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So, for various reasons we are giving a trial run of public school in the fall for DS7. It it a full day gifted public school program. We pulled out about two years ago right after getting our dyslexia/dysgraphia diagnosis prior to the 504/IEP process at a different school to homeschool.

 

We have a full evaluation planned prior to the fall and have been in touch with the counselor, who seemed flexible to hear about what the doctor will recommend. I will be requesting a lot of accommodations. But until the fall I won't know much about how the school will go.

 

I am mentally prepared for lots of meetings and lots of afterschooling. DS is prepared academically as far as reading at grade level now (but not his IQ level), and getting more comfortable with typing and using our technology.

 

Do you have any tips for starting public school? I think any success we have will be due to the teacher and school's ability to accommodate and daily teacher flexibility, the homework workload (to allow continued afterschooling and therapy), and maybe how DS feels. I want to set up DS for success but I also am prepared to continue homeschooling if the trial doesn't work out. I'm thinking a trial of at least six weeks to see how the school is responding to accommodations, workload, etc. We are using more independence as well.

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I am not sure whether a 6 week trial will be enough.  Everything will feel really hard at first.  The best thing that you can do for him is speak with the teacher and ensure he gets reduced homework sets and that you scribe for him.  We practiced handwriting through the spelling.  Scribing will make all the diiference.

 

How much OG reading remediation will he recieve?  At that age, my DS was pulled out 3 days per week of WIlson for 45 min lessons.  I would have preferred 3 hrs per week, but the school could not manage that.  After school OG is exhausting.

 

Good luck!

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I am not sure whether a 6 week trial will be enough.  Everything will feel really hard at first.  The best thing that you can do for him is speak with the teacher and ensure he gets reduced homework sets and that you scribe for him.  We practiced handwriting through the spelling.  Scribing will make all the diiference.

 

How much OG reading remediation will he recieve?  At that age, my DS was pulled out 3 days per week of WIlson for 45 min lessons.  I would have preferred 3 hrs per week, but the school could not manage that.  After school OG is exhausting.

 

Good luck!

 

I'm also worried six weeks wouldn't be long enough to really get things implemented.  At 9 weeks the first report cards are given so that might be (slightly) better.  My concern is keeping him in a system that isn't working and having problems as a result (emotionally and academically). 

 

Thanks for the tip about the homework.  I'm planning on asking for reduced workload, as well as a very generous notice (homework given to us ahead of time).  I have no problem scribing for him, but at school we will need a way for him to either have dictation available, typing, or a scribe unless the output is verbal or reduced.  The public schools do not teach spelling or handwriting so we will continue that at home.  With DS I don't think we can combine those subjects yet as the handwriting is a significant challenge (still reversals, formation issues, etc).

 

I haven't had any IEP meetings yet, though they may possibly happen this summer after his evals.  I'm not certain if he will qualify for services as his reading level is grade equivalent (though spelling is not, but since they don't teach spelling it may not happen).  I also don't know if they have OG specialists, etc.  I will continue to teach reading afterschool.  I would say his dyslexia is likely mild. 

 

I am concerned how tired he will be when we do lessons, and that will likely be a big part if public school will work or not.  I am thinking of a brief lesson with mostly practice on the computer or reading books aloud.  He works on the computer easier than with me.  We wake up early so I may be able to do spelling before school. 

 

Thanks for the tips, and the good luck.  :)

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I also think 6 weeks is a short time. Especially if he is getting to know kids, too. That is a big part of school, and it can take that long to get to know the kids and feel like a part of the class, I think.

 

My son has never homeschooled but has always been in school.

 

I think you could tell "no, this is not okay" in 6 weeks.

 

But if things are not working quite right and you want to see if some other things will work ----- that is going to take longer than 6 weeks. If you try something, you may try it long enough to give it a chance, and then if it doesn't work, you move on to the next thing, and give it a chance.

 

In that process ---- I have felt like it is not how I want it, but my son has been doing well in other ways, with social going decent, and enjoying lessons (there is a lot in school that is not reading or writing). Mostly math is a very positive time for him.

 

There have been a lot of pros. But figuring out what will work for him just has not been something that only took 6 weeks. If only. That would be amazing.

 

What is frustrating is my son is "too smart" to go to the resource room and he obviously does well with listening and participating in class. So he does not seem like he should go in the resource room. But he needs to go to the resource room for help with his writing, and it is so much quieter there, too. So resource room is working out, but it is not ideal, bc he is not behind and he understands what is going on in class. He just needs the help anyways.

 

Well -- that was for 5th grade.

 

So, overall, it has been not-ideal a lot as far as -- can my son independently use accommodations in the classroom? Often, no. So then he is getting accommodations that are not ideal. But they are working as far as -- he is satisfied, and the teacher is satisfied.

 

I think to some extent -- it has depended every year on getting a teacher who is helpful and wants to make things work for him. And then there are bumps in the road, that can be very frustrating, but with a good will to make things work from the teachers, things have worked out.

 

This is with handwriting.

 

My son was caught up in reading starting in 2nd-3rd and in 4th grade he was a good reader in his class and read Harry Potter.

 

He is smart but not gifted so school is interesting and engaging to him. So -- no issues with a mismatch. I think school is a very good fit for him.

 

In 2nd grade my son's self-advocacy in general was not what his teacher wanted, and then he would actually need more than other kids. That was not a 6-week project but actually makes a big deal, bc maybe my son needs to raise his hand or go to the teacher's desk and say he is having a hard time, but he just sits there. So there is a mix between the teacher sitting him close to her and going by him first when she makes her rounds of the classroom.... And him getting better at asking for hell or saying there is a problem.

 

This would have been an issue anyway. But he did a lot of telling me things at home, that he should have told the teacher. She communicated with me about how to encourage him to talk to her, when/how to do that in a good way, etc. She made an effort to be warmer to him so he would be comfortable talking to her.

 

So for a lot of the time, I think "there is always something." Then there are some time periods where everything is going smoothly.

 

But in general I think there has been something. But it has been something I felt like we could work through bc of other things being very positive.

 

I have really liked my kids' school and all but one teacher. It is just a situation where it is hard.

 

If your son can independently use his accommodations that will be really helpful. That has been an issue here. My son did more oral answers and telling his teacher what he wrote when it was illegible, bc it did work out. But on paper it would seem he should do other things, but those things would be impractical for various practical reasons.

 

I think there is a lot of need to say "this is working out for my child and the teacher, so it is okay" when they do something in a way that is NOT what you have come in wanting them to do or come in with it recommended. IF what they are doing is working, it is working. If it is not working, it is not working.

 

Good luck. I hope it works out, or you can see it isn't working and not waste your time.

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I didn't see your other response. Overall -- we had a lot more teacher flexibility and oral answers, and less actual output. The accommodations were not practical when he was younger in his classes.

 

If he had been more in the resource room it would have been different, but nobody thought that was the best choice.

 

He only started actually independently typing for schoolwork in 4th grade. Typing was not something he just magically started doing.

 

In a lot of ways there was just flexibility on output while it was obvious he was learning and doing his best.

 

This year in 5th he was really doing all the work and the goal was more "he actually does all his work" and going in the resource room at times (it is very flexible).

 

In other years it has not been so much about "let's make sure he does all the same work as the other children."

 

This has been what teachers thought would be best for my son with his personality and stuff too. He is a kid who does better when he has a good relationship with his teachers, and if they think he is doing good he thinks he is doing good. That is how he was when he was younger. So for him -- it did not bother him that he was doing some oral answers and then getting a note on his paper, vs having a nice-looking paper.

 

Here middle school starts in 7th, and they want him to be ready to indepdently do his work and take responsibility for typing or whatever. So it is like -- in 5th grade that was happening with support, and over next year with less support to get ready for 7th.

 

But when he was younger ---- those kinds of goals were just impractical for him.

 

But good luck!!!!!!! I don't think I have always handled things the best, so I am optimistic that you can do better than I have done, if the school/teacher have a good attitude.

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First, what a super option to have (IQ appropriate instruction) and how awesome that you feel he's ready, on all fronts, to go into that!  That's your best case scenario!

 

If you were to really book it on his OG this summer, like do an hour a day, every day, would he get up to IQ appropriate?  Have you toured this school to see how much writing they do in their x-grade classes?  That would be my concern.  Is he able to crank out the amount they expect?  I think it's nice in theory to say oh they'll be flexible, but I'm just asking more the is this the right PLANET question, kwim?  Accommodations aren't enough if you're on the wrong planet, the wrong cruise ship.  I'm assuming you've checked that, but I was just asking.  I'm actually really curious, kwim?  Like what ARE they doing in schools like that at this age?  

 

I don't see how you after school with a gifted school.  If that were my ds, I'd be wanting him to take advantage of after school drama, sports, etc.  So I would book it in the summer and then just advocate for OG instruction pullouts.  They may or may not have OG, sigh.

