Eligibility reevaluation question

[Anonymous]

Op it will help if you formalize your communication with the school staff regarding your iep. Use email to document your requests. Also know that you have the right to record your IEP meetings. I've seen that mentioned many times here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would give the psychologist the benefit of the doubt unlike the pp. Your child clearly has educational impact and needs specially designed instruction to access the curriculum based on what you are stating. The larger question is does your child have a diagnosed disability? If he/ she does not, that is the reason I would not agree to test.

I don't know how old OP's child is, but since she says it he has not been tested in 4 years, and assuming OP started at Kindergarten, OP's child would be about 9. That is sort of late to still have a "developmental delay" coding -- VA only allows DD thru age 8. So, if OP's DC is exiting a DD category, it is true that there will need to be a diagnosed disability in one of the other 10 IDEA categories in order to continue with an IEP. The thing is without further testing, there is no way of getting another disability category. This is why it is imperative to have the re-evaluation. OP, your choices are 1) let the school do all the testing and rely solely on the school's testing or 2) let the school do the testing and then move for an IEE for which the school system usually has to pay or 3) pay for the testing entirely yourself and just present the data to the school system. Don't forget that your insurance company might pay for some testing, especially if you are trying to determine if there is a "medical" condition like ADHD or if you are trying to assess speech and language or if you are trying to assess other conditions like anxiety or depression. Remember you don't have to know that your DC has any of these conditions for the health insurance company to pay for testing, you just have to want to rule it out.

You can't "know" in advance if there is an IDEA-qualifying disability if you don't do the evaluation, unless a pediatrician or other doctor has diagnosed something like ADHD or a medical condition. There really is no reason that kids would normally get the kind of testing that is required to find out about IDEA-eleigibilty. You need to have IQ testing done and achievement testing, as well as probably speech/language testing and attention testing and executive function testing to really understand if a child qualifies for one of the 10 IDEA disability categories. You need to test to find out if there is a disability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD had an IEP and the school psych and sped teachers both told me a similar thing. They told me this, however, three months before the reveal planning was due. We were not sure what to think so we took her to be tested privately and sure enough she wouldn't have qualified. There was no discrepancy between achievement and IQ. The truth was the school knew she needed the special instruction to continue to make grade appropriate gains but she no longer qualified as having a specific learning disability. It may have been unethical but it was certainly advice given in my child's best interest.

Are you 16:29? You sound like it. If you have any experience and knowledge of the IEP process, you'd know that there doesn't need to be a discrepancy between IQ and achievement. You should stop giving advice.

+1

+1.

IDEA specifically states that "schools may not REQUIRE a significant discrepancy" to qualify/identify a child as having an SLD. The significant discrepancy (between IQ and achievement scores) is still one way that a student can qualify for an SLD. In fact, it is often the way that gifted kids qualify even when they have good grades and "average" achievement scores, but are showing some other "educational impact" (like failure to participate, failure to turn in homework, lack of motivation, anxiety, inability to finish work in allotted time, inability to independently manage workload, depression, etc.)

The other way that IDEA permits SLD diagnosis is thru the "Response to Intervention" process. This is confusing for many parents. There is a great article here that thoroughly explains the significant-discrepancy and RTI models of SLD identification, why RTI was added.

See http://www.wrightslaw.com/idea/art/rti.hale.pdf

As this article states, clearly with cites to statute and interpretation, RTI can be one aspect of SLD identification, but it should not be the SOLE method for SLD determination.

For the PP at the top of the thread, if the school knew that your child needed special education to continue making grade appropriate gains, then they could have qualified your child under RtI. What they were doing was unethical AND a disservice to you and your child because your child was denied a full, free cognitive ability and achievement evaluation, something to which she was legally entitled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is awesome advice from a previous poster....and I totally agree.


If it were me, I would get this kind of manipulation on record. Write the school psych an email and say, something like, "Thank you for talking with me about Johnny's re-evaluation. I have thought a lot about your advice to skip re-evaluation testing because Johnny might test "too high" and his services would be taken away. I understand that re-evaluation should be done every 3 years, and as part of that re-evaluation I would like to have standardized testing done (insert what you want here). I am concerned that Johnny has been receiving special instruction for X number of years, and he is still not able to pass SOLs. I think we need to re-evaluate in order to have the right information to decide what instruction and services are necessary."

I agree with the advice 20:10 gave as well as this poster. What you're being told is bullshit. The PP has given you an excellent script.