What to do next? Elopement and aggression with first grader

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. 16:01 that is interesting. I have to say it’s something I have wondered about, really since he was tiny. He has always been challenging. I was extremely anxious during my pregnancy with him due to a previous neonatal full term loss and worry that he was bathed in sadness hormones in utero. May I ask how the ASD diagnosis helped? I wonder if it’s something I should push for again.

OP, gently, please let this go. Gently chase it away. You did not cause your son's issues by mourning the loss of your older child.

My kids with disabilities are teens now, and if there is one thing I can say from my journey: disability can come to any family, at any time, for any reason. It is tempting to look for reasons, but honestly, as parents we are nearly always wrong; disability is complex, multivariate, and usually unexplainable.

You've endured a horrific loss, and I am so sorry. You can set down the burden of blaming yourself for your DS's struggles. Please let it go. What I see from your posts is a dedicated, caring mother who is fighting for a little boy who is struggling. It is okay to let go of your worries about your pregnancy.

Thank you for saying these kind words. I truly appreciate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP: Have you met with your school's principal? I would start there to see what s/he knows about the situation, what s/he recommends, etc. Even if you end up going the lawyer route, it would be helpful to get a better sense of what your school is willing to do/what they recommend. Your school's principal will have a sense of how unusual the CHAMPS call was for your school's social worker/psychologist and doesn't have some of the negative incentives that DCPS has re: cost avoidance.

Thank you for this - I haven't met with her yet. I did talk to her briefly as on one occasion a few weeks ago, and she suggested that he come home in the afternoons and effectively homeschool then (or virtual school). Neither my husband nor I love this idea because we both work. But we should probably talk to her again. I would love for someone in the school to be direct with me about what they think we should do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you, it’s OP again, sorry - i don’t know how to reply to a message. I didn’t know about the free consultation. That is very helpful. I will also ask Georgetown about doing a second evaluation for ASD.

For those of you who said your child did similar things - what did you do? How did things end up?

In a very tiny font on the upper righthand corner of each message, there's a box that says 'quote'. If you press it you will be able to reply directly. It only took me 5 months to figure out

Thank you! Super helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to disagree with the prior poster, the extreme safety issues presented with running away means you should go directly to lawyer. You need all the firepower you can in your corner before this escalates even further.

And I disagree with you. As a lawyer, I can tell you that legal skills don't help with creating and implementing a behavioral plan! If what you mean is that she needs to get him into a self-contained class or private placement ASAP, I guess so - but not clear that OP actually understands what that entails, especially for a 2E kid. I can share that for my child who had serious behavioral issues (albeit not elopement) a properly designed behavioral plan worked. OP needs the support of a psychologist/consultant who can work with the school to create and implement the plan. It may be painful for a while waiting to see if the plan can work, but otherwise, you're just jumping to put your kid into a private placement that deals with behavioral challenges or a self-contained program with reports like this: https://www.hillrag.com/2021/03/22/dcps-child-abuse-suit-expands/

With all due respect, you're aware that lawyers can compel school systems to pay for public school placements, right? Like paying for a bus to send a kid to a public school with an emotional disturbance center. They also can make them pay for a free evaluation. Equating lawyer=private school is simply misinformation. Not trying to start an arguement! I just don't want OP to be inadvertently mislead.

Not DCPS, the bus will only take them HOME. They are not legally required to take them anywhere else unless that place is the address they specified and cannot be changed on a regular basis.

They also cannot not ‘make’ them pay for an evaluation lol. We have school psychologist at our schools who do that and will.

So actually you are misleading OP.

Yes, there is a right to an independent evaluation paid for by the school under IDEA.

Here you go: IDEA Public Schools either pays for the full cost of the evaluation or ensures that the evaluation is otherwise provided at no cost to the parent, consistent with the provisions of Part B of the IDEA, which allow each State to use whatever State, local, Federal, and private sources.
As in DCPS won’t pay because we have school psyc. They do NOT have to pay for outside evals under idea.

I am a sped teacher and I may not know every single law but I know this one because I work in dcps and parents have tried it and failed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School based SLP here (not in DCPS however). Also, I did not read the whole thread, just the first page, so you may have covered this.

