Reply to Timeline for eligibility report

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I just don’t really know what I’m doing and I’m furious reading this crazy report. I genuinely think the psychologist mixed two reports together- not just because the basic information is wrong but because there are mentions of behavioral issues neither I nor the teacher believes. I’m ready for a really big fight because the teacher “doesn’t believe in SpEd”. She’s terrific but I’m pretty sure she’s going to side with the school and say nothing is truly wrong with my kiddo. [/quote]

It sounds like it's time to dig in and push through the procedural stuff. We've got a lot of rights as parents, and the schools find it far easier if we don't know them. The Wrights Law website is a good place to start when you're digging into the nitty-gritty of what you can do. This is also a good time to bring in an educational lawyer.

In your evaluation meeting, you want to calmly point out factual errors and areas where you have not noticed, and the school has never documented, problems. If the eval says that there's no disability, expect the school to want to end the IEP--you're fighting that, not a particular teacher or evaluator. You want to request the independent educational evaluation (IEE) at public expense, and as a matter of law, they must either pay for it or go to a due process complaint. If they go to a due process complaint, documenting the factual errors that the school evaluator made will be really beneficial for you.

Meanwhile, they can't remove your child from services while you're in this process (this is called "stay put" rights.) I believe you have to either ask for mediation or start a due process complaint to have Stay Put apply, and you have to act within fifteen days of the Prior Written Notice that they want to remove services. From what you wrote, it sounds like they haven't said that yet--they're still in the process of evaluation and documentation. But if the evaluator recommends removing services, expect to get the PWN and be ready to act on it within the 15-day window.

As soon as you're at the due process stage, you should get an educational lawyer, if you possibly can. It is normal for the school system to pay lawyer's fees as part of the resolution of a due process complaint, so if you have a good case, you likely won't be out of pocket for the whole cost. Unfortunately, you have to pay the retainer up front and hope the due process comes out in your favor. We're in the DC area and our retainer three years ago was $2500, to give you an idea of the cost.[/quote]

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