Standardized Testing time counts towards IEP hours????

[Anonymous]

I am two weeks into having an IEP for my child so am a total newbie at this. The school is supposed to provide 19 hours a month of services. I have recently been told all the hours DC spends taking PARCC tests will count towards her IEP hours. For those of you with more experience in this, does this sound right to you? Our IEP goals do not address PARCC testing.

I was also told that regardless of where the child takes the testing (special ed classroom or general ed classroom) all hours count towards the IEP. The school states that the classroom teacher can implement the IEP during testing according to OSSE rules. What is the point of having an IEP if the classroom teacher is in charge of implementing it? How does sitting for a standardized test meet any of her goals? This all sounds so wrong to me.

Any experience with this?

[Anonymous]

Yes this is normal.

Also, just so you know, services do not need to be provided if they are missed due to field trips, school assemblies or holidays.

[Anonymous]

This is not something to fight over. You need to approach this as you are running a marathon and the teachers / school are your support team to get you across the finish line.

If you are pissed b.c they handed you the water too high and you needed to move your hand another inch - during mile 1 - they are not going to be there at mile 2.

If they give you milk instead of water - you discuss it.

[Anonymous]

This may be a helpful article for you OP https://www.eparent.com/education/protecting-your-childs-iep-from-the-nations-testing-craze/

[Anonymous]

The PARCC testing is definitely frustrating, but it's once a year so I wouldn't make a big deal of it.

As for your other question, yes of course the classroom teacher can implement the IEP. Many IEP requirements are classroom specific.
If the IEP is for speech therapy, for example, than an SLP should be providing that. But many IEP goals can be worked on by the classroom teacher.

What is in the IEP that you think should be provided by someone other than the classroom teacher?

[Anonymous]

That sounds weird to me. What services are written into the IEP that this is going to come out of?

For example, on my kid's IEP, we have about 24 hrs/month of services. This is clearly delineated in the IEP as 20 hours with the special ed teacher (combo of pull out-push in) to work on specific skills; 2 hours with the OT; and 2 hours with the social worker.

If for some reason the special ed teacher had to spend a lot of time helping my kid with PARCC testing so she did extra hours that week, I guess I'd be ok with cutting back the following week A LITTLE. But I would not be OK with not having her at all for the whole month. And if they were proposing to take hours away from the OT or social worker I wouldn't be ok with this at all - he only sees them 1x/week and it's a crucial part of his IEP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PARCC testing is definitely frustrating, but it's once a year so I wouldn't make a big deal of it.

As for your other question, yes of course the classroom teacher can implement the IEP. Many IEP requirements are classroom specific.
If the IEP is for speech therapy, for example, than an SLP should be providing that. But many IEP goals can be worked on by the classroom teacher.

What is in the IEP that you think should be provided by someone other than the classroom teacher?

I agree that the classroom teacher should be closely involved in the IEP goals; but the classroom teacher is not a "special education" provider per se. I don't think you could have an IEP if the classroom teacher were the only one providing services.

It sounds like the school is trying to claim that all the hours spent on PARCC somehow count for service hours in the IEP, because the child gets some PARCC accommodations (eg time, seating) that can be provided by the classroom teacher? That sounds pretty bogus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes this is normal.

Also, just so you know, services do not need to be provided if they are missed due to field trips, school assemblies or holidays.

i doubt the above is true. For example, if my child's OT session were scheduled for Fridays, it would mean he only got a small percentage of his hours due to all the Fridays off!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes this is normal.

Also, just so you know, services do not need to be provided if they are missed due to field trips, school assemblies or holidays.

i doubt the above is true. For example, if my child's OT session were scheduled for Fridays, it would mean he only got a small percentage of his hours due to all the Fridays off!

Some of it is true. Excused absences for related services include student absent, school closed, student taking state assessment. I am not 100% sure about field trips, but assemblies are not excused. Student unavailable it not an excused miss. I would assume that if the county your child was in had a lot of schedule Friday's off for teacher planning, that the provider would not schedule sessions during that time. But if the day is missed due to a holiday, snow day, break, etc., that session does not need to be made up.

