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Special Ed 101
IEP vs. 504, adverse ed. impact
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<blockquote data-quote="Martie" data-source="post: 5401" data-attributes="member: 284"><p>Dear Chris,</p><p></p><p>SD are reluctant to put children on IEPs because of what is PROBABLY GOING TO happen as the work becomes more difficult and abstract. However, this "waiting to fail," issue is becoming big as Sheila said, and is not required by law. The longer you support your child with outside tutoring and other supports that the school may or may not acknowledge, the longer it will be before he fails. No child should HAVE to fail to get services. you said, "he likes school," That's really good but it won't last if he is failing.</p><p></p><p>I would point out the above to the school. The "flex serve" model emphasizes effective intervention to prevent failure and represents "highly effective practices" which the law requires (not to be confused by "best education," which the Supreme Court barred in Rowley, 1982)</p><p></p><p>As far as a 504 plan: they really work best for accommodations of a physical nature (second set of books, extra time, different location) rather than educational services to the child per se. Other problems with 504s include</p><p>1) You have no participatory rights as you do with and IEP</p><p>2) There is no monitoring requirement</p><p>3) There are no clear rules for writing the goals (as you found out--you dont even know who is writing it.)</p><p></p><p>I always say that the "proof" 504s are weak is the frequency with which schools offer them. Recently, there have been some posts about people being offered 504s without evaluations--this is not your situation but it happens to be illegal.</p><p></p><p>I know you will do whatever it takes to help your child--we all do that as much as we can. Eventually, however, your child may fail and THEN qualify. By then, he will have lots of other problems. The SD cannot arbitrarily set an all-purpose level of failure:</p><p></p><p>Look at what would be going on with any intellectually gifted child--he or she could never qualify because until adolescence (and school refusal--and total shut down that often occurs then) there is almost never that level of failure (lowest 2 to5%). The criterion is "negative educational impact." How can a child who is operating well below potential not be having a negative educational impact?</p><p></p><p>In one of the threads Sheila cited, I comment at length on how I got my ex-difficult child qualified (as SED) even though he was at or above grade level. I know you son does not have these problems and granted, mine had a bunch of behaviors that the school found to be bothersome (being euphemistic--they found him to be a PITA--which is not an eligibility category.) However, under the reasoning your SD is using, they would have found my son NOT to be in the lower 2 to 5% and therefore not qualified. </p><p></p><p>Bottom line is a SD cannot use an arbitrary cut-off on a OSFA basis. Whether to take them on at this time or wait for failure is a tougher call BECAUSE you are happy with the teacher. I think I would have the above theoretical discussion with them (and make the points of law outlined to lay a foundation) and then monitor your son's percentile ranks VERY carefully. If he is not gaining at the exact rate he should be, i.e., nine months of reading gain in nine month's time, his percentile rank will drop. Dropping percentile ranks is one of the surest measures of negative educational impact. This is explained in the Wright's book <em>Emotions to Advocacy</em> which I recommend to people as a good source on the meaning and uses of dropping percentile ranks. It is on this basis that Pete Wright won the Carter case before the Supreme Court. The same information also may be on their website for free (<a href="http://www.wrightslaw.com" target="_blank">www.wrightslaw.com</a>)</p><p></p><p>Finally, on the subject of support: I stopped supporting homework because it was ruining our lives. Not surprisingly, as soon as ex-difficult child just did not do homework and found out there was not really anything the school could do about it (except give him bad grades) THEY were in the "Catch 22" because if they were consistent and graded him down for lack of homework, they would "prove" the negative impact. As I said, the real reason for my resigning from homework is what it was doing to our family but what it did to the school was also part of the qualification mix. It was such a big issue that eventually, homework reduction was a major part of his IEP. Of course, I took a lot of flack for my resignation, but I asked if they really wanted to see how well <strong>I</strong> could do the work which is, of course, what would have been going on had I continued. They would have been happy with that myth as long as I would have kept perpetuating it. I decided to stop and then the negative impact became very obvious. There were a few rough months while they "motivated" ex-difficult child to do homework through various ineffective means but in the end of course, no one can ever win with a passive-aggressive kid. No homework was done; they feared contagion; so they gave up and qualified him.</p><p></p><p>Although there are major differences in the details, I think the themes are similar enough to be worth mentioning, including that my "resignation" came during 4th grade. This is when kids who are bright but have EF or serious motivational problems start to fall apart.