Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Please help, I'm in tears with frustration

So my ds8 is twice exceptional, with ADHD, asp, and exceptionally gifted. He scored very high on the Scat for 2nd graders as well as wisc iv. He has a very high reading level and comprehension, loves reading any chance he gets, and excels at high levels of math and spatial concepts.

He attends a public school and they have a GT program that only allows kids entrance if they score high enough on the cogat exam, have excellent communicative skills, is an excellent quality producer, and excellent self directed learner, as well as have excellent teacher ratings. For the last three years, he has always scored high enough academically to get into the gt program but could never score in the excellent range for the other aspects they also consider as the three ring concept of giftedness.

We spoke to the school about having an I.E.P for my son because of asp, ADHD, and they said that he doesn't qualify because he isn't doing poorly at school and can keep up fine. But we keep telling the school that he is just compensating because he is highly intelligent. But he does have social issues, very poor handwriting, concentration problems, and behavioral issues. The school says he can't be in both special education and gifted program because they are just the opposite. Their recommendation is to just work with him at home.

I am so frustrated I'm at my wits end. I do work with him at home but there has to be more the school can do otherwise he will always hit this road block of high potential but mediocre achievement. And the thing that is most frustrating is if he had just giftedness, or just learning issues then he could be in these individualized programs. But because he is twice exceptional he can't be in either one of them?!!?

I have also asked about subject acceleration and they said they don't accommodate that and I asked about grade acceleration and they said he isn't getting perfect grades and he has social issues. They said for example he knows the math and language arts concepts but isn't writing down the explanations in full detail and clearly conveying the written concepts. But I keep telling them that's because many aspie kids have poor written output! You see my frustration now?

I am so sorry for your situation. It sounds as though the school is so rigid and uninformed. It also sounds as though the program is aimed at high-performers, not necessarily highly gifted children.

Is there any other school choice in your area?

You could try sharing some info found here:

http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/2e.index.htm

I'm sorry for your frustration. It's rough when you don't feel the school cares about supporting your child.

that seems like a fundamental understanding of what gifted kids often really need! Im so sorry!

How frustrating! Have they never heard of a 2e child??? The school is in need of some serious education.

I think it is time to consider getting a lawyer involved, at a very minimum, to make certain that the school isn't ignoring his struggles. Even if your state does not require that anything be done for gifted students, most states do require that schools help students who struggle.

I'm so sorry your child's school is being so difficult. I'm frustrated just reading your post.

My child has an IEP and has always done very well in school. So NO a child does not have to be doing poorly to get either an IEP or a 504!

I sounds like your child's school may be misinformed as to the law. Eco2168 beat me to the information on wrightslaw. This blog post explains some of what wrightslaw has and is an easy read. http://makingschoolwork.com/finally-some-good-news-for-gifted-and-disabled-2/

see also: http://www.nagc.org/sites/default/f...s%20Receive%20Appropriate%20Services.pdf

Your child's school needs to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of your child (they will want to do as limited of an evaluation as possible but don't let them). I'd focus on getting the IEP in place first. After the IEP and accommodations are in place, I'd then focus on the acceleration.

If the school isn't willing to work with you. You may need to find an attorney who specializes in Special Education Law. Or at least a special education advocate.

That's the thing, the school is saying yes he has struggles but it's not enough to warrant an IEP, just more encouragement needed. We tried to go the route of competitive private schools, but he didn't get accepted because his grades aren't high enough and he has social and behavior problems. We didn't consider other expensive less competitive private schools because of the cost.

There aren't really any other options of public school choices where we live. I do supplemental enrichment work with him at home, but I feel this is not enough. I'm planning on applying him for DYS later this month. Do you think their gifted counselors would have an effective way of helping to advocate his situation? His neuropsychologist is trying as well but the school seems not to bend. I wonder if contacting the school district board would help? I really don't want to get a lawyer involved, due to cost and undue exposure for my son. But it is something to consider in the future. I have read the articles on Wright's law, and FAPE, but it is subjective on what "appropriate" means.

Also, regarding the three ring concept of giftedness, does anyone else's school district have such a thing? Because I don't really understand why being a good communicator, quality producer, or self directed learner really has anything to do with giftedness, that seems more like achievement than cognitive ability.

I ran into a similar situation with our ds10. He is 2e. He had an IEP from 0-5 and in special education due to being born with physical issues but then scored in the 99% in achievement tests when he was 6.5 yrs old. Public school wanted to keep him in special education but then I withdrew ds and put him in a private gifted school - which couldn't accommodate the special needs. I then got him re-tested with the public schools who recognized he was 2e but was told that they would do absolutely nothing because there was no state mandate for giftedness and my ds no longer qualified for or warranted special education or an IEP though he still had special needs (and still does) - which the public school recognized. So I've been homeschooling since he was 6.5 yrs old.

