Reply to Please help!! School does not want to provide 504 high tech accommodations for dysgraphia-help with counter arguments?

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "Please help!! School does not want to provide 504 high tech accommodations for dysgraphia-help with counter arguments?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DC has a 504..she has a neuropsych from children's 2 years ago but it didn't have ed testing and only a brief IQ test. I actually had a lawyer at the meeting with me today. She said wait for another year or 2 to do neuropsych...school is pretty aligned against us.[/quote]

Poster 2 here. I have used lawyers and educational advocates at different times. TBH, I was surprised at the degree to which MCPS was able to stonewall the lawyer.  I think having a lawyer made MCPS just put walls up and wait to be sued.  I needed immediate resolution and a lawsuit wouldn’t help. Having a lawyer at the early stage was like dropping the nuclear bomb immediately, and when the school refused my next escalation option (a lawsuit) was unattractive.

So, I shifted my approach. In early stages (asking for 504 or IEP or asking for changes), when the school is refusing me, I bring in an educational advocate who is respected and has had teaching experience.  The educational advocate is able to serve several purposes - they know what the school system does (as opposed to the school). So when the school says “we don’t” or “we can’t”, the advocate can actually say “I have seen other kids get this” or “here is a different way of meeting the need that you can do” etc. The advocate is also a professional voice in the room.  I am constantly shocked by the mysogyny of a system that dismisses me as an emotional mom who could not possibly have any legal or educational knowledge, but listens to my (male) advocate who says *exactly the same thing I did*.   The advocate is also a credible 3rd party witness when I escalate.  And, the advocate leaves room for me to threaten to escalate by bringing in an attorney.

My advice would be - use the summer for cursive tutoring (if that is a reasonable effort given the Tourettes), keyboarding practice and teaching speech to text dictation.

I strongly disagree with the lawyer about waiting on neuropsych- 3rd grade is old enough for a full neuropsych that includes full IQ and achievement testing. Waiting 1-2 more years is just letting the problems multiply and your child’s psyche takes a hit.

Part of your problem is likely that you do not have standardized normed achievement data to back up what you are saying about child’s below age/grade level writing and reading achievement, so school is collecting subjective and non-normed, non- standardized data which they can manipulate and that enables them to deny the substantial impact or adverse educational impact. You say you have a “neuropsych” but w/o the IQ and achievement testing it is not a full neuropsych.

I see your main problem as being in the wrong track.  You have asked for a 504 plan, and even though the school has a Child Find obligation that applies to kids asking for an IEP, because of the legal framework, they can more easily evade that obligation or argue that they have fulfilled it with a skimpy assessment under 504.  That, together with the fact that you are expressing concerns that she is falling behind, means, IMO, that you need to be asking for an IEP.

If you can afford a private assessment, schedule that. It often takes 3-5 months to get an appointment and get the report back.  Spend the time between now and the assessment gathering your own ”data” about your kids reading and writing. Journal any difficulties over the summer. When school starts again, save all
written work samples. Monitor any longer writing assignments to be done at home - how ling is it taking? does she need assistance? is there a difference when you let her use assistance at home (scribe, computer typing or dictation, etc.). What are “grades” at school? How is she compensating? Are other good grades in English averaging out her difficulties so that they go unnoticed? Document difficulties by emails to the teachers. Get follow up about how the accommodations granted are working.

About 15 days before the report is due request an IEP meeting. It must be scheduled w/i 30 days. Provide the private neuropsych to the team a week before the meeting. Use the parent IEP request to lay out the basis of your request (1 disorder, 2 adverse educational impact and 3) need for special instruction).  Make sure you get 5 day papers - including all educational records the school will present at the meeting (teacher reports, etc).  The school may take additional time to gather classroom data for 60 days at the end of which they must have the eligibility determination meeting.

If you can’t afford your own private neuropsych, you can force the school to do the psychoed assessment by filing for an IEP.  TBH, you could try to file right away for the IEP and they would have to do it even over the summer, but you may have difficulty getting teacher documentation if you don’t ask *right now* because basically school will be out and teachers gone.  Without teacher reports, you do not have the “adverse educational” piece and may have difficulty to pass you on from the first screening eligibility meeting.  So you might just wait to file for IEP until a couple months into school so you can collect data.

If you disagree with the school’s assessment in the IEP process, you can request an Independent Educational Evaluation, which the school pays for.  So, it can be the long way to get a private psych eval paid for, when one cannot afford oneself.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics