Reply to APS & diagnosing learning disabilities

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am sorry your child's learning disabilities weren't identified earlier and it's great he is now getting the support he needs. That said, I would be surprised if  most parents (who are lucky enough to have the resources to do so) didn't already know how important private testing can be. You blame APS and you are so "livid at their ignorance" that you are warning other parents to "lawyer up" but perhaps deep down you are angry at your own ignorance and failure to advocate for your child as strongly as you could have. Teachers aren't diagnosticians who can tease out every special need, as much as we wish this were the case. Given your own concerns, you should have requested an evaluation from the school, which they would have been required to do. Without that, you don't know if and how they could have accommodated your child. I know schools can and often should do better but I don't think it's fair or helpful to lay blame in thie way that OP has done.[/quote]

NP. My kid’s story is similar to OPs. And yes, I am angry at myself for not being a better advocate but I am also angry with APS. My kid has a lot of issues that get tangled together and it is not the school’s job to fix them all but teaching him to read should squarely fall in their wheelhouse. He’s behind in reading- failing SOLs and all assessments below grade level but not enough to qualify for extra help, which he hasn’t received at APS since 1st grade. He’s extremely behind in writing and can barely write at a level about 3 grades below grade level. When we requested special education assessment, we were told he just didn’t try hard in the sections he didn’t pass (something we heard consistently all through elementary).

When we paid for  a private assessment, we were told they wouldn’t accept it and that they would need to redo it themselves. Every advocate and experienced parent we talked to said that we shouldn’t even bother trying to get APS to remediate dyslexia. So our options are either paying $100+/hour for private tutoring multiple days a week after he has already struggled through school all day or is all the money we have saved to send him to private school that costs more than most university tuition.

I think the teachers and administrators don’t mean to harm but way the system is set up let’s a lot of kids fail. It is completely justified to blame APS for that.

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I don't think you got very good advice. APS has come a looooong way in the past several years with dyslexia remediation. It is far from perfect but it exists now. 
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We pushed for services in the IEP and have some goals around it but he hasn’t gotten any specific services outside of having cotaught classes. Certainly nothing with a reading specialist. We could aggressively push/lawyer up and are choosing not to spend our money on tutoring. But we shouldn’t need an advocate or lawyer to get services. So hopefully APS is doing better in elementary school but they continue to do nothing for us on reading or writing.[/quote]

then unfortunately it may be time to get a lawyer. You don't want time with the reading specialist. You want time with an OG trained special education teacher (if it's dyslexia). [/quote]

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