more I read, more confused

[Kjs]

I have an overload of reading right now and am second guessing myself. IEP was last Monday. Psychologist went over results, but not to my satisfaction. Said auditory skills were superior, visual below average. academically 92 and 99% higher than others in same grade. Showed significant anxiety, terrified of failure. Noted she observed him covering his eyes, closing his eyes and putting head down during auditory portion of test. His way of processing information....the VERY things he gets in trouble for, yelled at for, and eventually removed from class for.
Was told thoughts going through his brain so fast he physically cannot keep up needs to learn how to slow himself down. This causes frustration / anxiety. Trouble writing due to not being able to keep up with thoughts.
She drew a graph showing where he scored. That is all.
Then IEP..All agreed that when difficult child is approached with a negative tone or yelled at he will react immediately yelling. All agreed that he needs to be approached calmly.
I do not have a hard copy of either. did not sign anything. They didn't mention getting me final copies.
But since last Monday difficult child has been removed from class every single day. And most days prior. sometimes it is only for that particular class, sometimes it is for the entire day, other times just a couple hours. he is sent to the office with paperwork to do(visual). My concern here is he scored below average with visual above average for auditory. So, now they are taking out of the auditory environment forcing him to do the visual which is causing much anxiety and frustration. But if he acts up once removed then he is out of school suspension.
Please correct me here if I am wrong:
If a child's behavior is a manifestation of their disability they cannot be disciplined for their disability. Is this true?
Can a child with a disability be held to the same Student Code of Condact as students with no disabilities? - that is always the reason VP gives me..."I have 1000 other students here who have to follow the rules, if everyone yelled". difficult child is NOT violent. If someone yells at him he reacts. he DOES have a conscience. he does sometimes go back and apologize when he feels it is necessary. (all depends on the teacher / person) If it is someone who treats him nice, and it was just a bad day, he will go back and apologize. If it is the normal everyday issues, he will not. Honestly..at this point, I truely feel the teachers are competing to see who can set him off first. Just some very piddly issues got him in ISS last week. Should of just been let go. And would of for anyone else.
So, before I go I am asked to sign this IEP can anyone tell me if I have my facts correct.

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

I was just thinking.

My younger brother (a difficult child if there ever was one) ended up going to a school called Ombudsman.

I remember my mo going through all kinds of fights with the school over my brother, similar to what you are going through. Finally they plaved him in the Ombudsman school (not without her fighting for it though).

Ombudsman was a much smaller class with more teachers per student. They worked with the kids individual needs. But it wasn't one big Learning Disability (LD) calss. If a kid needed his skills taught orally instead of visually, that's what he got. If a kid did great on school work but freaked on tests, they worked around that.

I looked it up, the schools are still in business (www.ombudsman.com). They are not in WI but there are some pretty far north in IL.

Just an alternative idea.

 

[smallworld]

Kjs, I seem to remember you posted that difficult child scored at 70 percent for visual. Is that correct? If so, that may be low for difficult child, but it is not below average. Below average is below 50 percent.

Do you know what tests were done to obtain those percentages?

 

[Kjs]

These were the tests that were done. Again this is what I was told would be done. I have no hard copy of anything.

cognitive Abilities - Woodcock Johnson III tests of cognitive abilities

Academic achievement - WIAT - II Weschler indivicual Acheivement test

Behavior - BASC - Rating Scales

Psychologist specifically used those words and pointed it out on the little graph she drew..."he scored below average for visual, 70% range"

Like I said, I was not given the test results to review, Have not read them myself, only heard very little from her. I just expected I would get a hard copy myself.

 

[klmno]

Ask her to give you a copy of full report to save her time in the future so she won't have to make copies every time a psychiatrist or therapist or other sd people need one. she should give you one.

 

[smallworld]

So they didn't do an IQ test like the WISC-IV?

