School board neglecting LD student

[cre8ivim]

What is the name of your state? Florida

It has recently been brought to my attention that my son who has ADD did not receive all the tests and evaluations he was supposed to have been given by our county school board at his last IEP review on October of 2004.

They are as follows:

The Wood****-Johnson
• IQ test
• Academic test
• Cognitive Processing test
• Transitional IEP

He was only given the Wood****-Johnson Achievement test, which I question the validity of because it was given by the guidance counselor not by the school psychologist.

He has been attending a private school on the McKay Scholarship Fund for the past 4 years. I have written a request for these tests and a meeting to discuss any other resources he should be getting to his districted public school and am waiting for a reply.

My questions are:
• Are they required to give him these tests? If so, how long do they have to comply?
• Can I get an outside evaluation paid for by them if I am not happy with their results (achievement test)?
• Is there a list out there somewhere of what and when they are supposed to do something for him so I can hold them accountable?

There is this "Whatever you don't know won't hurt us" attitude going on of which my son and I are currently the victims. When I ask other parents I know with LD kids they tell me the same thing has happened to them.

Please help me I want to enter this meeting knowing what my rights are.
arial

 

[sisymay]

OK, this is the second time I made a long post to this and lost it! I hope I can remember everything!

There is something you can do to make sure the school is doing what they are suppose to do. It's called IDEA laws. This stands for 'individuals with disabilities educational act'. Schools will not tell parents about these laws. Parents and children have a lot of rights with these laws, and schools are forced to do things they don't want do to.

First of all, you need to find out if the private school gets state or federal funds. If they do, they have to follow these IDEA laws. If they don't, they don't have to. I'm not sure if they will give you this info, you might have to call your states department of education.

I am assuming they do get this funding since they did testing in 2004. When they did this testing, did they say your child qualified for special ed services? If so, they are suppose to do testing every 3 years anyway to re evaluate the child. BUT, a parent has the right to request this to be done once a year. The school does NOT have to do this testing just because the parent requests it. If they refuse to do testing, they are suppose to give you a letter called 'prior written notice' stating they are not going to do testing and WHY they are not going to do it. They will usually tell you 'verbally' they won't do testing, but according to IDEA laws they have to put this in writing. If they DON"T give you this prior written notice, you then file a formal state complaint. Go to your states department of education website, the special education section, and read the rules to follow about complaints. They should have a form for you to print out, fill out and mail to the state (not the school) Doing this forces the school to follow the laws.
But usually the school will not want to put their reasons in writing and go ahead and agree to do testing.

If the school said your child did NOT qualify for special education services when they did the testing, it will be like starting over. There is a legal process to follow to ask for this testing. You do it in writing, and state you are requesting a 'full comprehensive initial evaluation testing in ALL areas of suspected disabilities specified by IDEA laws'. Putting it in these words forces the school to follow the law. If the school does NOT want to do the testing, the same as I wrote above about the 'prior written notice' applies. They are suppose to give this to you and if they don't, file a state complaint. Another thing is, if the school agrees to do this testing again, they are suppose to get you to sign a consent form. They then have 60 days from the date of this form to complete all tests. If they can tell the parent does not know this, they will drag it out for months.

Now, if you want the school to pay for outside testing, I am not sure about the laws of this. I am thinking you CAN request for them to do this whether they let him have special education services or not. You can call your states department of education, special education department, and ask them about this.

If you CAN request for the school to pay for outside testing, I do know some laws about this. You make the request in writing and state that you want a 'indepedent educational evaluation by public expense' This is the legal terms to make them follow the law. You do NOT have to give reasons WHY you want them to do this. All you have to state in your letter is that you do not agree with their testing. If you request the school to do outside testing, they have only 2 choices in the matter. They can agree and pay for this outside testing. They will try and force you to go to a doctor THEY choose, BUT by IDEA laws, a parent goes to who THEY want to go to.
If the school does NOT agree to pay for this testing, they have to file a due process hearing to go to court and prove their own testing is correct. Schools will usually NOT do this and go ahead and agree to pay for the outside testing.

In my own case, I requested this and the school did not respond at all. If your school does not respond to you at all, you can file a state complaint for this. This will force the school to choose one or the other.

As for the counselor doing the tests, the only way he can do this LEGALLY is if he is 'qualified' to do these tests. You have a right to find out if this counselor is qualified or not. I would ask the district superintendents office.
If he is NOT qualified, and your child did NOT qualify for special education services, it will not really matter because all that testing is invalid after a year anyway. To do anything legally at this point will require a lawyer, but a lawyer probably won't take your case and say just to do the testing over. The goal here is to get what your child needs, not to 'police' the school. As bad as you think they should be 'punished' for doing wrong, it's very hard to make that happen. Believe me, I tried for my own childs situation.

