Denied evaluation for autism spectrum child at FCPS. Now what?
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Anonymous
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"If he's doing fine in school, they are not obligated to do any testing. You can do it, and use any results you get to support your claim that your kid needs special services. "
Statements like this are untrue. Eligibility for an IEP is not based on grades. Good grades is not a valid reason for the school system to deny testing. As previous posters have said, fight to get the IEP now. Do not wait until later. There are educational advocates who are not lawyers who may be more affordable than a lawyer. I recommend Eleanor Voldish in Sterling. She is very knowledgeable about the eligibility dance. |
Anonymous
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"If he's doing fine in school, they are not obligated to do any testing. You can do it, and use any results you get to support your claim that your kid needs special services. "
Were you a director of special education on of our local counties? Perhaps this is you on youtube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6fcIqUHz8Q A mom talks with the director of special education |
Anonymous
Thank you PP for posting this! It is an advertisement for a special ed law firm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, but it is hilarious, and sadly accurate. The PP who keeps saying "if he's doing fine in school, they are not obligated to do any testing" is wrong. See the IDEA legislation, regulations and associated interpretations at idea.gov, in particular, this: "Section 300.101(c) has been revised to clarify that a free appropriate public education (FAPE) must be available to any individual child with a disability who needs special education and related services, even though the child has not failed or been retained in a course, and is advancing from grade to grade." and this: "Comment: Some commenters expressed concern that children with disabilities have to fail or be retained in a grade or course in order to be considered eligible for special education and related services. Discussion: Section 300.101(c) provides that a child is eligible to receive special education and related services even though the child is advancing from grade to grade. Further, it is implicit from paragraph (c) of this section that a child should not have to fail a course or be retained in a grade in order to be considered for special education and related services. A public agency must provide a child with a disability special education and related services to enable him or her to progress in the general curriculum, thus making clear that a child is not ineligible to receive special education and related services just because the child is, with the support of those individually designed services, progressing in the general curriculum from grade-to-grade or failing a course or grade. The group determining the eligibility of a child for special education and related services must make an individual determination as to whether, notwithstanding the child's progress in a course or grade, he or she needs or continues to need special education and related services. However, to provide additional clarity we will revise paragraph (c)(1) of this section to explicitly state that children do not have to fail or be retained in a course or grade in order to be considered eligible for special education and related services. Changes: Section 300.101(c)(1) has been revised to provide that children do not have to fail or be retained in a course or grade in order to be considered eligible for special education and related services." The phrase, from the IDEA legislation that is guiding is "adversely affects educational performance". A child can be passing from grade to grade, and can even be "doing fine" and receiving "good grades" and still be eligible for an IEP. The analysis for "adversely affects educational performance" must be an individual one, and cannot rest solely on grades. For example, a child who gets straight Bs in middle school, but would have gotten As but for the impact of his ADD/Inattentive which causes him to miss so many homework assignments it is bringing his grade down, would have demonstrated that his disorder (ADD) "adversely affects educational performance". (Although it may be debatable, without further facts, whether that child needed "special instruction" in organizational skills, thus qualifying him for an IEP, or whether he merely needs accommodations to be reminded to write the homework and reminded to turn it in.) If a parent disagrees with a school system's determination that the child is "doing fine" and thus the school system won't evaluate, the parent should, at a minimum make an administrative appeal (for which you do not necessarily need a lawyer, and the directions for which should be in a due process notification that you received). Restate your case in the appeal, i.e., outline 1) disorder 2) adversely affecting educational performance and 3) requiring special instruction (or solely requiring accommodations if you are going for a 504) AND clearly state that you disagree with the IEP team's decision and on what basis -- for example, "I am appealing because I believe that the IEP team incorrectly decided not to evaluate Johnny because he is ...... (fill in the blank) "on grade level" or "not failing" or "not behind by two years" ..... and then cite to a description of the IDEA section above. If you still disagree with the decision not to evaluate even after administrative appeal, you may be able to file for a school system-paid Independent Educational Evaluation. Consult with an attorney for that. |