 

If you wait and start the IEP process in the fall, they'll take the whole school year.  You might do that and realize the school is horrible for people with disabilities.  Hopefully they WON'T be, but I'm just saying that could happen.  So you want to check with your state law to see who is obligated to do the evals for the IEP and who writes the IEP.  Right now you're a homeschooler.  So see whether you'll get a better IEP at one school or the other (district of residence or the gifted school).  Sometimes more uppity schools are more tight on services and the "lower" schools are more generous.  

 

He seems like he has been pretty resilient this year, responding well to the tutors you brought in, etc.  If they're as creative, etc. as you'd like to think a gifted school would be, he might really be fine!  Now I want to hear all about it!  I haven't found anything quite like that for my ds.  :)

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I also think 6 weeks is a short time. Especially if he is getting to know kids, too. That is a big part of school, and it can take that long to get to know the kids and feel like a part of the class, I think.

 

My son has never homeschooled but has always been in school.

 

I think you could tell "no, this is not okay" in 6 weeks.

 

But if things are not working quite right and you want to see if some other things will work ----- that is going to take longer than 6 weeks. If you try something, you may try it long enough to give it a chance, and then if it doesn't work, you move on to the next thing, and give it a chance.

 

 

 

This is more along my thought process: a trial of 6 weeks to see if they are stonewalling accommodations I guess.  If things are ok and they are working with us, depending on DS and stress and our afterschooling time requirements, we will continue to work with them.

 

In 2nd grade my son's self-advocacy in general was not what his teacher wanted, and then he would actually need more than other kids. That was not a 6-week project but actually makes a big deal, bc maybe my son needs to raise his hand or go to the teacher's desk and say he is having a hard time, but he just sits there. So there is a mix between the teacher sitting him close to her and going by him first when she makes her rounds of the classroom.... And him getting better at asking for hell or saying there is a problem.

 

 

I am hoping to work with DS for him to do work by himself (using an iPad) with the technology we have and fix problems by himself.  I'm thinking of an accommodation to be next to the teacher's desk and also for a daily or weekly list of concerns we need to work on.  Communication can be a concern, even with good teachers.

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I don't see how you after school with a gifted school.  If that were my ds, I'd be wanting him to take advantage of after school drama, sports, etc.  So I would book it in the summer and then just advocate for OG instruction pullouts.  They may or may not have OG, sigh.

 

 

Since it's a new program, the after school offerings will be whatever the regular public school offers for now (it's a self-contained gifted program in a public school.  The whole school isn't gifted, just a class or two from each grade).  If he qualifies for an IEP that would help with my afterschooling, if they are OG based.  We also have OT (which I guess will continue in the fall) that may limit afterschool fun stuff.

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I would ask the teacher if she likes texts or e-mails. I have had periods of frequent (daily) e-mails to make sure we were on the same page, with me giving a message at home and him getting a message at school, and he might have misunderstood something (not academic but "how should I act with the teacher") and need me to explain it to him. Or I might need to tell the teacher "this is what he thinks is going on" when he would be confused (again more social than academic).

 

I think for another kid the iPad would work well at a younger age. Just -- my son needed a lot of hand-holding I guess. He is more independent now.

 

Something you might ask about -- if there are times all the kids could use iPads. The whole class does spelling tests using iPads for the older kids. Not everyone has an iPad at our school, but teachers can check out a class set (I think one per grade for the older kids). Things like that can go a long way, it is just easier when it is *not even an accommodation* but just what the class is doing.

 

But if you ask/mention early in the year, the teacher might structure some things that way.

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The first things that come to mind are to give it until Winter Break to decide how it is working. The other is to know that you will need to let some things go. Try to have some ideas of what absolutely needs to be there for ps to work, and evaluate on that basis. And really be willing to let the rest go. 

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By law they have 120 days from your request to complete the IEP, so that's AT LEAST a semester it will take.  And often they'll want to observe a grading period.  That's why people are telling you it may take a whole school year.  If you make that written request NOW, then you get that timeline rolling.  Otherwise he'll likely spend most of the year without an IEP.  They might begin some RTI (response to intervention), but it could take a long time to get a full IEP.  

 

The school can provide OT and you'd like their OT as well.  If you want to add more privately, cool.  

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I'm going to re-read your posts later and hopefully respond in more detail (I'm heading out the door soon). My three younger children have been in school this year. On the one hand, the school has been very helpful and accommodating. On the other hand, they stonewalled starting the IEP process, and for the most part they had to do the normal homework, which was very difficult to accomplish at times.

 

Have you been having discussions with the school? It sounds like you are wanting a large number of accommodations right off the bat, before the IEP is in place. We did not find that to be what happened. The accommodations were minimal until the evaluations had been completed. They wanted those reports in order to decide what they were willing to do, and they also wanted my kids to try out the normal classroom to the greatest extent without accommodations FIRST, so that they could decide for themselves what was needed. Are you sure the school is going to offer modified assignments and alternate ways to produce writing before the IEP is in place?

 

About the writing -- does your son write at all? They really might want him to work on developing those handwriting skills before they will allow speech to text or scribe accommodations. DD10's spelling and handwriting are very poor, but she is not given a scribe or speech to text in the classroom (she does have speech to text as an accommodation on standardized testing for next year, because it is now in her IEP). Another example -- for DD and for a friend of hers who also has trouble memorizing math facts, the school will not just allow them to use a calculator until they are past middle school. They are expected to still be working on those math fact skills, even if they are developing slowly. So when you say that your son will need to have those kind of accommodations, I'd advise some caution in your expectations. You might see the need, and yet the school might not agree to do what you ask. Unless you have already arranged this with them, I wouldn't assume.

 

That's why getting the IEP process started over the summer is so important, if at all possible. Once something is in the IEP, the school has to follow it, but until then, you will be relying on the teachers' willingness to help and accommodate, which can be variable.

 

You might find that your school gives him SLD written expression when they do the IEP. The spelling and handwriting would fall under that category, not SLD reading.

 

I agree that afterschooling might or might not be feasible. By the time my kids have worked hard all day at school and completed their homework at home, they are too tired, and it is too late to do anything extra. DD10 did have OG tutoring after school for an hour twice a week. That worked, because it was kind of continuation of school for her, with one of her teachers. But once we arrived at home, her brain was DONE. We had some major meltdowns just trying to get the assigned work done. I think your son will also have to be willing to do the afterschooling. If he is tired and resistant, it will be really challenging for you to make it happen. I planned to afterschool my kids this year as well. It didn't happen. You might have a better result, but since he is only seven, it's likely to be hard for him.

 

I hope it all goes well, though! If the school is helpful and accommodating, it sounds like a good program!

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First, what a super option to have (IQ appropriate instruction) and how awesome that you feel he's ready, on all fronts, to go into that!  That's your best case scenario!

 

If you were to really book it on his OG this summer, like do an hour a day, every day, would he get up to IQ appropriate?  Have you toured this school to see how much writing they do in their x-grade classes?  That would be my concern.  Is he able to crank out the amount they expect?  I think it's nice in theory to say oh they'll be flexible, but I'm just asking more the is this the right PLANET question, kwim?  Accommodations aren't enough if you're on the wrong planet, the wrong cruise ship.  I'm assuming you've checked that, but I was just asking.  I'm actually really curious, kwim?  Like what ARE they doing in schools like that at this age?  

 

 

I'm not sure how I feel he is, ready-wise, TBH.  His reading is grade level, but writing output is low, especially for the common core requirements.  But I've heard that (in general), a full time gifted program that will accommodate is usually the best for 2e kids.  Of course there's no way to know until we begin the process again.  We may find he needs more independence to be successful.  I have toured the school but it's a new program so IDK about what they will be like.  If they are of the gifted = great output mindset, it won't work.  If they are willing to listen to what he says instead of what he can produce, I think he will be okay.  Everything will be dependent on the school and teachers.  If you are curious what the common core requirements are, Kaplan puts out books on them for grade levels.  For 3rd grade, which DS will be entering, he'll be more than fine with math.  Output for language arts will be tough as they require paragraph output (for instance, read a page and answer 5 questions, 1 of which is a paragraph. 

 

 

 

If you wait and start the IEP process in the fall, they'll take the whole school year.  You might do that and realize the school is horrible for people with disabilities.  Hopefully they WON'T be, but I'm just saying that could happen.  So you want to check with your state law to see who is obligated to do the evals for the IEP and who writes the IEP.  Right now you're a homeschooler.  So see whether you'll get a better IEP at one school or the other (district of residence or the gifted school).  Sometimes more uppity schools are more tight on services and the "lower" schools are more generous.  

 

He seems like he has been pretty resilient this year, responding well to the tutors you brought in, etc.  If they're as creative, etc. as you'd like to think a gifted school would be, he might really be fine!  Now I want to hear all about it!  I haven't found anything quite like that for my ds.   :)

 

The testing will be all private, this summer, in preparation for the school.  I'm basically walking in with test results and accommodation requests.  The counselor guessed it would only take a few weeks to implement everything if we had all that.  Of course we won't know until we start with the meetings.  In our state, if DS qualifies for an IEP we can use state funds to go to private schools.  Whether we qualify for IEP services IDK.  I don't know of ways to check which schools are better for services.  We have one private dyslexia school a one-hour drive away, and a private "disability" school within 30 minutes drive. 