If your child DID qualify for special education services and you find the counselor was not qualified to do these tests, I would then call your state department of education and see what to do about that. I'm not sure.

Even though you listed different tests, are you saying that only one of them was done? If this is the case, and they DID qualify your child for special education services, this is not legal because when a school decides if a child can qualify for special education, they are suppose to use more than one test to decide this. I would again call the state department of education on this one.

I'm not sure when your meeting is or what it's for, but you have a lot to learn! Go to these websites www.reed******.com and www.wrightslaw.com
These are the best sites to learn about special education laws, and anything dealing with special education. There is a lot to learn! Schools will always trick parents and do whatever they can not to help. It's a shame. If you want you can email me at [email protected]

Let me know if you have any more questions!!

 

[notsmartmark]

To take a twist on your question; have you been following the news regarding the voucher system in Florida. I thought McKay was on its death bed. I pulled this off of the web.

"The Opportunity Scholarships program struck down last week serves only around 750 students in a shifting, small number of schools. And although it is a vital academic lifeline for these disadvantaged students, it is not a serious force for school choice in Florida. The McKay voucher program, in contrast, helps over 16,000 children find schools that provide the support they need, and the supreme court's ruling puts McKay in mortal jeopardy."

Regarding your question. You asked for your child to be reevaluated to determine if he continues to qualify and if and which services and supports are needed. Your purmission has to be requested, but not obtained to initiate the reevaluation. Currently, this needs to be completed at least every three years or sooner if requested or given a student's age, age three, six or nine or some potential ages.

Your input must be sought in what will be the scope of the reevaluation, but the district can expand or reduce the amount of testing. You can request an independent evaluation and suggest an evaluator, but the school has final decision on who does the eval. You can get privately secured evaluation and the district must consider it. You can challenge the district's evaluation decisions through mediation or a Due Process hearing.

I suggest you call the sped teacher, sped department and restate you would like your child reevaluated. Just remember, sometimes you can gain a reeval and the information gathered could challenge you child's qualification.

Ask for a copy of your Procedural Safeguards from your child's school. It is written in somewhat a plain language and covers all of the questions you raised.

But you need to speek with someone familiar with Florida's rules and regs. McKay probably has an inpact that needs to be considered.

 

[sisymay]

Hi again. I'm the one who wrote the first reply here. I just wanted to say, that I noticed that me and notsmartmark both give you different advice on the same things. I'm not saying he is right or wrong, I am not saying I am right or wrong. I just wanted to say I guess you will have to go to the 2 websites I mentioned in the first reply I wrote and read the IDEA laws for yourself. I have to warn you though, the IDEA laws are very vague and you can interpret them in different ways. They leave too much room for interpretation. I guess that's why me and notsmartmark give you different advice on the same things. That's just another hard part of the special education process, trying to understand the laws!
Oh yes, the website that has **** above in my other reply, the word to put in there is '******'

 

[sisymay]

I don't know why **** keeps showing up. I guess maybe the owners of this website have something against that website? I don't know, but I want to apologize if I went against any website policy here. I am new so I didn't know. I guess a person who posts here with that name will have to change his name!!

 

[notsmartmark]

I agree with sisymay. Don't look at things as an either/or. Research the websites and, and, and.

Sisymay, It isn't a block on a site; there are certain words on this site that are blocked. I have no idea where you can find the list of blocked words, but I've seen people adding space between blocked words as a work around, i.e.,
http://www.reedmarti n.com.

Another great parent/school resource site is www.LDonline.com.

The reason I added the idea of reviewing your states Procedural Safeguards is it is required to use common language, I believe all state produced Procedural Safeguards are approved by the feds and it will include the differences of Florida's application of federal regs. Take all the info you can get, and then start the filtering process.

Here's a site for your state's Procedural Safeguards:
http://www.firn.edu/doe/commhome/pdf/safegrds.pdf

 

[cre8ivim]

School board neglecting LD student Response

Florida.

Thanks Notsmartmark and Sisymay. You gave me so much good information that I have transferred your responses to my desktop so I can study them more carefully. I will definetly check out all the websites. I have to say I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all I have to do just to get what is rightfully mine (or my son's).

Are both of you speaking from a knowledge of Florida Law?

