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Special Ed 101
Help, school taking away iep.. Says she met the standards and i don't agree
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<blockquote data-quote="rlsnights" data-source="post: 426219" data-attributes="member: 7948"><p>If you don't want to go full bore into fighting with them you could propose that the current IEP stay in place and the team agree to meet again in the fall after she's been in 5th grade for a couple of months to reconsider placement. This may be acceptable to them or not. If not, then I think you need to ask for additional assessment from the district. What you ask for will depend on what has already been done and whether the assessments were targeted correctly. Hopefully you can get what you need without asking for an IEE. If you can afford to do some assessments privately or can get your health insurance to do anything like the Occupational Therapist (OT) assessment then you may want to do that over the summer so you have new ammunition to bring to the table next fall.</p><p></p><p>I think you need to look carefully at the speech assessment (I'm assuming one was done) and the Woodcock Johnson (WJ) subtest scores. Schools often focus on only the broad scores on the Woodcock Johnson and disregard subtest scores that point to a pattern of strength/weakness that ends up being "average" when you combine all the scores.</p><p></p><p>She probably has low fluency rates in reading and writing.</p><p></p><p>The WJ test results should be presented with several columns of information starting with the Cluster scores followed by the subtest scores. Most districts look only at the SS (standard scores) of the clusters and if they're less than 1.5 deviations from the mean (i.e. 85 or above) they consider the child to be performing OK. </p><p></p><p>A more helpful way (in my opinion) of understanding the scores is to look at both the RPI and the SS. RPI tells you how your child is expected to perform in the classroom by describing where she lies on the continuum of proficiency. WJ assumes the average student will be able to perform a grade level task with 90% proficiency. So if she has an RPI of 65/90 that means she is predicted to have 65% proficiency at a grade level task. This tells you how hard or easy grade level tasks are for her. An RPI of 76 to 90 is considered acceptable. Less than 76 would suggest she finds that grade level task very hard.</p><p></p><p>But you need to also look at the corresponding SS for that task. If her RPI is 70 but the SS is 85 or greater that tells you about the variation in the abilities of students in that grade/age group to do that task. A combination of RPI 70 and SS of 85 tells you that there's a big variation in how many kids have mastered this task at that grade level. And a combination of an RPI of 80 (in the normal range) and a SS of 75 tells you that there's not much variation - most of the kids have mastered that task.</p><p></p><p>Ignore the AE (age equivalent) and GE (grade equivalent) scores. they are worthless.</p><p></p><p>You want to see what they were assessing when they did the speech assessment and what testing instruments they used. Again you may need subtest scores to help interpret the results. In particular if they did the TOPL-2 look to see if they did the informal testing that looks at effective communication. If it was done and reported it should have been in the narrative description of results. It is reported as either a ratio (successful trials/attempts) or a percentage if it is reported at all. This part is not "normed" and has no standard score. But it is also an area that may show some serious problems in communication. If it's not reported ask the speech therapist who did the assessment if it was done but she didn't report it.</p><p></p><p>A lot of kids in 4th are still struggling with division and long multiplication so that is not actually unusual.</p><p></p><p>Spelling mistakes on small words is interesting and may signal an underlying learning disability or attention problems. Does she also have trouble with learning spelling strategies like using root words/prefixes/suffixes?</p><p></p><p>It's also not uncommon for kids as late as 4th to make occasional reversal errors. Consistent reversals across all work samples is not normal.</p><p></p><p>Occupational Therapist (OT) - well in our case my son still has significant coordination issues at 15. He is unable to ride a bike and can barely do a skateboard. But our experience was that, unless the kid can't walk across the room or has some obvious physical disability that requires adaptive PE, you will not continue to get Occupational Therapist (OT) through the school at that age. She should have been able to skip (in a traditional matter) by age 7 or 8 but my son still can't do that either. Can she cross the midline? If not then you may be able to make a case for continuing Occupational Therapist (OT).</p><p></p><p>If you have work samples from her that suggest she is having more problems than are being reported I think you should bring them to the meeting and ask the teacher to address your questions. I did that when they told me my daughter could do multiplication and division in 4th grade. She could barely follow one step directions let alone do a division problem. The school had brought in the spanish teacher instead of her regular teacher as the general ed teacher for the meeting. I told them I didn't feel my daughter's grades were an accurate representation of her skills and the temperature in the room dropped to below freezing. They said - are you saying her report card grades are not accurate. I said yes that's what I'm saying. I passed out copies of my daughter's homework and the meeting was abruptly shut down by the principal who said that the classroom teacher needed to be there to defend herself. Duh.</p><p></p><p>Bottom line is you need more info and you need to understand the info that you have/get. Wright's Law has an excellent tutorial on understanding test scores that you may find helpful if things like Standard Scores is new to you.