Need Help Please.....

Avatar for liisad
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Need Help Please.....
5
Thu, 09-01-2005 - 1:28pm

I am actually posting this question for a friend of mine. You ladies have helped me so much in the past I recommended a friend come here also. She is having trouble accessing the site so she asked me to post for her. I will forward all of your replies directly to her.

My friend Lisa recently found out her son has autism. She and her husband have done a wonderful job of accepting the dx and hitting the ground running. They are, however, feeling a bit overwhelmed when dealing with the school. Her son presently attends the local public school and is in a regular ed kindergarten class. The school has told her they will be unable to evaluate her son for services (speech. OT & PT) until Dec and then write his IEP after that. In an effort to speed up the process a bit she offered to have the testing done privately. The school is telling her THEY have to be the ones to do the evaluations and they can't/won't accept any outside evals. Both of my sons have HFA and we have always relied on private evals. With both kids we had their ST, OT & PT evals done privately and the school not only accepted them but said thanks for saving us the trouble. I was under the impression that they HAD to accept any evals you present. Am I wrong (won't be the first time)? So, her questions are....should she fight them on this? Is the school in the wrong legally by saying she can't have private testing done? What should her next few steps be? Any information or similar personal stories you can give would help a ton.

Thank you guys so much. You have helped me many times in the past and I learn something new every time I visit this site. Hopefully me friend Lisa will be posting her herself soon.

Thanks again,
Liisa

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Thu, 09-01-2005 - 2:41pm

Liisa,

Where is Lisa located? The US or Canada? If in the U.S.A., what State? I know that that behaviour on the part of the school is totally out of line for NYS, but although IDEA is a federal guideline, the implementation differs from state-to-state (and county-county, district-district!)

I do know that most school districts insist upon doing ther own testing, but they have to take outide testing into consideration (in NYS, anyway). I also know that under IDEA there is a minimum waitng period for testing after a referral to a school district, which usually rounds out to about 60 days. The question for your district is what constitutes a referral? In NY and CA, a parent request constitues a referral, but this is not true nationwide. Perhaps you can try to find out what the rule is locally? Start with the child's pediatrician. They should know the law locally, and perhaps a letter from the Ped to the school district will be the referral required under local regulations to get this process formally underway. It is unacceptable to have to wait until Dec for evaluations to even begin.

HTH and good luck,

-Paula

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
Avatar for liisad
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Thu, 09-01-2005 - 5:28pm

Whoops....I forgot to add that she lives in CA, sorry!

Thanks again for your help

Liisa

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Thu, 09-01-2005 - 6:17pm

Don't know much about CA, but there are others on this board who do. Hang in there. there should be some responses on this thread. From what I do know, the SD is way out of line, and she has a good case to fight.

-Paula

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 09-01-2005 - 7:12pm

ok, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel better now. I haven't even read through all the posts cause I have limited time but enough to say the district is flat out messing with her and I live in CA.

If you want you can send her my email rbaer4@sbcglobal.net and I can help her with lots of her questions. I have read the state code book nearly cover to cover. OK, not quite but close.

On the first problem. Easy solve, the district must have an assessment plan to the mom within 2 weeks and must complete and have an IEP within 50 days (calendar not school) of the original written request. vacations over 5 school days don't count in the fifty but any 5 and under do.

So for instance if she writes a request tomorrow, by law they need to have the assessment plan to her to sign by sept 15, and and IEP by October 20 as long as her district doesn't have a vacation which lasts longer than a week in that time (we have a 2 week vacation in october so it is possible). If they did then depending on the vacation it would be due by the end of october, early november.

Also, there is no acceptable reason to extend an IEP other than there is some special testing that needs to be done and there is no one in district that can do it and private people contracted aren't available either within the time period. That is it and that is actually rare. Particularly since that should only be the case with very specialized tests. Regular psychological, speech and OT should all be within district.

Hope that helps, when I have time I will read the rest of the posts. Paulas info is ALWAYS stellar but I had to but in when you said CA. What area is she?

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Thu, 09-01-2005 - 7:20pm

Our school district (in fact all of those in Oregon) have a timeline they have to follow. They had something like 30-45 days after we contracted them to complete all of the evaluations. Now, this was for early intervension, so I am not sure if it would be different for school age children.

Although my school district appreciated us giving them all of the doctor's reports, they did have to complete all of their prescribed testing before completing an IEP.

If I were your friend I would be doing 3 things:
1) Find out what sort of requirements there are time-wise for completing evaluations through the school district.
2) Go up to chain and contact the superintendent of school for her area if needed to see why there is such a delay and what can be done.
3) Find out if there are any parent advocate groups in her area that can help her move through the red tape. I know I constantly get flyers now from parent advocate groups willing to help us.

There is just no way it is ok to wait 5 months to do the eval and start any special classes that may help her son! That is wasting half of the school year when they could be making real progress. I hope someone is able to help her.