OP, trust me when I tell you that the regular education school staff does not want to deny your child what he needs. I have no idea about "central office" in DCPS but as a person who works directly with kids in a regular education school, when children are clearly in the wrong place, we absolutely want them to get an appropriate placement. We will write reports, collect data, provide anecdotal evidence and show work samples (or lack thereof) to support the right placement.

In fact, at my school in a neighboring county, we have a few students who are at our school for the first time (K and 1st grade) because of Covid. One is "eloping" (I don't love that word) and he has many avoidance behaviors and right now, he is just not safe. Another is just not cognitively at the level needed for regular education. Today, I told my colleagues that these kids "are telling us in many ways that they are in the wrong place" everyone agreed.

Just today, our special education team had a conversation saying that we need our higher ups to meet with us to give us clear guidelines about what documentation they need from us, what programs are out there right now (staffing is tough in my district) and what is the timeline. We are on board with helping these kids get exactly what they need.

Please talk to the professionals that work with your team to join efforts for what is right for your child. They want what is right for your child.

Good luck, I hope you find some peace and that your child gets to a place that will allow him to learn.

Hi, thank you for responding to this thread. I appreciate it. I believe totally that the school staff want to do right by him. I like them very much and don't feel in any way adversarial toward them. They are working hard in a very difficult situation, and you don't go into teaching for the money - these are good people who care about children. I have linked them with the professionals we found privately (his OT, a psychologist who came in to observe, and psychiatrist). No one from the school has yet told me "you need to do X" which is why I'm considering another professional advocate or educational adviser to hold my hand. I basically just want to know what to do next, because the situation has gotten so extreme.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to disagree with the prior poster, the extreme safety issues presented with running away means you should go directly to lawyer. You need all the firepower you can in your corner before this escalates even further.

And I disagree with you. As a lawyer, I can tell you that legal skills don't help with creating and implementing a behavioral plan! If what you mean is that she needs to get him into a self-contained class or private placement ASAP, I guess so - but not clear that OP actually understands what that entails, especially for a 2E kid. I can share that for my child who had serious behavioral issues (albeit not elopement) a properly designed behavioral plan worked. OP needs the support of a psychologist/consultant who can work with the school to create and implement the plan. It may be painful for a while waiting to see if the plan can work, but otherwise, you're just jumping to put your kid into a private placement that deals with behavioral challenges or a self-contained program with reports like this: https://www.hillrag.com/2021/03/22/dcps-child-abuse-suit-expands/

With all due respect, you're aware that lawyers can compel school systems to pay for public school placements, right? Like paying for a bus to send a kid to a public school with an emotional disturbance center. They also can make them pay for a free evaluation. Equating lawyer=private school is simply misinformation. Not trying to start an arguement! I just don't want OP to be inadvertently mislead.

Not DCPS, the bus will only take them HOME. They are not legally required to take them anywhere else unless that place is the address they specified and cannot be changed on a regular basis.

They also cannot not ‘make’ them pay for an evaluation lol. We have school psychologist at our schools who do that and will.

So actually you are misleading OP.

Yes, there is a right to an independent evaluation paid for by the school under IDEA.

Here you go: IDEA Public Schools either pays for the full cost of the evaluation or ensures that the evaluation is otherwise provided at no cost to the parent, consistent with the provisions of Part B of the IDEA, which allow each State to use whatever State, local, Federal, and private sources.
As in DCPS won’t pay because we have school psyc. They do NOT have to pay for outside evals under idea.

I am a sped teacher and I may not know every single law but I know this one because I work in dcps and parents have tried it and failed.

see page 12. https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/Part%20B%20Procedural%20Safeguards%20Update_%20August%202018-ENG.pdf

are you the same special ed teacher insulting parents and making false claims about IDEA on other threads? you really should go away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School based SLP here (not in DCPS however). Also, I did not read the whole thread, just the first page, so you may have covered this.

OP, trust me when I tell you that the regular education school staff does not want to deny your child what he needs. I have no idea about "central office" in DCPS but as a person who works directly with kids in a regular education school, when children are clearly in the wrong place, we absolutely want them to get an appropriate placement. We will write reports, collect data, provide anecdotal evidence and show work samples (or lack thereof) to support the right placement.

In fact, at my school in a neighboring county, we have a few students who are at our school for the first time (K and 1st grade) because of Covid. One is "eloping" (I don't love that word) and he has many avoidance behaviors and right now, he is just not safe. Another is just not cognitively at the level needed for regular education. Today, I told my colleagues that these kids "are telling us in many ways that they are in the wrong place" everyone agreed.

