Schools and testing for LDs/social concerns

[Anonymous]

I'm the parent who posted about our kindergartener and trying to figure out next steps. Are schools obligated to provide testing to determine learning challenges/social issues or, as I've surmised, it's typically better for parents to arrange for private testing and then deal with the school at arranging any necessary accomodations?

[Anonymous]

People's experiences seem to vary on this. Parents or teachers can request a review by the local screening commitee but the committee decides as a group whether to evaluate or not. Everyone on the committee is supposed to get one vote but my experience is that committees can be personality and politically driven. Depending on the relationships of the people there, it may or may not be easy to get them to agree to an evaluation. You always have the right to appeal but that takes time and effort.

This may lead you to conclude that you should have private testing done and come armed with the results. However, the committee isn't require to accept the results of the private testing and it can intimidate them (don't ask me why). Our committee initially declined to evaluate our child even though we'd done extensive testing. They also wouldn't qualify him for special services. We had to hire an advocate and appeal the decision before they would agree to test him (they still refused to accept our evaluations even though they were done by nationally recognized specialists). We're still waiting for their results but in the meantime had an ADHD evaluation. We've found the process to be difficult and too slow. Although our child is making gains, she isn't advancing quickly enough to bridge the gap between her and her peers. She's falling further and further behind. We're not willing to wait until she fails in order to get the school to step up.

On the other hand, we have a friend in a different school who's experience is markedly different. It was the teacher who made the referral to the screening committee and they've leapt to do evaluations and qualify her child for special services. Our kids really aren't significantly different. She's just got a different committee.

You should become familiar with your rights under IDEA and ADA. Your school district should have a booklet. It's important to know the process and the deadlines. It can take a while to get a private appointment so it wouldn't hurt to get on some waitlists at the same time you're requesting the school to evaluate.

Good luck