Can someone please point me in the right direction on law...

Try www.wrightslaw.com or www.reedmartin.com

Suzi,

The school is wrong. They cannot say a child cannot receive resource services until third grade. The goals are written and then the team decides how those goals will be reached. Some “dyslexia” programs ARE for third grade and up, and I suspect that is what they are referring to. You want appropriate services for your child to meet her goals, not necessarily their usual “Dyslexia program”. She certainly can be taught phonemic awareness and the alphabetic code and then begin fluency training. There are materials that can be used with younger children. Phono-Graphix is good and I understand Wilson makes a K-3 program called Fundations, among others.

If you challenge them, you would likely win resource services in the public school. It would be very unlikely that they would pay for the private school. Those cases (whcih result in tuition being paid) usually involve a much older child who the public school failed to remediate.

Did you actually have an IEP meeting? Were goals and objectives written based on her reading evaluation? How did they explain that the goals would be met only by using modifications?

Janis

My daughter was already in speech for articulation. At our IEP meeting, prior to her diagnosis by an outside source, they said they can modify her classroom by requiring fewer spelling words, etc and start her in Reading Recovery. Her SLP said that she could work in a few auditory processing things during her 30 min 2x a week ST. After we received the official diagnosis of dyslexia, I called and talked with the head of the dyslexia program for our school district. She looked at our daughter’s test results and agreed that she has dyslexia. She then said that “we can provide nothing for her for first grade” other than the modifications already discussed. She said that there is nothing in place for that age group and that they didn’t have time over the summer to train her and her teacher. She also said that “if” they offered it to my daughter, then they would have to offer it district wide and that would take alot of time to set up and alot of training. EVERYONE I’ve talked to about this said that they SD is wrong wrong wrong.

Suzi

Suzi, she is indeed wrong and the change is coming anyway. The No Child Left Behind law will force systems into using interventions before third grade. To be honest, it is rare for a school to really remediate dyslexia. They could say they were offering the service but it still might not be any good. You can’t control how many kids are in resource at the same time as your child. And the teacher may or may not be very experienced in the right programs. So you could fight them to provide the service, but you’d be taking the chance that they would not help your child as well as the private LD school would. So you really have to choose between the high cost of private school or battling the public school for possibly inadequate services. Or, you could leave her in public school, try for the services, and still pay a tutor after school to work on the reading disorder. But that can be tiring for the child. It’s all a trade-off. Good luck..I know it’s not easy. Been there (am there!).

Janis

Janis-

She is going to the private school—at least for 2 to 3 years. I thought we would try to force their hand since they clearly said there was no way that they could possible provide anything. Another friend of mine in the same SD has her cochlear ear implant child driven to dallas in a SD school van and paid tuition while they train someone to do the same for her at the SD. It would be nice to just get some kind of partial reimbursement of the tuition expense. I am serving on a SD committee in the Fall to look into assessment and programs for K-2.

My daughter is in summer school at Shelton right now and LOVES it and I know it is the place she needs to be.

Suzi

I would be delighted if you could get them to help pay, Suzi. I really would. I wish we could all have vouchers to decide where we wanted to get our special ed. services. Boy, that would make the schools improve quickly! Or else they’d give up and let all services be privately provided, which would be good, too.

The cochlear implant situation is a bit different, though. That is a highly specialized service and not just anyone can do it. Any certified LD teacher could serve a dyslexic child, if the district chose to do so! It is beyond me that no one has forced their hand on that yet.

That is wonderful that she is enjoying the summer program at Shelton! You are so fortuntate to have some good options in yoru area!

Janis

I agree with Janis re: the school’s remediation of a dyslexic child - it is basically unheard of.

We opted to keep my daughter in public school and pay for private tutoring. We caught it early (beginning of 2nd grade) and we pulled her out of afternoon class 2x wkly to go to an LMB tutor. She missed art, PE, music, and some other “little things”, but the pay off was worth it. Might be a consideration for you. Of course, the early grades are really the only time you can afford to do this - a child can’t miss too much of school.

Re: the private school. Make sure they have a good program. Problem where we are is that the only decent private school can’t control the behavior of the children at the school. We went there for private tutoring and out of a 60 student school there were at least 10 in the office every time we tutored.

There are NO easy answers. My theory is that you can spend your time and energy FIGHTING with the school or teaching your kid to read. I chose the latter.

I suggest you contact a Parent Information and Training Center in Texas and ask for some guidance. Take a look at this page and it lists the ones in your state.

http://www.taalliance.org/PTIs.htm#TX

Some of the PTI’s have sites. I clicked on one site and it at information on IDEA. These centers get money from the Federal Government to provide information and training to parents of children with disabilities. They may not all be created equal so you might have to call more then one. Tell them you are a parent of a child with special needs who is currently geting SLP services but also has an LD.

Usually the first step is documentation. Do you have anything in writing that states that they can not provide services until 3rd grade? If not it would be time for a letter of understanding. You would write a letter to the person who told you the above and ask them to reply to you in writing within 10 days if they disagree with anything stated in your letter. Send the letter return recepit. If more then one person said the same thing send a letter to each.

You would need to give them 10 days notice that you are withdrawing your child from school because they have no appropriate program for your child’s LD. This should be done after the 10 day period has passed for your first letter.

I would though contact a PTI and talk to someone before going ahead with the above.

If your child was in special ed. in K, had an IEP, did they develop an IEP for next yr(first grade) tht you then rejected, gave notice that you were removing your child from public school, and wanted an IEP mtg to discuss your child’s lack of progress in special ed??? Without these steps you can’t seek money for private school; look at this site under Finding help, look at state by state, click on Texas and read your own state’s special ed. web site.