Just today, our special education team had a conversation saying that we need our higher ups to meet with us to give us clear guidelines about what documentation they need from us, what programs are out there right now (staffing is tough in my district) and what is the timeline. We are on board with helping these kids get exactly what they need.

Please talk to the professionals that work with your team to join efforts for what is right for your child. They want what is right for your child.

Good luck, I hope you find some peace and that your child gets to a place that will allow him to learn.

Hi, thank you for responding to this thread. I appreciate it. I believe totally that the school staff want to do right by him. I like them very much and don't feel in any way adversarial toward them. They are working hard in a very difficult situation, and you don't go into teaching for the money - these are good people who care about children. I have linked them with the professionals we found privately (his OT, a psychologist who came in to observe, and psychiatrist). No one from the school has yet told me "you need to do X" which is why I'm considering another professional advocate or educational adviser to hold my hand. I basically just want to know what to do next, because the situation has gotten so extreme.

find a good advocate. they will REALLY help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to disagree with the prior poster, the extreme safety issues presented with running away means you should go directly to lawyer. You need all the firepower you can in your corner before this escalates even further.

And I disagree with you. As a lawyer, I can tell you that legal skills don't help with creating and implementing a behavioral plan! If what you mean is that she needs to get him into a self-contained class or private placement ASAP, I guess so - but not clear that OP actually understands what that entails, especially for a 2E kid. I can share that for my child who had serious behavioral issues (albeit not elopement) a properly designed behavioral plan worked. OP needs the support of a psychologist/consultant who can work with the school to create and implement the plan. It may be painful for a while waiting to see if the plan can work, but otherwise, you're just jumping to put your kid into a private placement that deals with behavioral challenges or a self-contained program with reports like this: https://www.hillrag.com/2021/03/22/dcps-child-abuse-suit-expands/

With all due respect, you're aware that lawyers can compel school systems to pay for public school placements, right? Like paying for a bus to send a kid to a public school with an emotional disturbance center. They also can make them pay for a free evaluation. Equating lawyer=private school is simply misinformation. Not trying to start an arguement! I just don't want OP to be inadvertently mislead.

Not DCPS, the bus will only take them HOME. They are not legally required to take them anywhere else unless that place is the address they specified and cannot be changed on a regular basis.

They also cannot not ‘make’ them pay for an evaluation lol. We have school psychologist at our schools who do that and will.

So actually you are misleading OP.

Yes, there is a right to an independent evaluation paid for by the school under IDEA.

Here you go: IDEA Public Schools either pays for the full cost of the evaluation or ensures that the evaluation is otherwise provided at no cost to the parent, consistent with the provisions of Part B of the IDEA, which allow each State to use whatever State, local, Federal, and private sources.
As in DCPS won’t pay because we have school psyc. They do NOT have to pay for outside evals under idea.

I am a sped teacher and I may not know every single law but I know this one because I work in dcps and parents have tried it and failed.

see page 12. https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/Part%20B%20Procedural%20Safeguards%20Update_%20August%202018-ENG.pdf

are you the same special ed teacher insulting parents and making false claims about IDEA on other threads? you really should go away.

Again, you are being misleading. That is only is you disagree with the results of the evaluation FROM THE SCHOOL. But nice try pretending to know.

[Anonymous]

I do have to say, a lawyer won't come in and be nasty to your child's team members if they truly have his best interest at heart, and it sounds like they do. Think of them as an information center that can go over every possible option with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to disagree with the prior poster, the extreme safety issues presented with running away means you should go directly to lawyer. You need all the firepower you can in your corner before this escalates even further.

And I disagree with you. As a lawyer, I can tell you that legal skills don't help with creating and implementing a behavioral plan! If what you mean is that she needs to get him into a self-contained class or private placement ASAP, I guess so - but not clear that OP actually understands what that entails, especially for a 2E kid. I can share that for my child who had serious behavioral issues (albeit not elopement) a properly designed behavioral plan worked. OP needs the support of a psychologist/consultant who can work with the school to create and implement the plan. It may be painful for a while waiting to see if the plan can work, but otherwise, you're just jumping to put your kid into a private placement that deals with behavioral challenges or a self-contained program with reports like this: https://www.hillrag.com/2021/03/22/dcps-child-abuse-suit-expands/

With all due respect, you're aware that lawyers can compel school systems to pay for public school placements, right? Like paying for a bus to send a kid to a public school with an emotional disturbance center. They also can make them pay for a free evaluation. Equating lawyer=private school is simply misinformation. Not trying to start an arguement! I just don't want OP to be inadvertently mislead.

