Are you obligated to disclose your child's autism diagnosis to a new school?

[Anonymous]

If it's the same situation as OP then the parents clearly have a diagnosis and have sought interventions. Not at all the situation you implied where they are not doing anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it's the same situation as OP then the parents clearly have a diagnosis and have sought interventions. Not at all the situation you implied where they are not doing anything.

OP clearly states that

Child has few words spoken intermittently and is not currently in any kind of therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school is well aware that parents do not report known development issues with new students. If the child barely talks, they are going to notice it very quickly. The school will begin their own evaluation process and develop and IEP for the student. Why waste all that time when an evaluation has already taken place?

A school can't do evaluations without the parents' consent. I wonder what will happen when the teachers approach the parents with their concerns?

OP, how old is the child?

They actually can. Here's a case from the MSDE due process hearing results website from 2010 where MCPS took a parent to court over refusal to consent to assessments in the face of a mountain of evidence that something was amiss with their child, and won the right to do numerous evaluations without parental consent: http://marylandpublicschools.org/NR/rdonlyres/AF37843C-E575-4862-B809-B12B256BC044/29405/10HMONT18299.pdf

Now, obviously this is probably very rare and only happens in cases where there are severely disruptive behaviors and the school is desperate, and I imagine the parent could then just decline services and an IEP anyway after the assessments were completed. But if a school system has the evidence and wants to go to the trouble and expense, they absolutely can take a parent to court and get the right to do testing without consent.

In response to the thread question, no, of course you're not obligated, but in this case they're certainly going to figure it out, likely fairly quickly. And then the question is what kind of relationship do you want to have with the teachers and staff trying to help your child learn, who are now going to be suspicious and mistrustful of you and think you're "that" parent and interact with you accordingly. It's a balancing act.

Wow, that's an extremely sad case. I wonder how it ended up, and if there was anything the schools could have done to make it less confrontational and end up better.

Reading that was incredibly difficult. That poor child.

[Anonymous]

The impact of the judge's decision is unclear. It sounds like the parents had already pulled the child from the system by the time she wrote that.

I also have the same questions as one of the previous PPs about what the parents' side of the story is here. One of the schools suspended the child numerous times despite having suspicions of a disability and that could not have helped the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school is well aware that parents do not report known development issues with new students. If the child barely talks, they are going to notice it very quickly. The school will begin their own evaluation process and develop and IEP for the student. Why waste all that time when an evaluation has already taken place?

A school can't do evaluations without the parents' consent. I wonder what will happen when the teachers approach the parents with their concerns?

OP, how old is the child?

They actually can. Here's a case from the MSDE due process hearing results website from 2010 where MCPS took a parent to court over refusal to consent to assessments in the face of a mountain of evidence that something was amiss with their child, and won the right to do numerous evaluations without parental consent: http://marylandpublicschools.org/NR/rdonlyres/AF37843C-E575-4862-B809-B12B256BC044/29405/10HMONT18299.pdf

Now, obviously this is probably very rare and only happens in cases where there are severely disruptive behaviors and the school is desperate, and I imagine the parent could then just decline services and an IEP anyway after the assessments were completed. But if a school system has the evidence and wants to go to the trouble and expense, they absolutely can take a parent to court and get the right to do testing without consent.

In response to the thread question, no, of course you're not obligated, but in this case they're certainly going to figure it out, likely fairly quickly. And then the question is what kind of relationship do you want to have with the teachers and staff trying to help your child learn, who are now going to be suspicious and mistrustful of you and think you're "that" parent and interact with you accordingly. It's a balancing act.

Wow, that's an extremely sad case. I wonder how it ended up, and if there was anything the schools could have done to make it less confrontational and end up better.

Reading that was incredibly difficult. That poor child.

Absolutely. I wonder if the school also made a call to CPS for educational neglect, especially since he was withdrawn from MCPS.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way....If I don't disclose my kids issues (diagnosese) how in the world would he get the help he needs to learn?????? Of course I would disclose. FWIW, my child never entered MCPS because they refused an IEP on the grounds that they could understand him (he has three diagnosese that are significant).

[Anonymous]

OP, we don't talk about my child's diagnosis except to say he has xxx delays or trouble in xxx. Why? People like you. I would be horrified if I read what you posted about my family on this message board. They have difficult enough lives without you spewing it everywhere.

There could be many reasons why they refuse the autism diagnosis, including it is not the proper diagnosis.

You would not know my child is in services. We do them all outside school after school hours. Its no ones business. You would never know he was in intensive services from 3-5 either as we deliberately kept him out of the public school realm because of people like you. If he improved, we didn't want any labels to carry. Sure enough, he has improved. We are looking at public school and asked to speak to the school to see if he would qualify and how to make the best transition. They told us they would not look at anything prior to the first day of school and basically tuff luck. Am I going to give all his past evaluations, etc... absolutely not. Let them figure it out and we will continue to use private services and tutor at home.

Some kids don't start talking till 4-5-6-7 and are just fine.

Educational neglect is if the parents do not homeschool or send their kids to school. Refusing an IEP is not neglect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, we don't talk about my child's diagnosis except to say he has xxx delays or trouble in xxx. Why? People like you. I would be horrified if I read what you posted about my family on this message board. They have difficult enough lives without you spewing it everywhere.

There could be many reasons why they refuse the autism diagnosis, including it is not the proper diagnosis.

You would not know my child is in services. We do them all outside school after school hours. Its no ones business. You would never know he was in intensive services from 3-5 either as we deliberately kept him out of the public school realm because of people like you. If he improved, we didn't want any labels to carry. Sure enough, he has improved. We are looking at public school and asked to speak to the school to see if he would qualify and how to make the best transition. They told us they would not look at anything prior to the first day of school and basically tuff luck. Am I going to give all his past evaluations, etc... absolutely not. Let them figure it out and we will continue to use private services and tutor at home.

Some kids don't start talking till 4-5-6-7 and are just fine.

Educational neglect is if the parents do not homeschool or send their kids to school. Refusing an IEP is not neglect.

OP here, nowhere in my post is there any identifiable information about the family nor have I ever talked to other families behind their back. This is an anonymous forum. I am not 'spewing' anything. Please do not blame 'people like me' for your decision not to disclose. That is utter BS.