[Anonymous]

OP unfortunately PARCC testing is terribly time consuming. The majority of the time special education teachers are providing accommodations for the testing. And the rooms that are typically used for intervention and pull-outs are now being used for small group testing. It is only one part of the year and know that the teacher's hate it just as much as you do. If they could change it, they would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP unfortunately PARCC testing is terribly time consuming. The majority of the time special education teachers are providing accommodations for the testing. And the rooms that are typically used for intervention and pull-outs are now being used for small group testing. It is only one part of the year and know that the teacher's hate it just as much as you do. If they could change it, they would.

I think that may be justification for missing services during the PARCC week - eg, normally scheduled OT, pull-out services that week, etc. But I can't see how you can say that PARCC itself meets IEP hours as a way to reduce hours after PARCC testing is over. Eg: If PARCC testing takes 10 hour and the child normally gets 6 hrs/week of services, you couldn't use PARCC to justify not getting services the week AFTER PARCC!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP unfortunately PARCC testing is terribly time consuming. The majority of the time special education teachers are providing accommodations for the testing. And the rooms that are typically used for intervention and pull-outs are now being used for small group testing. It is only one part of the year and know that the teacher's hate it just as much as you do. If they could change it, they would.

I think that may be justification for missing services during the PARCC week - eg, normally scheduled OT, pull-out services that week, etc. But I can't see how you can say that PARCC itself meets IEP hours as a way to reduce hours after PARCC testing is over. Eg: If PARCC testing takes 10 hour and the child normally gets 6 hrs/week of services, you couldn't use PARCC to justify not getting services the week AFTER PARCC!

PARCC testing -- and make up testing, and testing for students who need additional time or other accommodations -- takes more than a week. And the special educators are the ones who are doing the makeups, additional time, read aloud/scribing and the like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP unfortunately PARCC testing is terribly time consuming. The majority of the time special education teachers are providing accommodations for the testing. And the rooms that are typically used for intervention and pull-outs are now being used for small group testing. It is only one part of the year and know that the teacher's hate it just as much as you do. If they could change it, they would.

I think that may be justification for missing services during the PARCC week - eg, normally scheduled OT, pull-out services that week, etc. But I can't see how you can say that PARCC itself meets IEP hours as a way to reduce hours after PARCC testing is over. Eg: If PARCC testing takes 10 hour and the child normally gets 6 hrs/week of services, you couldn't use PARCC to justify not getting services the week AFTER PARCC!

PARCC testing -- and make up testing, and testing for students who need additional time or other accommodations -- takes more than a week. And the special educators are the ones who are doing the makeups, additional time, read aloud/scribing and the like.

Yeah, I get that. But claiming that sitting in PARCC taking the tests meets IEP hours is bogus, if nobody on the special ed team is actually doing anything for that child, is still bogus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That sounds weird to me. What services are written into the IEP that this is going to come out of?

For example, on my kid's IEP, we have about 24 hrs/month of services. This is clearly delineated in the IEP as 20 hours with the special ed teacher (combo of pull out-push in) to work on specific skills; 2 hours with the OT; and 2 hours with the social worker.

If for some reason the special ed teacher had to spend a lot of time helping my kid with PARCC testing so she did extra hours that week, I guess I'd be ok with cutting back the following week A LITTLE. But I would not be OK with not having her at all for the whole month. And if they were proposing to take hours away from the OT or social worker I wouldn't be ok with this at all - he only sees them 1x/week and it's a crucial part of his IEP.

I agree. When my DSs are being familiarized with a testing format or receiving their accomodations while testing, they do NOT come out of the service hours which, as the PP noted, are related to working on specific skills, learning content or addressing other areas of need. If your DS has a goal related to testing strategies, those would be included as part of the service hours but I can't imagine how taking a test could be counted as part of the service hours provided.

[Anonymous]

I mean, what do parents want the service providers to do? PARCC is all hands on deck, every special ed staffer, multiple hours a day for 2-4 weeks at a time. There's no choice, no way out of it. It's physically impossible to fit this all in, plus make sure your whole caseload gets their hours, plus attend the 15 middle school IEP transition meetings that are scheduled when there isn't PARCC. Time just doesn't function that way. And there's no help coming to make up missed hours, because the year is ending and the school system thinks their employees can make 2+2=6, and it wasn't just your kid that got missed, it was 40 others. What do you want them to do?