 

I'm hopeful but IDK what will happen.  The school even mentioned placing students in different grades for different subjects depending on their level (4th math, 5th science, etc), so they sound flexible.  But it's a new program.

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I would ask the teacher if she likes texts or e-mails. I have had periods of frequent (daily) e-mails to make sure we were on the same page, with me giving a message at home and him getting a message at school, and he might have misunderstood something (not academic but "how should I act with the teacher") and need me to explain it to him. Or I might need to tell the teacher "this is what he thinks is going on" when he would be confused (again more social than academic).

 

I think for another kid the iPad would work well at a younger age. Just -- my son needed a lot of hand-holding I guess. He is more independent now.

 

Something you might ask about -- if there are times all the kids could use iPads. The whole class does spelling tests using iPads for the older kids. Not everyone has an iPad at our school, but teachers can check out a class set (I think one per grade for the older kids). Things like that can go a long way, it is just easier when it is *not even an accommodation* but just what the class is doing.

 

But if you ask/mention early in the year, the teacher might structure some things that way.

 

Good tip about texting-e-mail.  I think there is potential for miscommunication.  Plus we know how great young kids are at telling you about their day.  My biggest concern is academically making sure he's understanding whatever they're going over and us practicing if he doesn't understand.  We knew we'd give public school a try again one day, so I've been monitoring what the local requirements are (the best I can).

 

They mentioned iPads for all the kids in this program so I'm hopeful that DS having a technology accommodation won't be very visible.  He will probably just be using it a lot more than others (snap type, journaling, etc).

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The first things that come to mind are to give it until Winter Break to decide how it is working. The other is to know that you will need to let some things go. Try to have some ideas of what absolutely needs to be there for ps to work, and evaluate on that basis. And really be willing to let the rest go. 

So true!  I figure if we're going to do this, plus our necessary afterschooling, I can't get caught up in dumbed down social studies or whatever and try to reteach history.  I also won't choose required books.  But that's the trade off.  I am giving up responsibility in some things.  DS learns a different process of public school (he's forgotten what it was like before we homeschooled).  We both get some perspective if this doesn't work out and shake things up. 

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By law they have 120 days from your request to complete the IEP, so that's AT LEAST a semester it will take.  And often they'll want to observe a grading period.  That's why people are telling you it may take a whole school year.  If you make that written request NOW, then you get that timeline rolling.  Otherwise he'll likely spend most of the year without an IEP.  They might begin some RTI (response to intervention), but it could take a long time to get a full IEP.  

 

The school can provide OT and you'd like their OT as well.  If you want to add more privately, cool.  

 

Another failing process for me to pull out sooner rather than later would be the school taking too long to at least get a 504.  If the teacher(s) is/are accommodating in the classroom early in the school year, I don't mind waiting for official paperwork.  I do mind the "let's try this" approach x 5 before getting serious.  OT is very difficult for most schools in our area to get.  I know they're required to if the IEP states that, but honestly they don't have them on staff, except at the special disability school, and it can take months to hire someone.

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Have you been having discussions with the school? It sounds like you are wanting a large number of accommodations right off the bat, before the IEP is in place. We did not find that to be what happened. The accommodations were minimal until the evaluations had been completed. They wanted those reports in order to decide what they were willing to do, and they also wanted my kids to try out the normal classroom to the greatest extent without accommodations FIRST, so that they could decide for themselves what was needed. Are you sure the school is going to offer modified assignments and alternate ways to produce writing before the IEP is in place?

 

 

My discussions will evolve over the next few months.  For now, we're getting private repeat full evals and recommendations from a neuropsych.  The counselor said if there are doctor diagnoses and lists of recommendations, usually they only take a few weeks to implement.  I understand if they want to see how DS will do without accommodations but it will honestly take only a day to figure out he can't write.  I'm not sure how willing they will be to modify assignments and that will be a big issue.  For instance, if we get the homework ahead of time to complete on the weekends, we can do our afterschooling during the week (hopefully).

 

 

About the writing -- does your son write at all? They really might want him to work on developing those handwriting skills before they will allow speech to text or scribe accommodations. DD10's spelling and handwriting are very poor, but she is not given a scribe or speech to text in the classroom (she does have speech to text as an accommodation on standardized testing for next year, because it is now in her IEP). Another example -- for DD and for a friend of hers who also has trouble memorizing math facts, the school will not just allow them to use a calculator until they are past middle school. They are expected to still be working on those math fact skills, even if they are developing slowly. So when you say that your son will need to have those kind of accommodations, I'd advise some caution in your expectations. You might see the need, and yet the school might not agree to do what you ask. Unless you have already arranged this with them, I wouldn't assume.

 

 

DS cannot really write.  He still has frequent reversals and letter formation concerns, as well as sizing.  He has problems even with numbers, the alphabet, and his name, which is daily practice for him.  He can copy maybe 2-3 sentences in 15 minutes, and by then his hand is hurting too much to do more.  He can type ok but with a lot of spelling errors.  You make a good point on not relying on anything unless it is formal in writing. 

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I agree that afterschooling might or might not be feasible. By the time my kids have worked hard all day at school and completed their homework at home, they are too tired, and it is too late to do anything extra. DD10 did have OG tutoring after school for an hour twice a week. That worked, because it was kind of continuation of school for her, with one of her teachers. But once we arrived at home, her brain was DONE. We had some major meltdowns just trying to get the assigned work done. I think your son will also have to be willing to do the afterschooling. If he is tired and resistant, it will be really challenging for you to make it happen. I planned to afterschool my kids this year as well. It didn't happen. You might have a better result, but since he is only seven, it's likely to be hard for him.

 

I hope it all goes well, though! If the school is helpful and accommodating, it sounds like a good program!

 

This is my biggest concern, afterschooling after a long day.  And that's why I initially have such a short timeline, because I think I would know almost immediately what we can or cannot accomplish.  If he isn't receiving services at school for dyslexia, I need to continue them.  I feel it is a higher priority than public school.  I do remember afterschooling with homework and remediation when he was younger and I'm not looking forward to that again.  I'm hopeful it will also at least bring some perspective for DS and I about homeschooling vs. PS.  DS likes homeschooling for the most part, but there are quite a few issues that need to be worked through for us to continue.  At the moment, it is a risk to try and it might not work out.  But the benefits would likely surpass the difficulties if we can make it work. 

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I'm not sure how I feel he is, ready-wise, TBH.  His reading is grade level, but writing output is low, especially for the common core requirements.  But I've heard that (in general), a full time gifted program that will accommodate is usually the best for 2e kids.  Of course there's no way to know until we begin the process again.  We may find he needs more independence to be successful.  I have toured the school but it's a new program so IDK about what they will be like.  If they are of the gifted = great output mindset, it won't work.  If they are willing to listen to what he says instead of what he can produce, I think he will be okay.  Everything will be dependent on the school and teachers.  If you are curious what the common core requirements are, Kaplan puts out books on them for grade levels.  For 3rd grade, which DS will be entering, he'll be more than fine with math.  Output for language arts will be tough as they require paragraph output (for instance, read a page and answer 5 questions, 1 of which is a paragraph. 

 

 

The testing will be all private, this summer, in preparation for the school.  I'm basically walking in with test results and accommodation requests.  The counselor guessed it would only take a few weeks to implement everything if we had all that.  Of course we won't know until we start with the meetings.  In our state, if DS qualifies for an IEP we can use state funds to go to private schools.  Whether we qualify for IEP services IDK.  I don't know of ways to check which schools are better for services.  We have one private dyslexia school a one-hour drive away, and a private "disability" school within 30 minutes drive. 

 

I'm hopeful but IDK what will happen.  The school even mentioned placing students in different grades for different subjects depending on their level (4th math, 5th science, etc), so they sound flexible.  But it's a new program.

 

 

This counselor you mention... is that a person with the school or with the private psychologist? If she is with the school, it is great that the school will accept the private evaluations and make an immediate plan based on them.

 

We did not find that to be the case at all with our school. We had full neuropsych reports with diagnoses for our kids, and the school's response was, "This is a paper diagnosis. We have to see how they do in the classroom and make up our own minds." Even though when we applied to the school, it was the principal who said that if they admitted us, we would need to be willing to submit to evaluations for IEPs. It was actually a stipulation of our enrollment. So we completely expected a different response from the school than we got.

 

My kids did get IEPs, but we had to wait. If your school is telling you that they will accommodate and accept outside reports, that's great!! I think it is unusual, though, which is why I think it's good to have cautious expectations. We were blindsided and furious that our school would not accept our private testing. Our meeting was unpleasant, and I was shaking when we were done. DH (who is very mild mannered) was livid. I wouldn't want someone else to go through that, expecting to have a friendly meeting with a school willing to give accommodations and being unprepared for the school to backpedal and stonewall. Just be prepared for their response to not be as amenable as you hope, so you are not taken by surprise. Be prepared for them to be unwilling to meet all of his needs, so that you are not blindsided. And then if they are nice and helpful and accommodating, it's all good!

