Extended School Year, Summer School, Compensatory Education

[Goose Girl]

Original thread title: Recommended vs. Included in IEP


Quick question for the experts here. difficult child's school is recommending that he participate in summer school activities for his reading. This is something that we have to pay for him to attend. While I don't mind paying for it, I am curious why this has not been included in his IEP? I know that I have questioned it in the past (as they have recommended it for the past couple of years) but I do not recall their answers. In all honesty, it was not a battle I wanted to fight due to other more important IEP fights.

What do you guys think? If the school is recommending he participate because of a discrepancy in his reading, should it be part of his IEP? Or, should I just leave it alone and pay for it myself?

Thanks!

 

[Sheila]

Can't guess the specific reason they are recommending the program, but he must need it. They haven't taught him what he should have been taught in the classroom, therefore, I'd accept their recommendation via compensatory education means, e.g., at sd expense.

Call an IEP meeting and have it included in the IEP as compensatory education.

 

[Sheila]

Search Compensatory Education if you need it:

http://www.conductdisorders.com/community/pages/internet-search/

 

[Goose Girl]

Thanks so much for the information Sheila! I have already called an IEP meeting, so this will be discussed then. difficult child has been behind in his reading from the very beginning. We did discover this year that he also has dyslexia. We finally developed a pretty decent IEP this year and the school put a lot of support in place and is focusing on helping him with his reading that way HE needs it. Unfortunately, since January, his behavior has just completely melted down. So, all the progress that he had made this year came to an abrupt halt. Due to all the behavior problems, I can't believe that he has actually learned anything since January. We did eventually hospitalize which meant even more time out of school, but he is doing a little better now, not great, but better.

At this point, they are having difficulty getting him to even comply with any assessments, so it's tough to know for certain how far behind he is. His Special Education teacher is fantastic though and is being really creative in working with him.

Long story short (not really) he is aproximately 1 -2 grade levels behind in reading and due to behavior instability, they don't see him making the necessary progress during the typical school year. That is why they recommended he participate in summer school.

Now we have to figure out if the same support are going to be in place for summer school. If not, there is no point in him attending because he won't be successful.

 

[Lizz]

Hi.....

Here is the kicker if you want the SD to pay for the summer program.

DO NOT discuss his reading scores being below grade level. Everyone knows that and that in itself will not qualify him for Extended School Year (summer school).

The issue for summer school is REGRESSION and RECOUPMENT. For a student to qualify for summer school the student must demonsrate an issue with R an R. In other words---how far will he fall backwards, and how long will it take him to catch up?

Almost all kids experience R & R over the summer BUT most can get back up to speed within the first 4 weeks of school. So you want to discuss the fact that it will take him longer than average to warm up in the Fall. And becuase he has made progress this year, it would be detrimental to his future progress to fall behind over the summer.

My guess is that your SD will say that they are "recommending" summer school, at your expense, becuase they think it will "help" him. If they want you to pay for it they will argue that he falls within the average on the R and R scale.

You can also argue that the structure and predictability of a daily school program will allow him to continue his behavioral and emotional progress. A lot of kids need that in order to maintain. Kids who need the structure of school-based schedule, or the weekly therapy, will regress behaviorally and it's anybody's guess how long it will take to make up that progress!!!

Good luck with this. I believe that if the school "strongly reccomends" the program, they should be willing to back it up on the IEP.

Lizz