 

[Kjs]

I specifically asked if she did an IQ test. That is when she showed me the graph she drew, pointed out the x's she had in the 130 range, then noted the one x at 70% telling me that his visual scores were below average which brought his total scores down. However she said even though his scores were brought down by the "below average" score, it is only numbers and he is definately a gifted child. Also went on to say how he processes information differently than the "normal" student. how his thoughts race through his mind faster than he can physically handle therefore causing frustration and causing his inability to write. Not physically being able to keep up with is thoughts.
Was put into IEP that any free style writing such as stories, paragraphs, sentences can be done on the computer in class, any fill in the blank and math worksheets cannot be for obvious reasons. First they tried to tell me that they have limited number of classroom computers and didn't know if they could spare one. At that point a regular ed. teacher piped up and said, any child needing a computer for an accomadation will be given one. That a teacher must give it up to the student in need. Spec. ed. teacher, SW all just say, "oh, okay".
Back to the test. I do not know what any of the tests specifically said, just the graph she drew and where the x's were placed. She did state academically he scored 92% and 99% better than other 7th graders. Not sure what that means either, or what test that came from.

 

[Wiped Out]

Kjs,

"If a child's behavior is a manifestation of their disability they cannot be disciplined for their disability. Is this true?
Can a child with a disability be held to the same Student Code of Condact as students with no disabilities?"

My understanding is they can be disciplined but it might be handled differently. We were dealing with this a lot this year as my difficult child was suspended 7 1/2 days out of school for things we later were determined were due to his disabiity. We came to the agreement that difficult child could not be held to the same code as others. He will no longer be suspended out of school but can be suspended in school.

I'm not sure but I think they can suspend up to 10 days in a row with or without a disability unless it's in his IEP or a they have determined it is a manifestation of his disability.

 

[wakeupcall]

I have hopped up and down about this very thing during my son's last school year (5th). ALL his 22 year old teacher did was to whine to the principal that he wasn't doing his work and they would stuff him in a room and hand him some papers to work on. What?? And he was LEARNING that way? Grrrrrr. As it turned out, we agreed to remove him from his current elementary to another that has classes with teacher/student ratio of 1:2. He has thrived in this atmosphere. Too bad he didn't get more of it before going to intermediate school this coming year. The fact of the matter for your son, mine, and maybe many on this board is that they learn DIFFERENTLY! Who says they all have to learn the same? These teachers have to find a way to teach all children....it's the law!

YOU are entitled to a copy of the entire IEP/BIP. And unfortunately, you'll have to be the monitor to see to it that it's followed to the T!

 

[Sheila]

You need to get a copy of evaluation report(s) prepared by the sd.

You may schedule a meeting with the evaluator to appropriately explain the data and comments contained in the report(s).

Scaled scores, standard scores and percentiles are different, however, they correlate.

Example: The following scores are all dead-on average

Scaled score - 10
Standard score - 100
Percentile - 50

You'll be better able to make sense of the scores once you've received them and have time to review them. http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/tests_measurements.html is a great tool to help parents learn to interpret scores.

Student's with IEPs are held to the same Student Code of Conduct unless the IEP or BIP states differently. EXCEPT, they may not be suspended for more than 10 cummulative days in the school year. This would be considered a "change in placement," and requires a Manifestation Hearing.

The AP is either misinformed or unethical. You'll find your state laws and rules on special education ( http://dpi.state.wi.us/sped/hmlaws.html ) parrallel the Federal regulations. They MUST, or they would loose federal funds.

When I first started trying to learn special education, I printed out the Federal regs and our State regs and rules, put them in binders -- then read them and reread them. Looking at them side-by-side, I could track the similiarities. It helped me a great deal; well worth the cost of paper and toner.

 

[Sheila]

Found http://www2.jsonline.com/news/metro/sep00/mpsletter0920.asp .

You might want to consider contacting these people to see if you can get a lead on a good advocate in your area.

 

[Kjs]

Where would I find the Federal Laws.
I have been reading a lot on Wrights Laws. What exactly is that?

 

[Kjs]

Where would I find the Federal Laws.
I have been reading a lot on Wrights Laws. What exactly is that?

 

[Sheila]

Wright's Law is an excellent parent resource used to gain an understanding of Federal Special Education laws aka IDEA.

The Federal regs are on the internet in several place. Wright's Law is one source -- see http://www.wrightslaw.com/idea/law.htm . http://idea.ed.gov/ is another -- it's published by the US Department of Education.

There are others.

I also love the supplement from the Feds at https://web.archive.org/web/2008051...0/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2006/pdf/06-6656.pdf. I find their "Discussion" sections after each reg/rule very helpful.