We are coming up on our first IEP meeting for a possible return to public HS.
My son (ADD inattentive and prior dx of dysgraphia, currently taking metadate and provigil) had 3 years of a 504 plan in public MS which might have helped, except it was pretty much ignored. We switched to a private Catholic HS for 9th grade which has been a disaster. They express a willingness to help but in reality, the teachers are pretty inflexible. (“He must not be studying since he isn’t passing the tests”. They also blame his lack of organization.) He is getting D’s and F’s despite spending ALL his time doing schoolwork and studying. He has a good attitude and pretty good study skills,he just doesn’t retain anything so he is constantly re-learning. We have had him privately tested further and established that he is very bright, has a huge fund of knowledge (gr 14 equivalent, we are told) good vocabulary, etc. They determined that he processes slowly and has memory problems which we realized long ago. While failing algebra (3rd trip through, having passed twice before) he medaled in Academic Decathlon in—Math, competing against mostly 12th graders.
He is now being evaluated by the public HS (at our request, since he may end up back there) and our IEP meeting is in a few weeks. Based on preliminary hints from the psych, I think they will not find him eligible for services but will offer him yet another 504. They like him and find him an interesting case, but may not be able to qualify him. [How low does a kid have to be??? He was not eligible, despite having the 20+ point differential in 6th gr, because our district doesn’t “recognize” gifted/ld, using the differential only at the low end of the spectrum.]
Ironically, the dysgraphia (which is what got him the 504, not the ADD) appears much better since his handwriting is much improved. He is going to be tested for CAPD. Is there something I can do or request that will increase his chances of being found eligible for special ed services? He is doing so badly that even if they implemented the 504 he had, it wouldn’t be enough now.
Is there anything I can do to help make sure he qualifies? I have read a lot on wrightslaw but don’t recall seeing much about getting your child qualified in the first place. (Maybe it was there and I was just drowning in information!) The books I’ve seen presume your child is already eligible.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Lisa
Re: "Positioning" my son to be eligible (long)
Another Lisa M? Hi Lisa. My understanding of elegibility is not only does there have to be some type of discrepency but it has to interfere with the childs ability to learn. In my district if there is a verbal/performance IQ split of 21 or more and it interferes the child qualifies. They also look for a difference between ability and achievement. For example on my sons WISC his IQ is 104, on the WIAT his reading standard score was 68. This showed a significant difference between ability and achievement that also interfered with ability to perform in the classroom. CAPD will not neccissarily in itself quarentee qualification but if it can be proven this interferes with his ability to learn he could qualify. My oldest son who qualifies has the dx’s of ADHD, inattentive, CAPD, language d/o, and dyslexia, he is served under the other health impaired category.
Re: "Positioning" my son to be eligible (long)
Once you get to high school (and sometimes middle school), special ed “services” are often pretty much a warehouse special that you wouldn’t want to qualify for, unless it’s because it could still be better than floundering in the regular classes. Most teachers adn admins really have no idea what to do with a bright LD kid. On the other hand, I”ve also known teachers who were just naturally flexible — didn’t need a label or an IEP with instructions — the magic word for them was knowing that a kiddo was bright and had a good attitude. The teachers of the college-prep type classes tend to have their own barometers for measuring and judging students. Getting your kid out of the category of “dumb kid with pushy parents” may be your greatest challenge — sometimes it’s accomplished by pushing to get your kid into classes that they are just SURE he will fail.
YOu may have to invent your own services — and to enforce them an IEP carries a whole lot more weight. This can include modifying the amount of homework and/or the mass quantities of stuff he’ll be graded on. And sometimes you have to make interesting compromises. My brother had an arrangement with the high school Calculus teacher to get an automatic D even though he knew he would fail every test. The course proceeded too fast for him because it was geared to the “fast” A.P. test. My brother took the “slow” A.P. test and got 5 (highest possible score) — which of course carried a lot more weight than the grades to the college he attended and got an astrophysics degree at. (Granted, he did go into business from there b ecause he was pretty sure the graduate level stuff would be too tough. ) He, also, essentially flunked out of Catholic school. It’s incredibly important to realize that “failure” at a school or in a course can just be a grade, if you’ve managed to learn what you wanted to learn in it.
Re: "Positioning" my son to be eligible (long)
Thanks for your insights! I am hoping for services and support in regular classes. My niece has this (adopted kid— we say our two must have been siblings in an earlier life!) and the resource teacher is the on-campus advocate for her with her regular teachers. We will be working with the counselor to try to get teachers who are more flexible— I agree that this is key, but we have found MOST of the teachers in the gifted classes to be less flexible in general, because they are used to the kids who get it easily. (Hey, if you don’t perform, you wash out. Simple solution to Gifted/LD.)
We are learning more on a daily basis. Yesterday he scored 1st and 2nd percentile on the CAPD test. Next comes auditory memory, which I can tell you is nonexistent! The specialists doing the testing seem like they are really willing to help and get him some assistance, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Lisa
Lisa, I am not well versed in the law but look up the qualifiers for other health impaired. My son is add/in plus mild-mod. capd. He was qualified under OHI. We looked at both sp.ed and 504, after discussion, my husband and I insisted on sp.ed and were supported by the district sp.ed director. I think the principal and psych were leaning towards the 504 but they accepted our reasons for insisting on sp.ed. We are military and wanted something we thought had more teeth because of frequent moves.
The year my son spent in pullout for lang.arts was the best school year he had, he was happy and had friends in other classes that didn’t care that he disappeared every so often. This was 5th. He learned to read better and write better in that class. He is still under sp.ed support in reg. classes and has been on the honor roll several times in both 6th and 7th grades.
I will be in the same boat soon as far as high school, I am already investigating the different dept of education websites and plan to contact the local ld organizations where I think we will be moving. Only one more year. I want to be prepared since I haven’t read too many encouraging stories about the high school experience. Best wishes.