Edited by Storygirl
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Ok, I can type more now.  Just because you've heard of something as an accommodation kids EVENTUALLY get, doesn't mean they'll do it NOW.  For a school not even to have an OT (did I really read that correctly??), they literally are not giving service to whole groups of kids.  I mean, it's astonishing.  So you think they're going to give exceptional accommodations and service to your kid when they don't to the kids they already have?

 

As Story said, in the younger years they are NOT going to give aggressive accommodations for writing until the kid literally CANNOT write.  Like he has no hands.  Our school said they give scribes later, not now.  So you're looking at accommodations kids were able to have in 5th, 6th, junior high, high school and going oh they should give it now.  Maybe they will, maybe they won't.  They might say it's reasonable to keep working on writing.  That's what our school says.  As a PARENT I know some things are futile and there's a balance.  The school has to answer to other authorities and the way they find that balance isn't the same as the way we do at home.  They let the child FAIL and THEN decide he has to have the intervention.  

 

If you did not get a statement of "it won't take long" directly from the SN coor running your IEP team, I would not believe a word of it.  They might, but it might be that it won't take long because they aren't going to do thorough evals and aren't going to offer serious accommodations and services in the IEP.  It doesn't take long in that case.  ;)  

 

It is not the norm for a school to accept 3rd party evals without running their own.  They're likely to want to run all their own evals.  They'll say oh won't take long, and 4 months later you'll have your IEP.  This is NOT a fast process.  

 

I take their placating to mean they want him.  I suggest you make his enrollment in their program contingent on getting the IEP FIRST.  First they make the IEP, so you can see what services they would offer and how workable the situation would be, THEN you enroll.

 

Can you move up your private evals?  The school doesn't need them to proceed.  Honestly, you're wasting time.  I would write that later, sign, date, copy, turn it in Monday morning requesting evals.  You're currently a homeschooler, so you'll use your district of residence.  

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My son had a good experience for years with informal teacher accommodations. So I am a lot more optimistic.

 

To me, if you tell the teacher that his hand hurts after 15 minutes, and she observes him shaking or rubbing his hand; and that is not enough for her to be extremely understanding and accommodating ----- I don't think you need to give it 6 weeks, it sounds bad.

 

I think it has helped me to have people from within the school (OT, school psych) agree with things I say and agree with private assessments. That is a huge benefit of having a meeting (for me IEP) bc the classroom teacher hears from people she knows at school, that they think things like: he is doing his best, his hand does start to hurt.

 

The teacher might have a question "would writing more build up his stamina?" Which -- if the answer is yes, then it may make sense to have a child write more. If it is not a question of building up stamina through practice, express that to the teacher.

 

I have had experience with two kinds of teacher pushing.

 

One, I am wrong. My son can do more than I thought. Good for the teacher. Oops from me.

 

Two, my son acts fine at school and weeps at home. The teacher does not know my son is weeping at home unless I communicate with her. This is serious and ime teachers do not want kids to weep at home. Here -- for context my son is well-behaved, which goes a long way for him. I have only gotten good responses here, and immediate change.

 

So -- I have been humbled with thinking the teachers were expecting too much, and I have been wrong.

 

But anyway ----- it is hard to know ----- what is normal "good challenge" and what is bad "leading up to weeping challenge."

 

I think I have relied on people at school some to help recognize that (my son qualifies for OT now, he has qualified on and off, he qualified in 2nd grade and then exited services for a bit in 4th grade). The teacher might have her take. I might have my take. The OT is probably the one who has the most insight though.

 

A lot is context, though. Also I think teachers (with a context that he usually scores around 70th percentile and above on MAP testing) are pretty willing to look at kids individually and push them to grow from where they are. They can modify a lot.

 

For my son ----- I think there was a lot more of modification, with him having less output and more oral answers.

 

For the example of "some sentences and write a paragraph," in younger grades this would look like: oral answers or skip the sentences, teacher writes the first sentence of the paragraph, my son writes the rest of the paragraph but it is illegible, teacher jots down some things my son tells her about what he has written.

 

Other times an accommodation might be that he skips some stuff, and then has a graphic organizer he fills in, and then goes from the graphic organizer to the paragraph.

 

There was a lot of skipping of the easier things and then more time spent on the paragraphs, I think, in general.

 

Bc he needed more work on paragraphs, and there was not so much point in him filling out other things.

 

I never felt like modifications he had led to less learning. They were more of skipping things he was really fine to skip. Then having more time to work on what he needed more work on.

 

That was very well for him when he was younger in writing.

 

In math -- he might need more practice than he could get by limiting his output. They use dry erase boards a lot in math, and that is good for my son for writing. Also honestly his handwriting is better in math. But for some things in math, it would be like he needed some written practice. Other things he didn't need it (or seem to benefit from it).

 

This year when he did long division, the resource teacher tried different ways of making his problems, and all his long division was done on papers where she had copied his problems, so he could like things up.

 

Then when they moved on to fractions and decimals, he didn't need anything, and he went back to regular math and he tells me he is often the first one to hold up his dry erase boards when they work problems in class.

 

Edit: my son has no hand pain. He just has a hard time with handwriting, and then numbers are better for him than letters.

 

But he has improved since he was younger, too.

Edited by Lecka
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What Lecka is saying goes right back to my point.  You're used to saying "Oh, my poor darling has a disability and CAN'T do xyz so I give him all these accommodations and trim the assignments and..."  and your ps isn't going to do that.  They're going to say SUCK UP, write more, write longer, and SUCK UP is going to be the answer over and over.  And sometimes suck up WORKS!!  Sometimes it really is that Mom isn't going to be mean enough to break through and get whatever progress CAN be made, which is why they're NOT going to take your wish list of accommodations and go oh yes absolutely, by all means use a keyboard and scribe and...  They have school policies on how things are handled for each grade and that's how it will be handled.

 

Yes, sometimes schools are super tough on dishing out IEPs but very liberal with RTI and in-class supports.  I think it being a gifted program is going to up the ante.  Remember, in some areas "gifted" actually means kids with better grades.  It's not actually *just* the gifted kids but more like the A students.  Or are they bussing these kids in from multiple schools?  The gifted cutoff can be pretty low.  Even at a school for the gifted there will be a huge range.  So you might want to figure out how they're deciding who's gifted, what the cutoff is, where the kids are coming from, whether the teaching approach is different, etc.  

 

It sounds like having him there is very important to you and that you're willing to overlook a lot of potential problems to get it.  Can you meet with the teacher and find out more about what they're really going to be doing?

Edited by OhElizabeth
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I'm really not meaning to be discouraging! I just am encouraging you to be realistic. In our case, things did not go as we expected. And I think that is the norm.

 

Bingo.  Or ask the school upfront how many kids in their gifted program have IEPs. From the boards here you would think 2E is very common, but I don't think in real life it is, not functionally, not in those settings.  But ask...

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This is my biggest concern, afterschooling after a long day.  And that's why I initially have such a short timeline, because I think I would know almost immediately what we can or cannot accomplish.  If he isn't receiving services at school for dyslexia, I need to continue them.  I feel it is a higher priority than public school.  I do remember afterschooling with homework and remediation when he was younger and I'm not looking forward to that again.  I'm hopeful it will also at least bring some perspective for DS and I about homeschooling vs. PS.  DS likes homeschooling for the most part, but there are quite a few issues that need to be worked through for us to continue.  At the moment, it is a risk to try and it might not work out.  But the benefits would likely surpass the difficulties if we can make it work. 

 

I think you're making a lot lower risk, less potentially traumatic decision if you get the IEP FIRST and THEN decide.  They have plenty of time to get that IEP made first and they seem to want you.  I wouldn't begin without it.  

 

What happens if he gets in there and LIKES it and is CRUSHED because the overall system cannot be made to work for him?  What then??  That's actually your worst case scenario.  And maybe they'll do a bang-up job of it.  I'm just saying the IEP is your protection that everything that CAN be done is going to be done, and I wouldn't enroll him without that FIRST.  

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I think from my experience, teacher goodwill matter more than an IEP here in a lot of ways.

 

This is going to be more about how things run in the classroom, than about services.

 

It is going to be about teacher accommodations.

 

Teachers have their prior experiences and their attitudes.

 

I have not found my older son's teachers to be so negative or difficult.

 

They are nice people, and they have had kids with IEPs before, and they are broadly (if not specifically) familiar with usual accommodations and modifications.

 

When i say something is a question a teacher might have -- I mean it is literally a question.

 

If I answer the question by saying "we tried that and this is what happened" then I have not had an experience of a teacher saying "let's try it 5 more times."

 

What has happened more with me ----- 2 years pass, and my son is more capable, and the teacher sees it more than I see it.

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I do also have personal advice; they may something really chirpy about "it's not that bad" and you might want to shake them and go "yes, yes it is that bad."

 

Well, I have had comments that came across that way to me, from people who have done things well.

 

They are just trying to say something positive to start off a meeting sometimes.

 

But it can come across to me in a weird way, if I don't already have a sense like "yes, they acknowledge the problem and aren't going to put me off."