</p><p></p><p>Patricia</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rlsnights, post: 426219, member: 7948"] If you don't want to go full bore into fighting with them you could propose that the current IEP stay in place and the team agree to meet again in the fall after she's been in 5th grade for a couple of months to reconsider placement. This may be acceptable to them or not. If not, then I think you need to ask for additional assessment from the district. What you ask for will depend on what has already been done and whether the assessments were targeted correctly. Hopefully you can get what you need without asking for an IEE. If you can afford to do some assessments privately or can get your health insurance to do anything like the Occupational Therapist (OT) assessment then you may want to do that over the summer so you have new ammunition to bring to the table next fall. I think you need to look carefully at the speech assessment (I'm assuming one was done) and the Woodcock Johnson (WJ) subtest scores. Schools often focus on only the broad scores on the Woodcock Johnson and disregard subtest scores that point to a pattern of strength/weakness that ends up being "average" when you combine all the scores. She probably has low fluency rates in reading and writing. The WJ test results should be presented with several columns of information starting with the Cluster scores followed by the subtest scores. Most districts look only at the SS (standard scores) of the clusters and if they're less than 1.5 deviations from the mean (i.e. 85 or above) they consider the child to be performing OK. A more helpful way (in my opinion) of understanding the scores is to look at both the RPI and the SS. RPI tells you how your child is expected to perform in the classroom by describing where she lies on the continuum of proficiency. WJ assumes the average student will be able to perform a grade level task with 90% proficiency. So if she has an RPI of 65/90 that means she is predicted to have 65% proficiency at a grade level task. This tells you how hard or easy grade level tasks are for her. An RPI of 76 to 90 is considered acceptable. Less than 76 would suggest she finds that grade level task very hard. But you need to also look at the corresponding SS for that task. If her RPI is 70 but the SS is 85 or greater that tells you about the variation in the abilities of students in that grade/age group to do that task. A combination of RPI 70 and SS of 85 tells you that there's a big variation in how many kids have mastered this task at that grade level. And a combination of an RPI of 80 (in the normal range) and a SS of 75 tells you that there's not much variation - most of the kids have mastered that task. Ignore the AE (age equivalent) and GE (grade equivalent) scores. they are worthless. You want to see what they were assessing when they did the speech assessment and what testing instruments they used. Again you may need subtest scores to help interpret the results. In particular if they did the TOPL-2 look to see if they did the informal testing that looks at effective communication. If it was done and reported it should have been in the narrative description of results. It is reported as either a ratio (successful trials/attempts) or a percentage if it is reported at all. This part is not "normed" and has no standard score. But it is also an area that may show some serious problems in communication. If it's not reported ask the speech therapist who did the assessment if it was done but she didn't report it. A lot of kids in 4th are still struggling with division and long multiplication so that is not actually unusual. Spelling mistakes on small words is interesting and may signal an underlying learning disability or attention problems. Does she also have trouble with learning spelling strategies like using root words/prefixes/suffixes? It's also not uncommon for kids as late as 4th to make occasional reversal errors. Consistent reversals across all work samples is not normal. Occupational Therapist (OT) - well in our case my son still has significant coordination issues at 15. He is unable to ride a bike and can barely do a skateboard. But our experience was that, unless the kid can't walk across the room or has some obvious physical disability that requires adaptive PE, you will not continue to get Occupational Therapist (OT) through the school at that age. She should have been able to skip (in a traditional matter) by age 7 or 8 but my son still can't do that either. Can she cross the midline? If not then you may be able to make a case for continuing Occupational Therapist (OT). If you have work samples from her that suggest she is having more problems than are being reported I think you should bring them to the meeting and ask the teacher to address your questions. I did that when they told me my daughter could do multiplication and division in 4th grade. She could barely follow one step directions let alone do a division problem. The school had brought in the spanish teacher instead of her regular teacher as the general ed teacher for the meeting. I told them I didn't feel my daughter's grades were an accurate representation of her skills and the temperature in the room dropped to below freezing. They said - are you saying her report card grades are not accurate. I said yes that's what I'm saying. I passed out copies of my daughter's homework and the meeting was abruptly shut down by the principal who said that the classroom teacher needed to be there to defend herself. Duh. Bottom line is you need more info and you need to understand the info that you have/get. Wright's Law has an excellent tutorial on understanding test scores that you may find helpful if things like Standard Scores is new to you. Patricia [/QUOTE]
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Help, school taking away iep.. Says she met the standards and i don't agree
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