelmed to be honest, ha ha! Everyone’s response combined helped me make some important decisions. I also learned a great deal of information I just didn’t know.

Austen was being tormented by the other children at school , and the teacher giving him first grade spelling words next to his second grade peers did not help. :( Austen not only has multiple learning disabilities, but because of his pdd-nos ( autism spectrum ) he does not have the social skills to deal with peer behavior. As a result his self esteem plunged . Prior to the start of second grade, he was happy, confident, and very positive about himself and life. Within two months, he was coming home crying every day screaming over and over that he was stupid. It was taking him over an hour to do homework that should have taken ” 10 minutes” according to the teacher, and this was only completed with me sitting by him practically telling him the answers because he just didn’t understand the tasks, or could not stay focused on the tasks long enough to complete them.

After the school said he was “on grade level” and needed no extra help, we decided that we had to make a drastic decision and pull him out of school because of his diving self esteem. He was completely unhappy and miserable, and felt he was the “stupid” kid at school. This is sad since his IQ tested out at 130, and if you vest anything in IQ, that is not a stupid kid . Even without that score we knew he was bright. :) In fact, NO child should feel they are stupid, that is just plain crazy.

At home he has been able to focus on reading and writing , where he has the most problems. Now that we have had a couple of months to rebuild his self esteem ( not completely but we are still working on it), we are going to go back to the school (without him of course) and fight them for an IEP and appropriate services.

I called the person in charge of the “team” that was supposed to determine if Austen needed “eligibility review,” and he told me that in Austen’s case, they should have IMMEDIATELY passed his file to the eligibility committee, they should not have tried to “try out” a few classroom interventions ( consultation with the speech therapist in the class, crazy stuff like that ) . So I have found out that this team could have prevented all of this by simply doing what they should have done.

I also feel like a fool because they said he was on “grade level” and it was ok for him to be “around the bottom of the bell curve” despite the fact he is two years ahead in math and science, but can barely write on a first grade level. UGH! Now, I know from the wonderful help everyone has sent that if there is a discrepancy between his performance and his IQ he CAN get an IEP. Now that I know this, I am mentally prepared to fight them. AND my child will be protected at home from being lost in the system until things are in place for him.

Thank you again a million times over. This board has really helped me get the information I needed to get my child the help he needs. I wish I could take all of you with me to the meeting. I am going to hire an advocate just in case to keep me on track with what they HAVE to do , as opposed to what they are telling me.

Anne in VA :)

DOESN’T IT SEEM THAT IF WE COULD PROVE, IE HANDOUTS FROM THESE MEETINGS, THAT THE SCHOOL SYSTEMS ARE ACTUALLY TRAINING THEIR EMPLOYEES TO BE INTOLERANT THAT WE WOULDHAVE GROUNDS FOR CLASS ACTION CIVIL LIBERTIES LAW SUITS?

CAN YOU GET THE DOCUMENTS? CAN ANYBODY?

In response to BALL, I am not sure what your intent is with your post, but my son is not mentally ill, so we could not use that as a position to get help. He is also not illiterate, and with homeschooling for just three months, he is now reading on a solid second grade level.

To update the wonderful folks who have been so helpful in this thread, I wanted to let you know that in the state where I reside, I have now learned that the parent can make a DIRECT referral for testing. Something I was essentially lied to about, and I have now done this and he will be tested by the school. He contines to homeschool and is doing extremely well learning at home. I would like to see him return to school as soon as the appropriate supports are in place.

I will keep everyone posted on the process, but if anyone faces similar issues, check your state laws and make sure you are being told the truth. If I have learned anything in the past three years with two children who need IEPS, unless you are very lucky, you cannot believe a word anyone at the school says. You have to become an expert on the law YOURSELF and when they feed you crap, you have to correct them by citing the law. I just want my child to have an appropriate education and not be “left behind” because he learns differently from other children. It should be easier than this, but now that I know that the school cares more about saving money than helping my child, I realize I have to advocate for him myself.