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I agree with Lecka that the bigger question is what the teacher can and will actually do in the classroom, not what the administration says they will do based on an IEP (although you need that paperwork to fall back on).  Most teachers, IMHO, really want to help.  They care.  However, they are overworked and have a LOT of kids.  They can only do so much, and if systems aren't in place for them to fall back on, if they don't have the experience to know HOW to help, that can be an issue.  Still, many will try really, really hard to help.  Keeping a positive line of communication going with the actual teacher can make a WORLD of difference.

 

That being said, I tend to lean towards Storygirl's statement that you should come at this prepared for the worst, so if things go well you can be pleasantly surprised but if they don't it won't be that shocking.  Stay calm and don't let frustration/irritation/confusion/anger get the better of you in meetings.  They are not the enemy by any means, and may very well have your children's best interests at heart, but they are not your friend, either.  They do not know you.

 

I think part of the difference in views here (besides just that each school is different) is when you come in from the outside already asking for help and services vs. already being in the system.  I think schools tend to assume the issues when they get kids that have homeschooled (even just temporarily) may be poor instruction at home, plus they feel that maybe just BEING in a classroom will straighten out issues, plus they may not like what they could see as an "entitled" attitude (another friend got that thrown in their faces) since services are being asked for before they even meet the child and they may get their back up at a layman telling them they need to do certain things when they don't even know the student yet.  

 

In my experience with the school implementation of accommodations/remediation, the kids were already in school.  They knew DD well.  Once we had a diagnosis from outside the school (the school one was useless) they were willing to meet with me and implement changes for DD in the classroom, even though their own eval had said very different things.  They knew her and they knew me and they knew she was working hard.  In fact, some teachers were relieved to finally understand why she was struggling and brainstorms directly with me on many occasions to find better ways to help DD.  They CARED.  The outside eval made a lot of sense to them. (There were also a couple of teachers that didn't believe any of it and wouldn't work with her or me but that's another story).  DS had a terrible 2nd grade teacher and we pulled him out but if we had had the evals BEFORE things went south I think his teacher would absolutely have worked with him to help.  She wasn't evil.  She just had no background for dealing with a struggling student who was obviously very bright.  Putting them back in school now would be a completely different ball game.  They wouldn't know us.

 

You are strangers to them.  They have no direct knowledge of you and your children.  Be polite, but firm in meetings, keep copious notes and be prepared for a lot of push back regarding actual implementation of any accomodations/remediation.  Hopefully they won't but odds are there will be.

Edited by OneStepAtATime
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Thinking about it more, if you have a shot at OT, then that is the kind of service where I think turning in paperwork ahead of time and getting the ball rolling could possibly mean you actually get OT earlier vs waiting until next year.

 

OT is hard to qualify for here, too, and I had a while rigamaole earlier this year for him to qualify again. Like -- bc my son scored 86 on something and the cut-off was 85. So then he had to qualify through a different process. It was really stupid. But in the meantime -- he was getting teacher supports/accommodations. What he was not getting was OT or resource room.

 

We had a long time of "he doesn't need resource room" and then it go to "he does need resource room."

 

Resource room and OT I think are things where ----- do the IEP ahead of time for sure, you need those services as soon as possible if they are needed.

 

But for teacher things -- I do see the side of doing it early, but I also think it is okay to wait.

 

There is a division in my mind between classroom level things, and things that are services.

 

If you thought he might be able to get desirable reading tutoring at school, that is the kind of thing where I would say to do it early, too, bc that is more of a service I think.

 

Edit: it was more like "cons outweigh pros" for resource room, and then that shifted to "pros outweigh cons." And part of that was my son got older, more independent, etc, so he can just walk down to the resource room if he needs to and then walk back to his classroom. But when he was younger that would not have worked out for him.

Edited by Lecka
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I do think outside evaluations are helpful, by the way, so even if the school will end up doing their own (very likely), it may be good to have them in hand. Going into the process already knowing what issues my kids were having gave me confidence (and evidence) to ask for certain testing to be done and to question it when a test they ran didn't line up with what we already knew.

 

I have a third child now who has been having some issues, and even though he is in school, we are getting some private testing before deciding whether to request for the school to evaluate. In his case, he had a caring teacher who wanted to provide accommodations in the classroom to see how she could help him. We also had some outside testing done that at first seemed to provide answers but ultimately did not figure out his issues. I don't want to rely solely on the school's testing to figure this out, so we are waiting on a NP appointment for him. Once I know what his issues are, I will know better what to ask the school to evaluate and accommodate.

 

We found a couple of other things to be true (in agreement with other posters):

 

* The school wants to get to know the child and do things their way.

 

* The school has set ways of accommodating certain issues (yes the IEP is meant to be individualized, but the school definitely has a "these are the accommodations we can provide for students with this problem" point of view)

 

* The special education coordinator has the most power in making decisions about when and if the IEP evaluations will be done. He or she won't care what someone else has told you would happen, unless it lines up with the school's established policies. The information the counselor has been giving you may or may not line up.

 

* The teachers can be willing to provide accommodations that are not in an IEP. Then again, they may not. You have to hope you get a good teacher.

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On my phone here but basically you're assuming EXTREME accommodations that they are not likely to give. Our IEP has NONE of those things.

 

Do you feel comfortable saying general accommodations for dysgraphia or dyslexia you have in your child's IEP? 

Edited by displace
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This counselor you mention... is that a person with the school or with the private psychologist? If she is with the school, it is great that the school will accept the private evaluations and make an immediate plan based on them.

 

My kids did get IEPs, but we had to wait. If your school is telling you that they will accommodate and accept outside reports, that's great!! I think it is unusual, though, which is why I think it's good to have cautious expectations. We were blindsided and furious that our school would not accept our private testing. Our meeting was unpleasant, and I was shaking when we were done. DH (who is very mild mannered) was livid. I wouldn't want someone else to go through that, expecting to have a friendly meeting with a school willing to give accommodations and being unprepared for the school to backpedal and stonewall. Just be prepared for their response to not be as amenable as you hope, so you are not taken by surprise. Be prepared for them to be unwilling to meet all of his needs, so that you are not blindsided. And then if they are nice and helpful and accommodating, it's all good!

 

The school counselor said if they had all the outside information and accommodations the process would probably only be a few weeks. 

 

It would be a non-starter for us to spin our wheels with no accommodations (at least via the teacher) for months.  I want to give them a chance, but I'm not committed to fighting them (unless it's just for paperwork issues for a state scholarship to go to a private school). 

 

Our last school was so unreceptive to everything that we never even made it to the point of an IEP meeting.  I am hopeful but I'm making homeschool plans also (which will actually be used for afterschooling so no loss there).

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Ok, I can type more now.  Just because you've heard of something as an accommodation kids EVENTUALLY get, doesn't mean they'll do it NOW.  For a school not even to have an OT (did I really read that correctly??), they literally are not giving service to whole groups of kids.  I mean, it's astonishing.  So you think they're going to give exceptional accommodations and service to your kid when they don't to the kids they already have?

 

 

The last school we were at had no OT service for the school year until about February.  And they came once a week for a few minutes.  I am actually not expecting the school to remediate, just accommodate.  I assume they will not give dyslexia or dysgraphia remediation, but I do want them to accommodate (given extra time, allowed to type instead of handwrite, allowed to read with audiobooks).  I do not know if the new school has OT or not.  Our last school was well known for kids just going to different schools who needed IEPS.

 

 

As Story said, in the younger years they are NOT going to give aggressive accommodations for writing until the kid literally CANNOT write.  Like he has no hands.  Our school said they give scribes later, not now.  So you're looking at accommodations kids were able to have in 5th, 6th, junior high, high school and going oh they should give it now.  Maybe they will, maybe they won't.  They might say it's reasonable to keep working on writing.  That's what our school says.  As a PARENT I know some things are futile and there's a balance.  The school has to answer to other authorities and the way they find that balance isn't the same as the way we do at home.  They let the child FAIL and THEN decide he has to have the intervention.  

 

Here it's the same.  Fail first, then intervene.  Part of the reason we were stonewalled with IEP at our last school was that I worked hard to keep DS at grade level, which made their desire to help us less.  I understand that.  DS actually will stop writing though, after a certain time.  He gets hand pain, etc.  I hate to say it, but sometimes a physical manifestation of a disability may be easier for a teacher to actually "believe" or help with.

 

 

If you did not get a statement of "it won't take long" directly from the SN coor running your IEP team, I would not believe a word of it.  They might, but it might be that it won't take long because they aren't going to do thorough evals and aren't going to offer serious accommodations and services in the IEP.  It doesn't take long in that case.   ;)

 

It is not the norm for a school to accept 3rd party evals without running their own.  They're likely to want to run all their own evals.  They'll say oh won't take long, and 4 months later you'll have your IEP.  This is NOT a fast process.  

 

I take their placating to mean they want him.  I suggest you make his enrollment in their program contingent on getting the IEP FIRST.  First they make the IEP, so you can see what services they would offer and how workable the situation would be, THEN you enroll.

