Ohio's Peterson Scholarship and IEP Navigation...HELP!

[HomeWithTheGirls]

Hi All!

 

This is my first post on the WTM forums; however, I've lurked here for a few years (and have learned copious amounts from all of you amazing people)!

 

My seven-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with ADHD-Inattentive and SLD's in reading and writing.  Even though I knew it was coming and am happy to have some answers, it's still a hard thing to process.

 

The private neuropsych who diagnosed her suggested we implement an IEP through our local school district in order to access the Jon Peterson scholarship.  We think this is a good plan because we do have providers in our area that we would like to use.

 

We sent a letter to the school district requesting an evaluation.  We received a reply today that has me confused, so I was hoping you could help me!  Here is the part I'm concerned about (with personal info excluded):

"The first thing we need to have you do is enroll in ******** School District.  You will need to come in and enroll at the Administration Building with ****  ******.  Her phone number is *** *** **** and her email is **********.  Please make sure you let her know that you are enrolling on paper but not for a spot as you are interested in one of the scholarships." 

 

So, is it normal to have to "enroll on paper"?  On the ODE website, it says enrollment is not required to receive the scholarship, just that we need to supply some info about residence and to create a SSID.  What would you do in my situation?  Thanks for any help you can provide; we're in way over our heads with this, especially since the scholarship deadline is April 15th!

[Storygirl]

I know that part is confusing, but we had to enroll as well. DH did it -- I think he took their birth certificates to the school office. It's just so that they have a record of the child in the computer system, because the IEP requires that.

 

Go ahead and enroll. But, although I hate to be the bearer of bad news, there is almost no likelihood that you will have an IEP in place in time to apply for the scholarship this spring. The timing just won't work (see below). However, there is another deadline in the fall that will allow you to access scholarship funds for the second half of the school year. The disadvantage is that you won't have the scholarship for the fall semester, but the good news is that you don't have to rush or panic -- you have plenty of time to get things done for that fall deadline (I think it is November).

 

Here is how the timing works:

 

30 days for the school to consider your request to evaluate.  (Technically, they can decline to evaluate if they don't see evidence of disability, but you have the diagnosis already, so you shouldn't need to worry about this as a homeschooler.)

 

60 days after that to complete their evaluations. Which means running whatever tests they want to do, gathering information from you, observing your child being taught a school lesson, and then writing an Evaluation Team Report (ETR). The ETR will say whether the child qualifies for an IEP and what eligibility category they qualifies for (there are several tiers of scholarship money, depending on the disability category assigned). You should know that even though the NP has diagnosed disabilities, the school will determine this on their own as well, and what they decide may not align perfectly with what the NP says. The school has to consider the outside assessments that you bring to them, but they base their decisions on their own evaluation, so you won't know for sure what scholarship you qualify for until you have the completed ETR in hand.

 

30 days after that to write the IEP.

 

Sometimes a school can move through these stages more quickly, but they can take the full 120 days. The spring is a busy time for schools, because they are updating most of the IEPs for their students who are on one, and they are not likely to rush things for you. But you can ask!

 

There is a lot to absorb, but you will be fine. You might want to read this book for an overview of the IEP process:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-IEP-Guide-Advocate-Special/dp/1413320341/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458348644&sr=8-1&keywords=nolo+iep

[HomeWithTheGirls]

I knew someone here would have the answer and quickly, too!  Thank you very much!  :001_smile: I think I just saw the word "enroll" and started getting jittery, haha!

 

I won't push to get the IEP done in a couple weeks, we'll just keep plodding along as usual until it's ready and go from there.  I will look into that book as well, thanks for the recommendation!

[kbutton]

Story covered it, but you do have to prove residency in the district that creates the IEP. Then you have to do enough paperwork to generate a system ID. What I did is give them the necessary information, but then I left some fields blank--things that a child physically in school would need but were pretty much inapplicable to us (just as a reminder to the person processing the information!). 

 

Even if you are using outside reports, you want to be sure on the ETR planning form that you check off every box that you need to in order to get all areas looked at--I would strongly recommend even checking things like speech and language. Things like social skills are included in speech, which was a surprise to me. Also, sometimes there are language issues that go along with those sorts of SLDs.

 

Best wishes! The program is a great resource.

[PeterPan]

I forget what the deadline is for the JP.  Technically there's a little opening in the law for homeschoolers that makes it easier to apply for the JP than for people in the ps or private schools.  If you are in the ps or private, you have to have your IEP *complete* before you can apply for the JP.  For homeschoolers, it's the opposite.  You can apply for the JP, and that REQUIRES the school district to perform the evals.  

 

So, the FIRST thing you should do is find out what the application window is and make sure you apply!  It takes significant time to finish the IEP process, and you might find that by the time you finish you are really wishing for that scholarship funding.  

 

No, they wno't get it done in a couple weeks.  This is the BUSY SEASON for schools right now.  Legally they have 120 days from your written request.  You've started that timeline.  To apply for the scholarship, you find a provider and apply through them.  You don't need to have your IEP or even the ETR in place to apply.  I think they wanted us to have the ETR finished by the end of the application window, but really the school district can fudge on that.  Worst case scenario is you miss the window now and apply in the fall.  

 

Yes, what they're describing is a soft enroll to create a unique student identifier.  In Ohio we don't use SS# for kids in the education system, so it's instead this unique student ID.  It's a privacy thing.

 

Hopefully you have a good experience with your evals!  Just a word to the wise.  If you actually want the scholarship, remember that it's not merely having the diagnosis but having DISCREPANCY that is going to compel them to create an IEP.  If you go doing tons of interventions right now, before the school does their testing, that might, for a young child, decrease the discrepancy and make it harder to identify.  I would continue what you were doing before your evals or some reasonable path but proceed as expeditiously as possible with the school.  If their is no discrepancy, they won't give you the IEP, even though your dc has the SLDs.

[HomeWithTheGirls]

Thanks, kbutton!  It's great to have advice from people who have already tread these waters!

 

That is helpful information for the ETR, the NP suggested we get a speech-language eval since she struggled with some language skill sets.

 

If anyone has any other helpful tips as we begin this process, things you wish you'd known, please join in, I'm all ears!

 

 

[HomeWithTheGirls]

OhE,

 

I knew you were in Ohio and was hoping you would chime in here! 

 

Your advice with regard to remediation before the school evaluations is spot on with what the NP told us, so thank you!

 

I'm already feeling much more calm about the whole process within two hours of my first post on WTM!

 

[Mom28GreatKids]

Our district mist be unusual. I called last week and we could have had DS evaluated this week if we had agreed. After talking with her, we decided it would be better to wait until the summer. I did not know we could even do it in the summer, but she said they bring the team in in July to get new IEPs in place for the fall. Since we didn't need immediate services (he is getting plenty of private) and we don't want to start til the fall, she wanted to wait. Our kids' school is applying to be a JP recipient so if we decide to do preschool, he will be able to do his pre k year there. Yeah.

[kbutton]

I forget what the deadline is for the JP.  Technically there's a little opening in the law for homeschoolers that makes it easier to apply for the JP than for people in the ps or private schools.  If you are in the ps or private, you have to have your IEP *complete* before you can apply for the JP.  For homeschoolers, it's the opposite.  You can apply for the JP, and that REQUIRES the school district to perform the evals.  

 

Applying for the JPSN might help push the process, but you still have to submit a written request for evaluations to the school district to start the clock going. Written can be an e-mail. You must ask for evaluations, not just say, "Hey, we think we need an IEP, what do you think?"