Reply to Denied evaluation for autism spectrum child at FCPS. Now what?

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "Denied evaluation for autism spectrum child at FCPS. Now what?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Get an attorney and appeal, seek an eligibility for services review, whatever the process is in FCPS.

We are in MCPS and were originally told in K-1 that our child must fall 2 grade level behind before they would consider him for a 504 or IEP.  Funny, the law does not make that distinction.   So there he sat, sent to the office, 4 days a week.  Years have passed, but what a nightmare.   It got worse before it got better, but without professional help, we would not have gotten there.    [/quote]

Please, people, when you are told something like this -- "your child must fall 2 grade levels behind before [being] considered for a 504 or IEP" --[b] document this in writing and make a formal written appeal to a special ed authority outside of the school.  You can do that by hiring an attorney[/b] and filing, by proceeding to mediation (probably advisable to have an attorney or advocate for that) or simply writing a complaint to the county-wide supervisor for special ed or 504 plans.  In MCPS the names and emails of these supervisors can be found on the MCPS website.

It is ILLEGAL to deny special education to a child on the basis that they are "not failing" or not falling behind by a particular amount.  A child can be eligible for special education EVEN with GOOD grades and ON or ABOVE grade level achievement.  However, one must show the "adverse impact" of the disorder and the need for special education.  Adverse impact is NOT an evaluation based on grades alone.  Special education in a particular area may be necessary even when overall grades are good.  For example, if a child experiences anxiety or self-esteem issues because he/she is not able to perform at his ability level (even when higher than average) or must take much longer or work harder to produce acceptable work, that would be a sign of adverse impact.  Special education might be necessary to improve specific skills (whether academic or management of emotions or explicit teaching of executive function skills).

If it is not documented in writing, it did not happen.  Too often schools say these kinds of things, but complaints are not made outside of the school.  Properly documented complaints to the heads of special education departments can result in reversal of the in school decision.  Repeated complaints on the same theme --  our school-based team says Johnny can't have an IEP until he is behind 2 grades -- warns upper leadership about impending legal liability and, over time, can result in systemic change.

BTW, please support burden of proof legislation in Maryland if you want to see broad systemic change legislated.  www.burdenofproofmd.org[/quote]

PP you are quoting.  And yes, we did exactly that after going along with the school's suggestions by hiring all kinds of services and trying to fix everything...when it turns out it was the environment at school that needed to be fixed (via accommodations).  Still took months and months to shake out, but hiring a lawyer was the only thing that got us untangled, and dealing with county-level staff instead of just the local school.[/quote]

Very glad to hear your experience turned out better in the end PP, although, of course, I'm sorry that it took time and money.  FWIW, I'm not so sure it was clear in my post that one can copy or get in touch with the supervisory level special ed staff outside of the school without having to hire a lawyer.  We did that in our case and it resulted in an immediate reversal of the school's decisions.  [/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