 

Can you move up your private evals?  The school doesn't need them to proceed.  Honestly, you're wasting time.  I would write that later, sign, date, copy, turn it in Monday morning requesting evals.  You're currently a homeschooler, so you'll use your district of residence.  

I am worried that when we walk in with diagnoses and accommodation requests, it may prompt their own testing.  Since I haven't worked with this school before, it's possible.  I do understand the IEP process is slow. 

 

I was not aware I could start an IEP process before being enrolled in a school.  I understand you can request testing as a homeschooler but we are doing that privately as I don't trust school evals (in general after reading so many false negatives).

 

I can have our private evals when I want, but our insurance may actually cover it so we're getting prior medical records, etc. 

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My son had a good experience for years with informal teacher accommodations. So I am a lot more optimistic.

 

To me, if you tell the teacher that his hand hurts after 15 minutes, and she observes him shaking or rubbing his hand; and that is not enough for her to be extremely understanding and accommodating ----- I don't think you need to give it 6 weeks, it sounds bad.

 

I think it has helped me to have people from within the school (OT, school psych) agree with things I say and agree with private assessments. That is a huge benefit of having a meeting (for me IEP) bc the classroom teacher hears from people she knows at school, that they think things like: he is doing his best, his hand does start to hurt.

 

Our prior teachers were fabulous.  At that time I needed more remediation help and couldn't get it so we pulled to homeschool.  But the teachers did what they could: took oral answers, had a helper write for him, understood his reversals, etc.  But it's a good point that speaking with the staff makes things official and more concrete.

 

The teacher might have a question "would writing more build up his stamina?" Which -- if the answer is yes, then it may make sense to have a child write more. If it is not a question of building up stamina through practice, express that to the teacher.

 

I have had experience with two kinds of teacher pushing.

 

One, I am wrong. My son can do more than I thought. Good for the teacher. Oops from me.

 

 

 

Good point to bring up a stamina issue, as well as teacher pushing vs me accommodating.  I think I don't push as much as an outsider would.  And the only way to know (IMO) is how the student is responding.  Is he having a horrible day because of all the writing?  Then it's too much writing.  If he's okay, then that's good.

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But anyway ----- it is hard to know ----- what is normal "good challenge" and what is bad "leading up to weeping challenge."

 

I think I have relied on people at school some to help recognize that (my son qualifies for OT now, he has qualified on and off, he qualified in 2nd grade and then exited services for a bit in 4th grade). The teacher might have her take. I might have my take. The OT is probably the one who has the most insight though.

 

A lot is context, though. Also I think teachers (with a context that he usually scores around 70th percentile and above on MAP testing) are pretty willing to look at kids individually and push them to grow from where they are. They can modify a lot.

 

For my son ----- I think there was a lot more of modification, with him having less output and more oral answers.

 

For the example of "some sentences and write a paragraph," in younger grades this would look like: oral answers or skip the sentences, teacher writes the first sentence of the paragraph, my son writes the rest of the paragraph but it is illegible, teacher jots down some things my son tells her about what he has written.

 

Other times an accommodation might be that he skips some stuff, and then has a graphic organizer he fills in, and then goes from the graphic organizer to the paragraph.

 

There was a lot of skipping of the easier things and then more time spent on the paragraphs, I think, in general.

 

Bc he needed more work on paragraphs, and there was not so much point in him filling out other things.

 

I never felt like modifications he had led to less learning. They were more of skipping things he was really fine to skip. Then having more time to work on what he needed more work on.

 

That was very well for him when he was younger in writing.

 

 

I have started seeking outside therapies for things I do at home because I think DS works better with outsiders.  He pushes himself with therapists where he doesn't for me.  And since this is my first time teaching someone with 2e, I don't always know when to require more. 

 

I really appreciate the accommodation examples.  These are things that I think could easily be done.  I know in common core math they have them draw out their work, which will be fine if DS only has to draw lines or circles.  And we have the snaptype app, which cuts down on handwriting by allowing typing on a worksheet.  His is at least 2-3 times faster with that app.  If I can get the worksheets loaded ahead of time (actually even DS can do it himself in class), it will be ok.  It allows him to mark answers too instead of rewriting by using a numbering system.

 

In math -- he might need more practice than he could get by limiting his output. They use dry erase boards a lot in math, and that is good for my son for writing. Also honestly his handwriting is better in math. But for some things in math, it would be like he needed some written practice. Other things he didn't need it (or seem to benefit from it).

 

This year when he did long division, the resource teacher tried different ways of making his problems, and all his long division was done on papers where she had copied his problems, so he could like things up.

 

Then when they moved on to fractions and decimals, he didn't need anything, and he went back to regular math and he tells me he is often the first one to hold up his dry erase boards when they work problems in class.

 

Edit: my son has no hand pain. He just has a hard time with handwriting, and then numbers are better for him than letters.

 

But he has improved since he was younger, too.

 

Math, as he advances, will need to be helped out.  We're starting with ModMath app that allows typing, lining up numbers, even with division, but we haven't used it much yet.  He insists on doing everything mentally so far (or just fingers for manipulatives) but I know with higher level math it will be difficult.  Writing answers for him, even numbers, is slow and reversed.  He writes the numbers in the correct position now at least.  He can get through about one Singapore worksheet writing before his hand hurts, which is not a lot of output. 

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I'm really not meaning to be discouraging! I just am encouraging you to be realistic. In our case, things did not go as we expected. And I think that is the norm.

 

I understand.  Because of our prior PS experience, I am expecting them to not give any remediation.  After speaking with the counselor I'm hopeful we can get at least some accommodations.  In my mind I'm thinking we have about a 50/50 chance of staying for longer than 6 - 9 weeks.  I would not have even tried if his reading were worse because it's at this level he has some good independence with being able to read some instructions, figuring out which books to get, finding his way around computer websites, etc. 

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What Lecka is saying goes right back to my point. You're used to saying "Oh, my poor darling has a disability and CAN'T do xyz so I give him all these accommodations and trim the assignments and..." and your ps isn't going to do that. They're going to say SUCK UP, write more, write longer, and SUCK UP is going to be the answer over and over. And sometimes suck up WORKS!! Sometimes it really is that Mom isn't going to be mean enough to break through and get whatever progress CAN be made, which is why they're NOT going to take your wish list of accommodations and go oh yes absolutely, by all means use a keyboard and scribe and... They have school policies on how things are handled for each grade and that's how it will be handled.

 

Yes, sometimes schools are super tough on dishing out IEPs but very liberal with RTI and in-class supports. I think it being a gifted program is going to up the ante. Remember, in some areas "gifted" actually means kids with better grades. It's not actually *just* the gifted kids but more like the A students. Or are they bussing these kids in from multiple schools? The gifted cutoff can be pretty low. Even at a school for the gifted there will be a huge range. So you might want to figure out how they're deciding who's gifted, what the cutoff is, where the kids are coming from, whether the teaching approach is different, etc.

 

It sounds like having him there is very important to you and that you're willing to overlook a lot of potential problems to get it. Can you meet with the teacher and find out more about what they're really going to be doing?

The gifted kids have either been confirmed gifted by psych (standard gifted range cut off used in our county), but some use the "meet gifted ability" checklist type of thing. One thing I'm hopeful for is that this program will draw kids who are currently unhappy with their one-hour pull out a day programs in the local schools. The parents are wanting more. Whether it will be more output or more thoughtfulness involved in the program I will have to see. And there may be gifted ranging to profoundly gifted, which is why I think the school is hoping to shift kids around based on their knowledge to higher grades.

 

I think it's worth a try to see if this will work. It is a chance to be around other gifted kids all day (for super social extroverted DS), to be in an all day gifted program, to have exposure to art and music (which I cannot provide), an ability for me to focus on DD some more, and a chance to shake up our routine, expectations, and experiences. I'm not super invested in this, and neither is DS - meaning, if it doesn't work out we're both fine with homeschooling. I am making an effort for it to succeed and I'm not walking in this blindly, though. We will have to work hard to give this a fair shot. At the minimum, DS will understand better what a blessing it is for us to be able to homeschool and the flexibility of working with me instead of common core. When we first left PS, DS was the most willing and hard working student. Even when things were hard, he tried hard. Now he has lost all memory of PS and its challenges and getting a full day of school drains me emotionally. But even a trial run will at least give me time prepare for the school year if we do continue homeschooling. I'm also enrolling DD in preK so if DS comes home we'll have a few hours uninterrupted each day. I'm getting supplemental curriculum now that I hope will be good for daily afterschooling too.

 

The first teacher meeting will be at the open house in the summer. I'm going to ask if I can meet her ahead of time or afterwards (but before the start of school) to discuss DS. I know some people recommend giving the teacher no notice of disabilities to see how they do and interact in an unbiased way when school starts, but I think it's better to give a heads-up.

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When he was younger, I have communicated with teachers about what is a high priority and what is a low priority, and I have shown them or told them about reading remediation, and they have made the reading remediation a higher priority for homework than homework (or unfinished work) there may be from school.