Many other parents find themselves in this situation with 2e kids since there are not many schools who can (or are willing) to accommodate 2e kids, especially when they're hg, eg, or pg. Many parents end up homeschooling as a result, mainly out of default from dealing with the public schools over it.

Try to exhaust all your options, even so crazy ones perhaps. Try to work with the public school in your area first. Then, see what's around or alternative options for private - or alternative public school options. IS school choice an option at neighboring school districts? IS it possible to move, for instance? After that point, you'll have to re-assess the situation. A lot of this is going to depend on where you live and how flexible or accommodating (or not) your public school will be and how much time, energy, and patience you may have. Perhaps your state or area has a Dept of Ed that deals with this sort of thing or an ombudsman that may help? Our state did not. DYS wouldn't have made any difference either with our state.

I had a 2e expert advise me that the choices are: public school, private school, and then homeschooling. After exhausting both the public school and private school options in our area/state, I was left with the third option - homeschooling. I'd say it's the least-worst case situation. It's better than public or private at the moment. It doesn't necessarily mean that in time things won't change. Nothing is etched in stone and most decisions are subject to change. Yes, it's not something I had planned or necessarily wanted, but then I didn't bargain on having a 2e child either and well, what can you do? There are limits in life.

Sounds exactly like our school district. They only want high achieving, "tow the line" kinda kids. We, like cdfox, ended up pulling our twins out of public and homeschooling. Our twins were not failing enough for public school to do something but failing enough not to get in the couple of gifted private schools in our area. That being said, I have seen my kids do a 180 in motivation and stress levels.

Our district refused to write an IEP because DD was not "failing", but she was not writing more than 2-3 sentences in class. When they do standardized testing, it is always for reading/math and she does great on those tests. They hyperfocused on her math/reading scores and didn't seem to care that she was barely writing anything in class. I asked for an eval and the longest writing piece (and only writing piece) they looked at was 2 sentences long, vs. almost every other student writing more. They computed a range of scores with my DD near the bottom. They claimed "She is in the range, therefore services aren't warranted". (What?!).

I dug up all the State manuals for various disability categories, like specific learning disorder (written expression) and Other Health Disability (ADHD). There was nothing in there about a student needing to be failing. For the SLD category, she had the large discrepancy between cognitive ability and achievement. However, her writing score on the WJ was NOT below average, because she was able to use cognitive ability to compensate on some parts of the test, putting her composite in the average range. Since her classroom writing was clearly impaired, she should have been able to easily qualify for an IEP in either category, but the school insisted she has to have below average test scores. To say this was frustrating was an understatement. All that the law says is that a students educational performance or achievement has to be impacted compared to typical peers, at least to qualify for the ADHD. But the school took a very rigid approach, equating achievement or performance to mean "below average range on tests". Classroom work didn't really matter to them.

We ended up switching schools and they classified her as Other Health Disability for ADHD. That category is more flexible than others.

So my suggestion is to look up manuals, eligibility checklists, etc. from your State. You can try calling the State Dept. of Ed and talk to someone in special ed compliance. Also, put in a written request for a comprehensive eval. If they fight you they have to go through a formal process. Also, make sure they have any outside neuropsych evals and ask the neuropsych to recommend an IEP in the report. The school has to consider outside evals. If they refuse, you can go through the formal process to fight them (like due process), but you need things in writing going back and forth.

Have you tried looking for a parent advocate? There are groups that are federally funded in some areas, we found our state's advocate group in the yellow pages at wrightslaw. We were in a tough situation when we were trying to advocate for services/help for our 2e ds in elementary school, and had many of the same situations happen that you've experienced, including being told that ds couldn't be in the gifted program and have an IEP or 504. We also had many of the same frustrations that blackcat experienced.

We did eventually succeed in getting our ds an IEP. The one thing that helped more than anything else was being able to call up our advocate for advice - and we didn't need much, but what we got was two-fold and key. The advocate was first, very familiar with the local schools and even staff within the schools in some instances (because the advocate worked with multiple families). This local knowledge helped us (parents) understand a bit better what we were dealing with. Sorry don't know exactly how to explain it, but it did help! Second, and even more importantly, the advocate gave us key words/phrases to use when we responded that took the emotion out of our responses and helped us keep meetings on track. For instance, our school really did not want to give our ds (or probably any child) an IEP, so they would construct very specific examples to prove that there wasn't an issue and present that as evidence. For example, to prove ds (who is severely dysgraphic and has an expressive language disorder) didn't have an issue with handwriting, they had all the students in his class copy a paragraph from the board and they timed it. They then claimed that ds' time was "in the middle - not the fastest, not the slowest" therefore no issue. Our advocate helped us see that the best way to respond to a tactic like that was to not show any emotion, and also not to give in, but to just refocus the meeting on the facts you had and why you were there. For instance, when ds was compared to other students, our advocate had us tell the IEP team "we're not here to discuss other students, we're here to discuss ds". When they showed an example like I mentioned here, we would not respond to that example at all but instead reply by restating that ds is known to have "x" disability, it impacts him in "y" way with re to classroom academics, and state the proof we had (neurospcyh eval, examples of classwork, data we'd collected at home etc) that proved it. Usually that was all info they already had and that we'd stated many times previously, but the point was - it served to get past a smoke-screenish type of road block tactic the district was using to discourage us as parents from continuing to request what our ds needed.