Anonymous
Yay you! Can you provide any more details about your "appeal". Did you just fill out the form, or did you include a longer narrative of the problem? Glad to hear your DH is attending. It is unlikely that the team will fail to move to evaluation this time. If they do agree to evaluate, you will be asked to sign "consent" to evaluate forms. Often school districts will just use broad checkboxes asking you to consent to evaluation in broad areas. Sometimes there can be problems when the school team does a cursory evaluation and tries to present it as definitive. You have leverage before you sign consent -- say that you cannot give informed consent unless you know exactly what tests the school system is proposing. If you ask, they must tell you each test that they are planning to give. As you are asking, make it clear that you intend to consent to evaluation, but that you just want to know exactly what it is you are consenting to -- that is the principal of informed consent. Take what they tell you about the tests and google online to see if you think these tests cover the areas in which your DC is having problems. Try and also make sure the testing is standardized and norm-referenced to the degree possible. Some "informal" assessment or observational assessment is OK, but the evaluation/assessment should not be solely based on informal, non-norm referenced assessments. For example, my child has a language disorder with specific problems in pragmatic speech (although these are not due to autism -- he has a different diagnosis). The speech assessor failed to test pragmatic speech, and when forced to do so used only informal observation, which justified her "he's fine" diagnosis. This caused much delay. |
Anonymous
I filled out the Notice of Appeal form, and selected "Administrative Review" and "Mediation." I sent it to the office of Due Process and emailed the principal, AP, school counselor, and head of spec ed with a copy of the appeal and said I was just letting them know I was sending an appeal to due process. No one from the school ever contacted me. But the next day someone contacted me from Due Process and said she was going to help mediate. So I told her everything from my side, she talked to someone at the school and got their side. About a week later, she called me again and said the school wanted to invite me back for another meeting. She kept saying they had no idea I was so concerned and they were so surprised at the appeal. I did lay into this person about the ridiculousness and illegalities of not even EVALUATING a child with a diagnosed and fully recognized disability and cited ADA and IDEA and told her I'd been advised to consult an attorney and to expect this battle to continue through the IEP process. She was like, "Wow? Really? I've never experienced a school being that resistant." I laughed and told her to go find any parent group of SN kids in the state of Va and they would happily share their battle stories. So... I went to the meeting, they declared they would be evaluating, and that was that. I don't remember if I previously posted this, but they were just going to do a psycho-social evaluation and vision and hearing screening. *I* - the ignorant parent- had to say, "No. I need OT and PT to also evaluate." They balked, and I had to keep insisting. He's an ASD child. He has sensory issues. He has low muscle tone, and a history of underdeveloped gross motor skills. His worst grades are in PE. And they were finally like, "Oh... right..." So, I have no faith in or respect for anyone on that LSC. I'm pretty deflated that I have to send my younger children through that school. |
Anonymous
I think that, before you try to pursue a para for your child, you should ask yourself what the role of the para would be and whether not not you truly want that level of intervention. Are we truly supporting growth and development, or are we facilitating and/or perpetuating dependence? Personally, my child has a higher-incidence disability, and I'd much prefer the school and its professionals support my child by building those skills he will need to flourish with his disability. Yes, a para may make this more effective--but that depends upon how the para is used. The purpose, roles, and interventions provided by the para must be "nailed down." Simply sticking a "warm body" with a child does them no good in the big picture, and too often parents want a para because they feel more is better. Classroom teachers love when a child has para support because, let's face it, it's like they are getting a helper in the classroom. |
Anonymous
| I don't know what he needs or what would benefit him, hence the need for an evaluation. He absolutely needs social support, but what form that should take, I couldn't tell you. |
Anonymous
I don't want to sound like I am siding with the school (believe me!), but since the school's function is to educate, and the child is on target and meeting benchmarks (as indicated by the OP), the child is receiving an appropriate education. At this point, even if an evaluation (internal or external) returned scores falling anywhere on the autism spectrum, no change should be made to the child's education because it is working. |
Anonymous
