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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My son is having a really tough time in middle school.  He has ADHD with a 504 Plan but keeps tripping up over tasks such as paying attention, task completion, and organization of materials.  I have had many teacher emails, meetings, and team meetings but the school staff (teachers, counselor, principal) doesn't seem to understand or get that these issues are the heart of his disability.  It's not enough to give him an assignment book and assume he will fill it in.  His 504 gives him preferential seating but they interpret that as being in the front row and ignore who they sit him next to.  When I question his seating placement, the answer is "What do you want me to do?  Put him in a corner by himself."  Now he is receiving detention for not paying attention in class as if punishment will cure his ADHD.

Is this the best we can expect from a public school system?  Punishment in lieu of educational services for teaching coping skills for his disability?  How is this type of treatment a best teaching practice?

Is your school doing a good job understanding your child's disability and meeting his/her needs?

[/quote]

IME a 504 plan won't get your child any instruction in how to best use the accommodations.

We were in a similar boat and felt we didn't want to spend months fighting with the school and watch our child fail/get more frustrated about school. So we hired a child psychologist who works with ADHD kids to teach her how to organize herself/manage her schoolwork. They developed checklists that made sense to the child, the psychologist did a few school visits to see what was going on in class, and we also asked her to work with the child on some longer range project assignments (break down into smaller tasks etc). None of it was rocket science but in our situation it worked better to have someone other than mom and dad do this.

Should your school be able and willing to do this kind of support -- probably. But we were tired of fighting and the only diagnosis we had from private testing was ADHD -- so 504 only, no IEP once we hit middle school. [/quote]

OP here -

Thank you for the suggestion.  How often were your child's visits to the psychologist and were you able to get non-school hour appointments?  Missing school is difficult for my child (getting and making up the work) but seeing a professional might be worth a try.

We have pushed MCPS for years for an IEP.  However, my son was able to skate by with passing grades in elementary school and frankly there just was more built in support at that level.  Now that demands have increased in Middle School, there is a lot more he has to juggle and he is less able to cope.  Still I seem to get resistance and ignorant comments from the school which I don't understand.  They could give him a million accommodations or they could teach him skills so he has greater independence.  In the long run, an IEP would be more effective in addressing his issues and once those skills are learned, he would be less problematic for the school.[/quote]

Initially twice a month - then went to monthly checkins. They started meeting in the summer (mid July) and at first it was a lot of talking about what was challenging and working on solutions. There was 'homework' assigned ... which of course was part of the plan.

A side goal of this was self-advocacy and ownership for the kid. We also brought in things like managing chores at home, medication, breakfast/lunch prep. Basically all executive function tasks.[/quote]

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