 

If you have unfinished work sent home ----- you need to talk to the teacher. Unfinished work can take up all the time if you do it before remediation. It is also a sign ------ what is going on at school is not working on some level.

 

That is something where I originally thought it was really important to get through unfinished work coming home. But really that was not productive.

 

It is better to communicate about accommodations/modifications in the first place (to eliminate some of the unfinished work by having it be done at school or just called busy work for an individual student, in the first place). Or, if there IS a need for some stuff, what is that stuff? For me that has been scribing for math at times.

 

At other times a teacher has said that the reading remediation (I told her about it and would have brought in samples) was more important than anything she could send home, and she didn't send things home for him. She wanted him to spend his time on reading. That was in 1st grade.

 

Here in younger grades they don't really expect kids below 4th to be doing homework every night. They want you to spend time reading together and listening to kids read. They want kids to study their spelling words. But it is not like "here is your homework" until 4th and then it is not a lot.

 

So that is a big reason 5th grade was a change here. There is homework. Where before, we could have a manageable amount of time to spend on the bits of unfinished work or for me to scribe part of his math, etc.

 

The volume increased and the writing (etc) is important. There is not the same sense of "the teacher can just X out the top half of the worksheet" bc it is not like that for him in 5th grade.

 

But I have not said it directly before, but a lot of the modifications when he was younger were along the lines of the teacher going "this would be busy work for him" and just having him skip down to the meaty part.

 

Plus at the same time ---- they saw his stamina, and it was a certain amount in a way, and they would want that stamina directed towards the meaty part, instead of used up before he got there.

 

I don't think that it was stuff that would be busy work in general, but my son would have a combination of doing things slowly and with difficulty, but at the same time he would have really good comprehension. So it is like -- it is what would make sense for the teacher to do for him.

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You keep mentioning hand pain.  Are you getting OT for that?

 

Yes, you have the legal right, under federal law, to request evals for disabilities, and they DON'T have the legal option to fail to do them because it's summer.  

 

In our district there are SN coordinators who coordinate evals and make the IEP team happen.  Buck stops with them.  So if the school has a guidance counselor or principal you've been talking to, that might not be the person who actually runs the IEP process.  I would get confirmation that they'll accept your private evals from that SN coor first, because I would be shocked if they did.  They CAN, but I'm just saying I would be shocked if they did.  The reason is that they are accepting someone else's evals and putting their school financially on the hook for providing for those services.  That has not been the case at our school that they would do that.  Not with someone not already enrolled, not when they haven't done ANY time with the child to confirm things.  

 

So our private SLP did a long, super thorough eval for praxis of speech that the school SLP was not able to do, but the school SLP still spent 20 minutes with him so she could say yes, I reality checked this, I'm on board with this.  And that happened for EVERYTHING.  Every single area.  And it's not that the evals take so long, but they all have to be SCHEDULED.  It's scheduling that takes time.  

 

So unless you have an agreement from the actual head of your IEP team that they will accept 3rd party evals and NOT need to do their own, I'll suggest to you that you want to go ahead and make the written request now.  That starts the legal timeline.  And probably what will happen is by the time they get their evals done, the private psych will also have his evals done.  It will all just work out, kwim?  If you've had previous evals diagnosing things, honestly you have enough.  HOPEFULLY what will happen is they'll just sorta do their gig and rubberstamp it.  Our school didn't want to repeat anything the private psych had done, so like IQ they just accepted.  The ps psych just redid the achievement testing (no biggee), ran an ADHD computer test (tap tap), and watched him while he worked.  It was nothing more than that.  Well they eventually gave me behavioral forms and more forms.  But I'm just saying it's pretty mundane.  They're not going to screw up achievement testing.  It's the IQ they screw up and not running a CTOPP, etc.  But you already HAVE that.  And remember, you have a CTOPP demonstrating the dyslexia very clearly.  You go redoing the CTOPP because you're all anxious and those new numbers show he's fine, and they're going to say sorry Charlie, doesn't need interventions NOW.  

 

Does that make sense?  I would go NOW because the data you have NOW shows the disability.  Let them run fresh stuff and confirm and decide what they'll offer.

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I'm answering your question about the accommodations in my ds' IEP, but I'm being circuitous.  Our state puts pdfs of all the forms online, so you can try your state dept of ed and see their planning forms for evals, for the IEP, etc.  The IEP form in our state has sections and pulls directly from the evaluation team report form.  It's like cut and paste, one step leading to the next.  When you see the forms, you'll see how your state handles it.  It's not like a psych report that is free form narrative.  It's cut and paste, adobe pdf, fill in the blank.

 

So in the evals they give narratives of what they eval'd and what data they gathered (observations, scores, whatever), and then they make recommendations.  It's all in the planning form and you can get the form for your state.  So then the team has a fresh meeting and they present what they have filled out for the IEP.  The IEP is not about recommendations.  That's in the team report, yes, and they can say he'd benefit from structure, positive supports, support for this and that, limited this and that, blah blah.  They'll write that kind of stuff in the team report, just like your private psych shoots the wind saying all that in his report.  That's just recommendations.  

 

So in our state form, each section has number.  Both my IEPs right now skip 4 and 5, and I'm not sure if that's an error?  Anyways, 6 starts the meat.  For every area that was addressed by a team member, you'll have "measurable annual goals".  So it will say Area: Reading and then list present level of function, measurable annual goal (sometimes well-written, sometimes not), then measurable objectives/benchmarks.  My ds' IEP is 23 pages, and most of it is that section 6, measurable annual goals thing.  

 

Section 7 is where they hash out the descriptions of the specially designed services.  Remember, an IEP is about special services, NOT just accommodations.  It means you actually need special services to access your education.  If you only need accommodations, a 504 would do.  So section 7 has a table where each specially designed instruction service is listed along with time, frequency, location, and who does it.  ALL of this is super vital legal hash!  It's stuff you really care about, like whether the person providing the reading intervention is OG-certified.  There's stuff I would quibble over if I were enrolling him in their school that I *don't* quibble over because I'm not.  So again, still no accommodations.  We're looking at services.

 

But then, I scroll through section 7 and on the next page of it, behold, ACCOMMODATIONS.  This is it, what you were looking for.  And remember, my ds has all three SLDs identified (reading, writing, math), receives OT, ST, behavioral/social, etc.  His accommodations for 2016-2016?  

 

"small group instruction, breaks after 30 minutes of seated work, manipulatives, number grid/line, extended time up to 1.5X typical peers, modeling, directions read aloud, visual and verbal cuein, repeated practice, visual schedule, sensory breaks."

 

I asked about putting in keyboarding and they said no.  They said that would go under assistive tech, and there IS a section for that, right before accommodations, in this section 7.  Nope.   They would not put it in, not at this age.  They said that's later, not now, that at this age they will continue to compel him to write by hand.  Unless he has NO HAND and therefore qualifies for a scribe, and this age he WILL be compelled, at least in our school, to do it just like the other kids are doing.  And I said but don't your kids learn to type, can't he type?  And they're like oh yeah, our kids all type 15 minutes twice a week, fine, that's what everyone does.  But just to say oh I'll let you type your math, fat chance, not here, not till later grades.  

 

And the REASON is because if they put it in they have to provide a scribe.  And that costs them money, therefore you don't get stuff like that in the IEP.  Not at this age.  Now I'll go back and question you on this, because you're saying hand pain, and that's an OT issue.  I would get some OT going.  My ds' hand doesn't hurt.  It just takes him a LONG time to write anything.  It's really not a functional thing for him right now.  I'm going to have the OT begin working on it in the fall.  Right now we're working on finger excursion.  I'm just saying technically the SLD writing does not involve hand pain.  The hand pain is because he's low tone, laying on his wrist, whatever.  That's an OT thing. 

 

And maybe because they have ipads the teacher will be like oh yeah, fine, whatever.  But I'm just warning that they might not.  With the way our schools are run here, I would be SHOCKED if an individual teacher just crossed the official policy of the IEP team and SN dept and said oh yeah I just let that kid use snaptype for all his math.  Yeah right.  She's gonna risk getting FIRED because your kid's hand hurts??  I think not.  The official line, top down, is sorry charlie, do it anyway.  As long as he physically CAN, which your kid can, in our school, from the top down, that's what the teacher is being told, that he has to do it anyway.  But maybe your teacher fudges it, who knows!  Maybe your school doesn't say that, kwim?  But that's how you would find that out.  You would talk with the SN coor at your school (not a guidance counselor or admissions counselor) and you'd ask them flat up what assistive tech they will put into the IEP for an x-grader with dysgraphia if he qualifies, whether that's the norm, and then find out whether the teacher has the LIBERTY to do more if she feels it would be good.  

 

We have another section (12) that lists details of accommodations for all forms of district and state testing.  There his accommodations are almost identical (extra time, read directions, small group, breaks, etc).

