Originally Posted by
sste
Hill, I might prepare a few things:
1. Some sort of list or chart for your own reference and discussion with the school of enumerated ways the social and OT pieces have impaired his access to the general curriculum. Is there any evidence in that testing that shows he cannot write fast enough to keep up? Any work samples you can bring in that are incomplete due to him running out of time due to slow writing? Any incidents with approximate dates of when your DS or the teacher reported social or OT concerns and specifically how this impacted his ability to benefit from school curriculum. A lot of people keep logs and record incidents, their child coming home upset about something at school, anything that builds an evidence base for disability that is impacting classroom functioning.
2. I would also bring for distribution a list or chart of ALL of the outside services your DS has received and continues to receive -- hours, dates, etc. Legally there is an obligation to take into account when the child is being kept afloat via outside services.
3. If the meeting does not go the way you want I would bring with you your written request for a comprehensive IEE for sld, social-emotional, speech, and OT at public expense (in other words, whatever they previously evaluated and said he didn't qualify for services for). Whip it out at the end, write hand delivered and the date, and hand it to them. You are ready to play ball, kwim.
4. Do you have any evidence, meeting notes, anything of your prior meeting when they encouraged you to retain DS? IMO, it calls into question their child find obligations to retain a child (who has private evals showing disability areas and receives hours of private services weekly) and then say that child is not disabled. They have state and federal obligations to find and identify children with disabilities.
5. It is very hard to wrangle services out of a lot of these schools. It is not you.
6. Timing counts for a lot. If you can find a time period when your son is having outbursts in school or you have any documentation from the teacher about his handwriting etc., then strike (again) when the iron is hot. My son got his IEP (with much bulldozing on my part) because we had him tested and identified before he receive a lot of services in early first grade. He has received over 150 hours of orton gillingham/Wilson dyslexia services ON TOP of his school day and he is now at the 24th percentile for reading based on age, a little higher based on grade. It would have been harder to qualify him at this point in time because they consider 25th percentile average and therefore the argument is he is average it is not impeding access and function in the classroom. However, I can keep him an IEP for a while longer with the argument that he only got to slightly below average/average by virtue of his services (this in in fact true there was no sudden click, it was hours upon hours of work). The school knew all of this and that is why they totally opposed my getting an IEP early. In your case, I would keep logs, journals, all of his take home work, every communication from the teacher to build your case and, assuming you are not successful this go around, leap on it as soon as he starts having documentable issues. I know some people that have had to stop private services in order to build that case . . . I would personally be reluctant to do that, esp given the variable quality of the school services you may receive after this sh*t ton of fighting.