By that definition, any SN student with OK grades and/or who meet benchmarks would not qualify for an IEP. As has been said many times on this board, you don't need to be failing or be below grade to get help/qualify for an IEP. The standard for getting an IEP is these three things: 1) disorder which has a 2) adverse impact on education and 3) necessitates special instruction. There is no requirement that the student be below benchmarks... And it is accepted by most/all school systems that an ASD diagnosis has an adverse impact on education. |
Anonymous
So you're obviously not parenting an ASD child. |
Anonymous
I was not referring to eligibility criteria for an IEP, I was referring to the OP's request for evaluation. As described, the school has no reason to evaluate because the child is progressing academically. But switching gears to IEPs, yes I understand what you are saying. So let's say this student was evaluated, it revealed ASD, the student was classified, and an IEP was created: what should change in the child's education? The student is showing developmentally appropriate progress (without "special instruction"). Are we to now change what has been effective instruction? Why? |
Anonymous
I have a child similar to OP's son, age 6 in first grade with ASD diagnosis. He attends a language immersion school and has had an IEP since pK 4. He is above grade level academically across the board. Currently his main issue is starting and finishing his work: needs prompting sometimes depending on his mood  He gets OT, speech/social skills group, Sp Ed support in both languages. 1x a wk for an hour for OT and speech. He is in an inclusive classroom with a Sp Ed teacher who is in the classroom 20 hrs a wk. He also use to get PT in K and pk4.
In our case, his PK4 teacher is the one who suggested that DS may have issues and his school has been very accommodating |
Anonymous
OP here- while my child can read and do math independently, he can not participate in group activities, including instruction. This isn't apparently being assessed at the moment, but it will be. He can't interact with others on the playground. He is having trouble with interactive activities in PE. He does not know how to make and keep friends or what socially appropriate language and behavior should look like (part of social skills curriculum). All of these things will come naturally to NT children, but an ASD child will need specialized instruction by trained educators. An ASD child will also need a documented procedure or plan on how to handle meltdowns or what disciplinary action to use for certain behaviors. We also have fine motor, gross motor, and sensory issues to combat. We also have toileting issues. So no, his disability does not affect his ability to do math. But his disability will be a lifelong social challenge that may impact his ability to live and function as an independent adult. His overall education could absolutely be impacted by this disability. This is why early intervention is key. No one is saying the teacher should instruct differently, and I'm not sure why you might be under the impression that that's what an IEP is for. He needs access to the special services that are already in place and employed by the county to which I pay taxes. The state of Virginia only mandates health insurance to cover ASD services and interventions from ages 2 - 6. The reason? Because the county and school system is liable to provide these services once a child has reached school age. |
Anonymous
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"No one is saying the teacher should instruct differently, and I'm not sure why you might be under the impression that that's what an IEP is for." Of course the purpose of an IEP is not simply to create different instruction; I was viewing this within the context of your child and the situation as you have presented it. As I understand it, your child is meeting academic benchmarks (albeit 1st grade level) but you want an IEP to change the supports he is receiving. Understood. And indeed, you want the instruction your child receives to be changed to address the concerns you have regarding behavior, social skills, and other areas that he currently does not receive support for. Is that correct? Just trying to provide some clarity. As a parent of a SN child who is well versed with the "red tape" that is the special education system in our public schools, it would be easy for me to say "You're right," but I found the only thing that helped me navigate the system was to understand how schools view disabilities and as well as the supports provided to some students but not to all. OP, I know you linked to a previous post earlier in this thread, but it was somewhat confusing to read back though all the posts...does your child have an Autism diagnosis? A medical diagnosis, perhaps? |
Anonymous
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Yes, he has an ASD diagnosis from just before entry to K. He also has a background with Child Find and receiving their services, which we halted as soon as he entered a mainstream preschool and finally developed language (at nearly 3 yrs).
I also struggle to balance the view of the school (not the school system) and my own. But the issue isn't even yet at IEP. Just for evaluation. If I homeschooled or had him in private school, FCPS or maybe even the base school would have to do the evaluation. This is not debatable. He has a documented and recognized diagnosis... figure out the impact. A DRA score is not sufficient. |