Notsmartmark - Regarding the McKay scholarship. I did read about it's possible demise so I asked the person at my son's school who is in charge of McKay and she told me the law states that once you are recieving McKay it can not be taken away from you. However, we all know just how much stock I can put in that!

The good news is that my son only has 3 years of school left. If we have to we will seek tuition assistance from the school and dip into his college funds to keep him where he is. He is not very socially skilled, but he has made some good friends there, is happy there, and is flourishing academically.

Sisymay - No his school does not recieve state or federal funds. I took him to his districted public school that he would have attended if he were not on McKay to get his IEP review and test.

My son qualified for special ed services back in first grade when he was diagnosed and had his first IEP written. I see you wrote, they are suppose to do testing every 3 years to re-evaluate the child. He has not been tested, other than the Achievement test in 2004, since first grade (because I didn’t know). He's now in 9th grade!

After he took the achievement test, the guidance counselor told us he has shrunk the gap between his ability and productivity so much that his LD is virtually non-existant. I am concerned that they will use this against us somehow.

My response to that is, "Ok then why did he fail the reading comprehension part of his standardized test?! Why is it that when he tries to explain something it's a lot like Abbot and Costello's “Who's on First" routine?” And the list goes on.

Where you wrote all that testing is invalid after a year anyway do you mean I could get the achievement test done again?

Thanks again,

Cre8ivim

 

[cre8ivim]

McKay Scholarship Fund rights

Florida

Does anyone know of a website that will give me the specific rights of a child under the McKay Scholarship Fund? So far I have been unsuccessful in my own efforts. I need specific information on what the school board is required to give him. I'm being told by some people that if he is on McKay the school board isn't required to do anything but pay his tuition. While others are telling me that's not true, but they can't tell me anything more than that.

Cre8ivim

 

[sisymay]

Yes, the special ed process is a very time consuming, nerve racking, fighting and carrying on experience. And the reason for this is that the schools do NOT do what they are suppose to by the laws. And there is no one to enforce them to do right. So they keep on! If they would do right, then it wouldn't be so hard to get the help the child needs.

I can not speak for Florida state laws. Everything I have said is according to the federal IDEA laws. But I can say however, that any state special education laws can NOT go above federal IDEA special education laws. For example, say that you want your child to be evaluated by the school. But then the school tells you that the child has to go through their 'intervention team' process first and be helped with that BEFORE they can evaluate him to see if he can qualify for special ed help. OK, intervention teams in schools are mandated by the state, not the federal level. And according to the state rules, this is correct.
BUT, according to the IDEA federal laws, it does NOT state that a child HAS to go through the 'intervention team' process first. A parent can bypass this 'intervention team' and ask for the special ed dept. to do testing.
SO, the intervention team rules can NOT be followed when a parent asks for the special ed dept to do testing. I will add that schools have all kinds of 'tricks' to make parents 'think' they are correct.

The laws are so screwed up and anyone can interpret them in almost any way, and no one will be right and no one will be wrong. The whole special ed system is just a mess.

Even though your school does NOT recieve the funds, the fact that the public school did the evaluation, they are STILL suppose to follow the special ed laws. And since he IS recieving special education services, they are suppose to follow the laws.

About his LD virtually being 'non existant'. You can not believe any thing a school says. If they say anything that is questionable, you tell them 'I will need to see your written policy on this please' and most times they won't do this because they are lying. Ask to see anything they tell you in writing. If it's not in writing, they can not use what they say.

I do not think that LD's just 'go away'. The child is having the 'gap closed' as they say because he is getting the help he needs. This is another thing schools use to get out of helping. They say 'we have helped him now, he's better. We don't have to help him anymore.' Then watch as that child just goes back down and regresses because he is no longer getting the help he needs. I wish I knew what to tell you about this. There is a way you can get around this LD going away bit from the school. It's not right and the laws protect you from this, I'm just not sure myself what the laws are concerning this. Another thing you might want to know. A school can NOT say a child does not need special ed help if the child is NOT failing. A child can get straight A's and still qualify for special ed.

Can you get an advocate? These are people who know the laws and can help you in every step. Some want you to pay for their services, but every state has federally funded advocacy agencies that help you for free. Mine has been helping me for 4 months now. You can call your state dept of education and ask for "the phone number of the federally funded special education advocacy agency" in your state. Whenever someone starts this special ed stuff, I have learned an advocate is necessary from the beginning. Most people, like me, can't pay for them. But the funded ones help you for free.