 

Remember, if your dc qualifies for an IEP, he's going to be *pulled out* to receive specialized instruction.  That is the whole point.  So when they pull him out, that intervention specialist is going to sit his butt down and say Johnny write.  And Johnny is going to go it's hard!  And intervention specialist is going to go do it anyway.  Because it's the intervention specialist running that portion, NOT the classroom teacher.  So even if in the class they're like oh we do powerpoints and ipad stuff because we're so creative and witty.  Fine, but he's still going to have time each day with another person who pulls him out.  And will that reading specialist or intervention specialist be OG certified?  At some schools they are, at some they're NOT.  See, me, that would be the first thing I would be asking.  I think everything else can be worked out.  He CAN write his math and he just PREFERS not to.  He actually CAN, but it hurts because he needs OT.  Fine, get OT.  You can work that out.  But if they're pull him out to do reading and math intervention and the person is low IQ or using inferior stuff, that's really a pain in the butt.  In that kind of situation, I wouldn't even WANT the stupid IEP.  Because then he's getting pulled out, noticing he's different from all the other kids, and he's getting inferior instruction.

 

So what you *could* consider doing, if their people are unqualified for intervention (which happens), is letting him sink/swim and letting them sort it out.

 

I'd get him some OT, whatever you do.  My dd had that hand pain, and honestly just a month or two of OT made a BIG difference.  There's stuff you can do at home too, but a good OT eval would help you sort that out.  He might have some retained reflexes.  Have you thought about putting him in gymnastics?  It would get his core and upper body stronger.

 

Edited by OhElizabeth
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I'd really think about the realizing he's different thing.  WHEN would they be doing pullouts for special instruction?  Will he notice this?  Will the teacher drop assignments and have him realizing oh all the OTHER kids do x but *I* can't?  That can really be defeating!  Now my ds doesn't notice stuff, but I know from talking with people that some kids really notice that they get pulled out and other kids don't or that they aren't given the same tasks as all the other kids.  It really very quickly turns into I'm DUMB kind of sentiments.  They notice.  

 

I'll just say this and you can say oh you're all wet.  Why are you thinking of enrolling him now?  Did I miss it in the thread?  Are things hairy because you have a younger as well?  I'm just asking, because it SEEMED like you were on such a roll!  It SEEMED like you jumped 3-4 grade levels in a year, wow.  And if you were were getting THAT MUCH progress, then what if you kept going another year?  Would he then be able to go in AT IQ LEVEL in function, maybe be a bit more eligible for use of tech (because he'd be 4th, not 3rd, yes?) and maybe not even NEED the specialized instruction and pullouts?  I mean, wouldn't that be ideal for him, just psychologically?  Because basically he'd have been pulled out COMPLETELY by you, but then he'd go back and mainstream.  That would really be ideal.

 

I just saw someone on a list saying their 4th grader was through Barton 10.  I'm like WOW I so did not have the vision!  With these super bright kids, we really could get there!  Look at how much progress your ds is making.  I get the lure of a gifted program.  I'm just saying WHAT IF you kept him home one more year?  Would it actually continue his rocket progress and put him in a better place? 

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I have two quick comments. One, small group instruction here is often going to be code for resource room and delivered in the resource room. Not always. It might be in the classroom in various ways. But at a certain point that may be moving to a resource room.

 

Two, scribing is not that time-consuming at school when combined with oral answers. I have been surprised with how much scribing my son has had come home on his papers. Bit then really -- it was probably only 2-3 minutes here and there from the teacher. It is not like it takes massive support to provide a bit of scribing.

 

Bc -- ime if it is combined with oral answers, reduced work, and the child being able to do some writing too, it does not take all that much to get some targeted scribing in for paragraph writing.

 

And if my son can (and it sounds like this might be possible here) work on a graphic organizer independently, and then the teacher comes around and helps him get started a bit on paper, etc, it is not the same as "child requires constant attention."

 

There are classroom aides and floating aides around, too. There are student teachers for 3/4 the semester. There are adults around, often 2-3 in a classroom.

 

So scribing is not this huge burden. It is not like, to have scribing, you have to have somebody follow your child around and write down everything for them constantly. It would depend, but it doesn't *have* to be that way, and it is not my mental image for a child who is just needing handwriting support but is fine in other areas.

 

My younger son does have a one-to-one aide, and she is able to help other kids here and there. But my son is the one where it is in his IEP, not other kids she may also be helping as another adult in the room.

Edited by Lecka
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  In our state, if DS qualifies for an IEP we can use state funds to go to private schools.  Whether we qualify for IEP services IDK.  I don't know of ways to check which schools are better for services.  We have one private dyslexia school a one-hour drive away, and a private "disability" school within 30 minutes drive. 

 .

Are you saying that, if your district finds your child is eligible for IEP services, you can find a private school yourself and then the state will bill the private school for services? You migh want to double check.

 

I am more familiar with a system whereby the district and the parent agree on a private school, then the district puts that in the IEP. Supplemental state funding goes to the district, which then pays the private school. (I am in NJ, which I have heard has a greater percentage of SN students in private schools than other states.) Before a student is sent out of district to a private school, district and parents first have to determine that there is not a suitable in or out of district public school program. That can be quite subjective and is fairly easy to do in a decent district. ymmv.

 

Btw, you have received such excellent, practical advice from Elizabeth, Storygirl, and Lecka. Rather than repeat, I wanted to add that I agree wholeheartedly.

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I have two quick comments. One, small group instruction here is often going to be code for resource room and delivered in the resource room. Not always. It might be in the classroom in various ways. But at a certain point that may be moving to a resource room.

 

 

Yes, for my ds' IEP, the instruction for his SLDs is all done as pullouts in an instruction room.  The location is specified in the IEP.  

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Alessandra, our state offers disability scholarships to students who give up their FAPE and take the scholarship.  There's also, as you say, alternative placement. For the ps to agree to that alternative placement (where they fund it), that's a pretty big deal.  So you don't have to enroll to get an IEP and the scholarship, but to get that alternative placement you have to enroll in the ps enough that they conclude they can't meet your needs.  Sometimes it doesn't work out that way and people realize the ps could meet their dc's needs, ironically enough.  

 

So yes, in our case we give up our FAPE and take the scholarship.  I assumed that's what the op meant she had the option for.  If she does, it can be a really good thing!  Of course, this gifted program could turn out to be really snazzy too.  My ds is high enough functioning that everyone wants that as the goal, that he gets enough skills that he can be with his intellectual peers.  So I can totally get why the op is drawn to this.  I'm just sort of devil's advocating here with things I've heard that *can* go wrong. 

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Another quibble.

 

Two times my son has had an IEP where the only pull out was either speech or OT. So I think the whole "they will pull him out" thing is just ----- yes, some kids have pull-out.

 

But a child on grade-level with no issues with being in a large group?

 

Why would they be pulled out?

 

So I don't see this connection between IEPs and pull-out.

 

Some IEPs ------ yes.

 

Other IEPs ------ no.

 

But sometimes it is just -- speech therapy or OT once a week for 30 minutes, and that is it for pull-out.

 

It will really just depend. But getting an IEP does not automatically mean there will be tons of pull-out.

 

Also, it is something about the school here that a lot of kids are doing different assignments for various reasons. So it is not so much that everybody else is doing one thing, and then just one kid is doing something else. But yeah, we have had to have conversations about why my son goes to OT and that handwriting is harder for him. We have had issues where he thinks he cannot do a good job and needs extra encouragement. He has needed to have help breaking things into smaller pieces and seeing that he can get done over time.

Edited by Lecka
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Alessandra, our state offers disability scholarships to students who give up their FAPE and take the scholarship. There's also, as you say, alternative placement. For the ps to agree to that alternative placement (where they fund it), that's a pretty big deal. So you don't have to enroll to get an IEP and the scholarship, but to get that alternative placement you have to enroll in the ps enough that they conclude they can't meet your needs. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way and people realize the ps could meet their dc's needs, ironically enough.

 

So yes, in our case we give up our FAPE and take the scholarship. I assumed that's what the op meant she had the option for. If she does, it can be a really good thing! Of course, this gifted program could turn out to be really snazzy too. My ds is high enough functioning that everyone wants that as the goal, that he gets enough skills that he can be with his intellectual peers. So I can totally get why the op is drawn to this. I'm just sort of devil's advocating here with things I've heard that *can* go wrong.

Oh, I see. Our state does not have the scholarships, but, now that you mention it, I do recall people on this board talking about them. Out of district placements are extremely common here. That may be because districts overall are small and cannot cater for all disabilities. Btw, language/communication challenges and mild autism are usually handles in district, but severe autism, emotional disabilities are handled out of district.

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Yes, all the intervention services for my ds' SLDs (reading, writing, math) are marked as resource room.  My ds is decoding on grade level, but it's not IQ appropriate, therefore he continues to qualify for services.

 

I really don't know if you can get in situations where you say I want to enroll him, I want the accommodations, I won't allow the intervention services, kwim?  It's all in the law, what you have to authorize, what they can do no matter what you say, etc.  You may or may not have much say in that.  Read the law.  In our case I WANTED the IEP to say his services, because that allows me to use the scholarship to pay for those services.  So if that's how it works in your state (check), then you'll actually be fighting for those services to be listed in his IEP.

 

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