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[quote=Anonymous]This has been such an amazing thread- especially that email from 22:38!  Wish I had that when we were going through the 504/IEP process.

We were in FCPS, went through that roller coaster of a ride between 6th and 11th grade.  We eventually ended up moving DC to private school, which was really needed at that time. 
We tried to make it work with FCPS.

Here's our journey:

-Got denied for 504 in 6th grade.   
-Got outside testing, appealed. Granted 504, but after a year, saw that it wasn't enough. 
-Applied for IEP in 7th grade. Denied. 
-Inquired with due process, which got the attention of the middle school principal, who sat in on the eligibility meeting. During that time, we got an advocate who came to the school to do observations and also sat with us in meetings. The advocate's presence was helpful to keep the school "in check" but I think it was the principal's pushing that really helped us get the IEP. 
- Used the IEP in 7th and 8th grade with very mixed results-- it totally depended in each teacher to find ways that worked with our DC.  Some teachers made things a lot more complicated- like proposing a separate paper checklist for my ADHD kid who kept losing their paper homework. 
- Tried to get new, more appropriate accommodations/specialized instructions in 9th grade and was met with much resistance from most of the teachers, until ONE teacher said, yes- I'll do that- and then the entire team turned around. 
- 11th grade was really tough...   We looked at all other options for Special Ed in FCPS and none of them was going to work- really, we suspected that the other options were going to make our kid worse. Our attorney sat with us in meetings. The attorney was very helpful in helping us know what our options are and could also keep the school "in check."  There was one meeting that was attended by a Procedural Support Liason (PSL) who was on her way out of her role but attended because her new person couldn't make it. This PSL was brilliant.  Goes to show that ideas and decisions made in that room completely depended on who shows up so you really need ONE person who can influence the rest of the groupthink. I often wondered what the "IEP Team" was when it was only attended by folks who happened to be available at that time slot. 
- We knew what our kid needed but the school wanted to do all sorts of processes that would make us "wait and see what happens." This is not what you want to hear when your kid is suicidal, already in 11th grade and the school was pushing to just have the kid graduate, even offering to "waive" some graduation requirements.  So we had to really think about what our priorities were-- are we rushing to get a diploma (with waived requirements) as the finish line or do we want our kid healthy in school while learning? The attorney didn't agree with what the school was doing and advised us that we'd be better off paying for private school than wait for FCPS to do the placement. Also, lawsuits against the public school systems hardly ever favor the parents.   
- We ended the journey by telling our IEP team that we were withdrawing DC  
- Private school was so expensive but if we didn't spend that money then, college would not have been possible at all. DC is now at 2nd year in college.

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