My name is Tink. For those who know me a special hello, I haven’t posted in quite awhile. Unfortunately things continue to be the same. I have a 6 1/2 year old son who recieved speech services from 18 months of age till he entered Kindergarten last year. The school took away service under the guise that his speech issues were, at that time “developmentally appropriate” for his age. I asked for an Independent Evaluation and it was denied. I asked for a new evaluation which I did recieve. It included the Stanford Binet as it seemed he was having trouble with reading readiness and I was challenging the validity of the scores on the WIPPSI he took before entering kindergarten. Alas, again he did not quailfy. I had concerns about testing results but as usual was stone walled. I decided to wait and see what happened at the beginning of 1st grade. At his conference last week his teacher indicated that he is struggling in reading (getting title 1) and has a big issue with attention. So far he is not a behavior problem. Has stomache aches and tells me regularly he doesn’t want to go to school plus his speech is slipping. To compicate matters I never recieved a final Evaluation summary (just the psychologists draft) at the end of last year. It was riddled with mistakes. When I went to school the other day and requested a copy of the draft I was told by a new psychologist that he had done the summary from notes left by the old psych and there had never been a draft presented last year (yeah for saving all paperwork, I have one!). But if there was one he had probobly destroyed it. So there are two Evaluations with the same #’s but different subjective findings even though the new psych has never met my son. There are some big questions about the results on the Stanford that have been deligated as not important. I am starting to believe that no matter what I do they will not even consider him for placement, just justify their reasons for not allowing him services. My questons are: Can they destroy one psyches report and replace it with anothers? Can they refuse to meet with me if I make him a Focus of Concern? And how do I address the problems I see in the Stanfor Binet? (I will post the numbers and concerns on a different post, this one is way to long, Sorry) Thanks to anyone that can help.
Re: Shadey Evaluation ?
Yes, difficult, but necessary. I also found that documenting all conversations and relaying my impressions “per our conversation” back to the party in question was very helpful, although I usually used e-mail to do so.
These school district folks can be very cagey (my husband is a 28-year veteran school teacher in the same district we had to battle with, on occasion, to get appropriate services for one of our sons, and he had seen many hinky things happen from the “inside”). If you use a strategy of being professional, objective, AND relentless in every dealing you have with them, they quickly get the idea that they can’t stonewall you. And the reason that they won’t be able to stonewall you is that they will have learned that you will listen politely to whatever their position is, and then go home and research the hell out of whatever the issue is, and then go back and in that same professional, objective, AND relentless way, make them accountable.
Worked for us… so far… Good luck!
Re: Shadey Evaluation ?
School evaluations are gate keeping tools. You are right to question the integrity of the gatekeepers. I had a school pychologist evaluate my son without my consent, make up the parent participation part of the results and use them to try to end one of my son’s reason for eligibility. I suggest you do whatever you have to do to get a private evaluation done. You don’t even want them to pay for it because chances are you’ll end up with another biased result that way. Even if you child doesn’t end up qualifying for services, at least you know the strengths and weaknesses you are dealing with.
I would document the conversation where the psych said that. Start with as per our conversation, you stated…..
Ask for an independent evalualtion in writing. State that you feel that your son has not received an appropriate eval and why. Make sure you use the lingo from the law. (I forget the laws on evaluations but I know they should be done within a certain number of days, so include that.) When they get the gist that you know your rights they have a tendency to pay attention.
They won’t stone wall you when everything is in writing. And I do mean everything. Every time you have a conversation write a as per our conversation letter. Also, every request should be in writing with a sentence requesting a written response as to why something was denied.
I had the experience where everything I said was ignored for a long time before I did this. After I did this they did everything I asked.
You don’t have to be irate or angry. Try your best to stay professional and on task. Keep all letters objective and eliminate emotional discussions. I know this is incredibly difficult.