Squirt,
I thought I'd take a stab at trying to answer your first question. Dottie and Grinity were invaluable sources of support and suggestions this past year as I attempted to navigate some of the same issues you mention.
First, can you get your foot in the door with the head of Special Education department (or whatever your district calls it)? It seemed to me that our principal really wasn't in the loop as far as understanding what the test scores meant. The Special Ed director seemed to get the scores and although still giving me party line, she did get some balls rolling.
Second, the school is probably going to want to do their own evaluations, these may not necessarily override your existing test results but help to placate the bureaucracy and the powers that be. If you can try to get them on a time table such as we will meet in 6 weeks to discuss the reuslts of the school's testing, things seem to get done.
Third, keep a written record of all conversations. I found it effective to talk by phone in more informal and relaxed fashion and then follow up the phone conversations with an email detailing my understanding of the conversation and requesting confirmation from the school.
Fourth, keep pushing in a friendly concerned parent fashion if they try to brush you off. If you can place more emphasis on your child's emotional state you will most likely get more faster from the school. Stomache aches, trouble sleeping, stress all get the school's attention faster than my child already knows what you are trying to teach. Don't lie, but don't be afraid to bring these up if they are occuring.
Fifth, don't accept a once a year evaluation at first. Make sure that you meet with them every 3-6 months to make sure that the program that they work out is working. We had an amazing change in attitude from our first meeting in November to our second in April. We still lost an entire academic year but we did get alot of positives for next year. It took the school that first 6 months to realize that we weren't just pushy parents. In fact, they are doing some things for next term that we were told in the Fall that they never do and aren't allowed to do.
We provided indepentent testing from the WISC IV, WJ-3 Ach, SCAT and a full neuropsych evaluation. We presented the results more as a this is what we know and we hope you find it useful approach. The school then did a short version of the WISC-IV and grudgingly put him in the pull-out. From there it seemed to be a matter of staying in close contact with the Special Ed Director and letting them start to draw their own conclusions.
I do think that the talent search test was very useful. We were trying to show the school that our son needed more in Math than he was getting.
If the school comes back saying he needs a skip of some kind, will your husband accept it better?
Good luck