The testing is invalid after a year if the child does NOT qualify for special ed. BUT, yours IS in special ed, so they are suppose to test every 3 years. BUT, they can test once a year IF the parent requests it. So you can make a written request stating that you want them to do testing, the last test was done over a year ago, and that according to IDEA laws the school is suppose to test a child who is recieving special education every 3 years UNLESS a parent requests it to be done not more than once a year. And add that he has NOT been tested every 3 years as specified by IDEA laws.

Now, they will fight you on this. They will tell you things like they don't have to test every 3 years, they don't have to test once a year, etc.
What you need to know is that just because you request them to test, they don't HAVE to. If they refuse, like I said in my other reply, they are suppose to give you 'prior written notice' of WHY they refuse. But if you word your letter like I did above, they will know you know the laws and will probably go ahead and do the testing, especially since you found out they were suppose to be doing it every 3 years anyway.

Like I said I will be glad to help you through my email, if you would like. You can not believe anything the school tells you.
Another thing I forgot to tell you earlier. There is a GREAT website with a message board that is very active, all kinds of people who know about everything having to do with special ed. They are all very nice and love to help! You have to sign up for free to put your messages on their message board. It is 'www.schwablearning.org' they have helped me SO much!
You have just 'hit the tip of the iceberg' as they say, in learning all this stuff! But the free advocates, the websites I mentioned can help so much!! The one that kept having *** is www.reedmarti n.com don't add the space in there when you go to it ok!!

 

[cre8ivim]

thanks

Florida

Thanks Sisymay this helps A LOT!

 

[notsmartmark]

I am not well versed in McKay, but here is some info. It doesn't look good. It come from a US Department of Ed. letter. Here's the website:
http://www.edlaw.net/service/fla_voucher.html

Here's one of the questions they answer:
1. Is a Florida student with a disability as defined in IDEA who attends an eligible private school approved by the State under Florida’s Opportunity Scholarship Program for students with disabilities entitled to special education and related services in conformance with an IEP and all of the rights of a child with a disability who is served by a public agency?

Here's part of their answer. Please read the entire letter and supports on the website.

... As we understand it, the Scholarship Program is not financed with Federal special education finds or any other Federal finds. As noted in the Thompson letter, “the private schools are not ‘recipients’ of Federal funds and their programs and activities are not federally-assisted.”

Therefore, Federal civil rights laws, including Section 504, do not directly apply to the private schools participating in the Scholarship Program. Further, Title II of the ADA does not directly apply, as the private schools are not public entities....

However, the SEA would not be required to ensure that the participating private schools “provide an appropriate education to ... students [with disabilities] with special educational needs if [the participating private schools do] not offer programs designed to meet those needs.” See 34 C.F.R. Part 104, App. A at 28.

... With regard to IDEA, and consistent with the Thompson Letter, we also conclude that if the Florida Department of Education (FDE) and its local school districts have made FAPE available to eligible children with disabilities in a public school but their parents elect to place them in private schools through the. Scholarship Program, then such children are considered “private school children with disabilities” enrolled by their parents. See 34 C.F.R. § 300.450. Under IDEA, such parentally placed private school students with disabilities have no individual entitlement to a free appropriate public education including special education and related services in connection with those placements. In order to avoid parental misunderstanding, the Department strongly recommends that the State or local educational agency notify parents who choose private school placement under the Scholarship Program that the student may retain certain rights under Section 504 and Title II of the ADA, although the student will not be entitled to a free appropriate public education under IDEA, while enrolled in the private school....


I'm sorry; it doesn't look good, but you really do need to speak with someone well versed in Florida sped law.

 

[sisymay]

I am not sure about state or federal laws for what I'm about to ask. But, even though the private school this child attends does NOT recieve federal or state funds, BUT the public school that tested the child DOES, shouldn't he still be qualified to get sped services? Why would they have even tested him to begin with if he would not qualify for sped services because of the 'McKay' situation??

 

[notsmartmark]

Child Find requires states and districts to conduct activities to identify individuals with disabilities from birth to age 21. Child Find is well defind and established as a means to reduce the number of children. Even though Child Find activities must occur for children from birth through 2, districts currently cannot be required to participate in the provision of services.

Parents who place their IDEA eligible children in a private placement reduce the federal requirements. In the most basic form in some states, districts can decide which IDEA services to provide to IDEA eligible students placed in private schools by their parents. As always, this is very general info with a lot of its, ands, and buts your state's application can be unique.

 

[Gadfly]

http://www.floridaschoolchoice.org/Information/McKay/