</p><p></p><p>Martie</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Martie, post: 5401, member: 284"] Dear Chris, SD are reluctant to put children on IEPs because of what is PROBABLY GOING TO happen as the work becomes more difficult and abstract. However, this "waiting to fail," issue is becoming big as Sheila said, and is not required by law. The longer you support your child with outside tutoring and other supports that the school may or may not acknowledge, the longer it will be before he fails. No child should HAVE to fail to get services. you said, "he likes school," That's really good but it won't last if he is failing. I would point out the above to the school. The "flex serve" model emphasizes effective intervention to prevent failure and represents "highly effective practices" which the law requires (not to be confused by "best education," which the Supreme Court barred in Rowley, 1982) As far as a 504 plan: they really work best for accommodations of a physical nature (second set of books, extra time, different location) rather than educational services to the child per se. Other problems with 504s include 1) You have no participatory rights as you do with and IEP 2) There is no monitoring requirement 3) There are no clear rules for writing the goals (as you found out--you dont even know who is writing it.) I always say that the "proof" 504s are weak is the frequency with which schools offer them. Recently, there have been some posts about people being offered 504s without evaluations--this is not your situation but it happens to be illegal. I know you will do whatever it takes to help your child--we all do that as much as we can. Eventually, however, your child may fail and THEN qualify. By then, he will have lots of other problems. The SD cannot arbitrarily set an all-purpose level of failure: Look at what would be going on with any intellectually gifted child--he or she could never qualify because until adolescence (and school refusal--and total shut down that often occurs then) there is almost never that level of failure (lowest 2 to5%). The criterion is "negative educational impact." How can a child who is operating well below potential not be having a negative educational impact? In one of the threads Sheila cited, I comment at length on how I got my ex-difficult child qualified (as SED) even though he was at or above grade level. I know you son does not have these problems and granted, mine had a bunch of behaviors that the school found to be bothersome (being euphemistic--they found him to be a PITA--which is not an eligibility category.) However, under the reasoning your SD is using, they would have found my son NOT to be in the lower 2 to 5% and therefore not qualified. Bottom line is a SD cannot use an arbitrary cut-off on a OSFA basis. Whether to take them on at this time or wait for failure is a tougher call BECAUSE you are happy with the teacher. I think I would have the above theoretical discussion with them (and make the points of law outlined to lay a foundation) and then monitor your son's percentile ranks VERY carefully. If he is not gaining at the exact rate he should be, i.e., nine months of reading gain in nine month's time, his percentile rank will drop. Dropping percentile ranks is one of the surest measures of negative educational impact. This is explained in the Wright's book [i]Emotions to Advocacy[/i] which I recommend to people as a good source on the meaning and uses of dropping percentile ranks. It is on this basis that Pete Wright won the Carter case before the Supreme Court. The same information also may be on their website for free ([url]www.wrightslaw.com[/url]) Finally, on the subject of support: I stopped supporting homework because it was ruining our lives. Not surprisingly, as soon as ex-difficult child just did not do homework and found out there was not really anything the school could do about it (except give him bad grades) THEY were in the "Catch 22" because if they were consistent and graded him down for lack of homework, they would "prove" the negative impact. As I said, the real reason for my resigning from homework is what it was doing to our family but what it did to the school was also part of the qualification mix. It was such a big issue that eventually, homework reduction was a major part of his IEP. Of course, I took a lot of flack for my resignation, but I asked if they really wanted to see how well [b]I[/b] could do the work which is, of course, what would have been going on had I continued. They would have been happy with that myth as long as I would have kept perpetuating it. I decided to stop and then the negative impact became very obvious. There were a few rough months while they "motivated" ex-difficult child to do homework through various ineffective means but in the end of course, no one can ever win with a passive-aggressive kid. No homework was done; they feared contagion; so they gave up and qualified him. Although there are major differences in the details, I think the themes are similar enough to be worth mentioning, including that my "resignation" came during 4th grade. This is when kids who are bright but have EF or serious motivational problems start to fall apart. Martie [/QUOTE]
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