Not DCPS, the bus will only take them HOME. They are not legally required to take them anywhere else unless that place is the address they specified and cannot be changed on a regular basis.

They also cannot not ‘make’ them pay for an evaluation lol. We have school psychologist at our schools who do that and will.

So actually you are misleading OP.

Yes, there is a right to an independent evaluation paid for by the school under IDEA.

Here you go: IDEA Public Schools either pays for the full cost of the evaluation or ensures that the evaluation is otherwise provided at no cost to the parent, consistent with the provisions of Part B of the IDEA, which allow each State to use whatever State, local, Federal, and private sources.
As in DCPS won’t pay because we have school psyc. They do NOT have to pay for outside evals under idea.

I am a sped teacher and I may not know every single law but I know this one because I work in dcps and parents have tried it and failed.

see page 12. https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/publication/attachments/Part%20B%20Procedural%20Safeguards%20Update_%20August%202018-ENG.pdf

are you the same special ed teacher insulting parents and making false claims about IDEA on other threads? you really should go away.

Again, you are being misleading. That is only is you disagree with the results of the evaluation FROM THE SCHOOL. But nice try pretending to know.

what do you think anyone here was talking about? go away, you are not helping.

[Anonymous]

Hey! Let's argue in a different thread and not clog it up for OP. She can get legal advice from a lawyer and not a message board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do have to say, a lawyer won't come in and be nasty to your child's team members if they truly have his best interest at heart, and it sounds like they do. Think of them as an information center that can go over every possible option with you.

If I really thought a change of placement or private placement was coming up I’d probably get a lawyer and an advocate together. So far my experience with an advocate has been really good, but we don’t anticipate litigation/due process at all. I wouldn’t want legal advice in designing the IEP and I wouldn’t want educational advice in a hearing. Just having the lawyer in the room I’m sure can motivate the school to provide services, but the advocate should actually be able to advise on what the services should be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School based SLP here (not in DCPS however). Also, I did not read the whole thread, just the first page, so you may have covered this.

OP, trust me when I tell you that the regular education school staff does not want to deny your child what he needs. I have no idea about "central office" in DCPS but as a person who works directly with kids in a regular education school, when children are clearly in the wrong place, we absolutely want them to get an appropriate placement. We will write reports, collect data, provide anecdotal evidence and show work samples (or lack thereof) to support the right placement.

In fact, at my school in a neighboring county, we have a few students who are at our school for the first time (K and 1st grade) because of Covid. One is "eloping" (I don't love that word) and he has many avoidance behaviors and right now, he is just not safe. Another is just not cognitively at the level needed for regular education. Today, I told my colleagues that these kids "are telling us in many ways that they are in the wrong place" everyone agreed.

Just today, our special education team had a conversation saying that we need our higher ups to meet with us to give us clear guidelines about what documentation they need from us, what programs are out there right now (staffing is tough in my district) and what is the timeline. We are on board with helping these kids get exactly what they need.

Please talk to the professionals that work with your team to join efforts for what is right for your child. They want what is right for your child.

Good luck, I hope you find some peace and that your child gets to a place that will allow him to learn.

Who are you to make this type of judgment? Sometimes kid are in "the right place" but they need some support to be successful. I find it disgusting you are having placement discussions behind a family's back without the whole IEP there to discuss. This is a violation of policy and you should be fired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hey! Let's argue in a different thread and not clog it up for OP. She can get legal advice from a lawyer and not a message board.

I agree and that is why uninformed people should not be making assertions here about IDEA. Post a link to back up what you’re saying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey! Let's argue in a different thread and not clog it up for OP. She can get legal advice from a lawyer and not a message board.

I agree and that is why uninformed people should not be making assertions here about IDEA. Post a link to back up what you’re saying.

Ma'am I was not the poster going back and forth with you. I think everyone should take it down a notch, this child is in crisis and this is kind of derailing the thread.