The third thing we received from the advocate was *knowledge* - although most of the state and district policy/etc is all online and researchable by any parent, it helped having someone who knew it inside and out tell us what it was and what applied in any particular situation, and also knew when we a policy was a hard rule vs a guideline. Our school was expecting (and hoping) parents would come to eligibility and IEP meetings uninformed about the law and district policy.

Last thing I'll add - like blackcat's experience, it's also much easier in our district to qualify for an IEP under OHI, and that's how students with ASD and ADHD are most often qualified. Our ds doesn't have a diagnosis that would qualify him under OHI, but our advocate had recommended that if he did, we should absolutely try that avenue first, as it was a more direct, easier qualification and once he had the IEP, he could get the services he needed to address his academic challenges.

Last note, even though we did successfully advocate for an IEP for our 2e ds, at a very resistant school, the school didn't magically change in terms of philosophy or caring once he had an IEP - which means they didn't follow it and ds didn't get the help he really really needed, and we did ultimately switch to private school. I'm sorry there aren't more options where you're at to change schools - are there any optional or charter public schools? Sometimes it's just the attitude and staff at a school that are the issue, and going to a different school if there's any way possible to do so might make all the difference in the world.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - my other recommendation as you continue to advocate - put everything in writing (emails are ok for this). If you are told something like "ds can't be in gifted program if he has an IEP", after that conversation is over, write an email, briefly summarize what was said, say that you want to make sure you understood what was said correctly (essentially offer a chance for the person to retract it), send the email to the person who told you that and cc everyone else who was present at the time. We did this with every messy conversation we had with school staff where something that wasn't exactly "right" was said by the school, because we knew the school would not put anything that wasn't legal or could be considered bullying in writing. We would either get no response at all or a retraction stating that we'd misunderstood - while we of course, hadn't misunderstood at all what was clearly said, we then had the legally correct information in writing, from the school.

Our district has a matrix that's used in elementary school to qualify for the gifted program, and it includes things such as this. While those other qualities aren't definitions of intellectual giftedness, and shouldn't be things that keep an intellectually gifted student out of a gifted program, they are also qualities that take people far in life and enable elementary school students to be successful in the classroom. My ds has struggled tremendously with communication (he has an expressive language disorder which impacts writing as well as speech), and his self-motivation took a huge hit particularly in elementary school due to his 2nd e challenges. He didn't look gifted at all if you looked at him in any other light than his intellectual ability. The thing is - we advocated like crazy to get past that as a bar to entrance into the district gifted program, but at the same time we worked like crazy with him to help him improve in those areas too, because ultimately once he gets out of school and is on his own in the world, he needs those skills. I may be the lone outlier in my opinion on this here, but once you're past K-12 education, those skills are as critical if not more so than intellectual ability in negotiating and being successful in the adult world.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I agree. You're not the lone outlier in your observation of the importance of those skills.

Although I understand and appreciate this, let's all remember there is a big difference between a child "being in a gifted program" and a child "having their educational needs met." For example a school's "gifted program" may consist of teaching math one year advanced. Meanwhile a student's "educational needs" may be math 3 years ahead plus remediation/accommodation in an area of relative weakness.

If a child does not fit the offered "gifted program" and the school is thinking in terms of "matching the child to the program", then parents may wish to advocate and think in terms of "matching the program to the child" in order to get their child's educational needs met.

Excellent, excellent advice! Parents may wish to keep this in their advocacy documentation and re-read frequently... especially before and after meetings.

Here's a link to an old crowd-sourced list of tips for meeting prep.

Polarbear... are these parent advocates free?

Thanks everyone! You guys are awesome. Your feedback really helped me understand 2e advocacy. My ds started showing behavioral/emotional issues at age 3. But I always felt that he was gifted and no one really cared about that. Teachers would always focus on the negatives. After doing research, that's when I found out about 2e diagnosis, and I realized other parents were having similar issues. His recent testing results confirmed my suspicions.
We have our meeting with the school soon, so hopefully my son can get the help and acceleration he needs.

So we met with the school principal, teacher, counselors. Basically they said we would not be able to get an IEP because my son is meeting the grade two benchmarks for academics. They didn't care that he was 2e. The principal said that there are a lot of gifted kids in the school. The meeting was quite futile because they wouldn't accelerate him or help him with his challenges. He just needs to adjust better in the classroom. So, as parents we are going to do a hybrid of homeschooling and regular school. Planning on signing him up for online academic courses to supplement the school. I think of school as a social setting where he can learn from peers and do recess and learn to listen to authority. The real learning can be more self paced at home.