Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment IEP MEETING

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I don't think your focus is misplaced at all.

Does the school accept that your son is GT?

Do they recognize 2E issues, generally speaking? So that they can imagine a GT child who is also behind in some areas?

If the answer is no to either of these questions, your job will be much harder. I don't know if that helps, but it's what I think of right off the bat. There may be some educating involved for you...

Hey, MON, I forget which state you are in. I think that the answers to your questions lie in the state special education laws and whether gifted is recognized as having special needs. In terms of the IDEA, it doesn't sound like the issue meets requirements from my understanding of the law. But if your state recognizes gifted within the special education laws, then you have a better chance of advocacy.

Under special education laws, the schools are not required to ensure that all children are working up to their potential or at their level of ability. They just have to show that the child is getting a "free and appropriate public education" (fondly referred to as FAPE) in the "least restrictive environment" (LRE) possible. I'm not up on the most recent changes to IDEA so I'm not sure if they've changed that wording or not.

But, as far as I can tell, if the dysgraphia and written expression disorder are not currently interferring with any of his academic performance then you are likely to have a hard time convincing the school to provide services. Have you considered a special education advocate? Or checked to see if your state offers any free legal counsel for special education needs? I always suggest finding the Center for Independent Living that serves your area and see if they have a youth advocate or resources regarding special education laws in your state. You can find that here:
http://www.ilru.org/html/publications/directory/index.html

I hope that helps. And best of luck with advocacy. I'm not saying he doesn't need help, BTW, just that advocacy using the special ed laws might be hard. I still strongly urge you to keep on advocating!!!

We just did this with my daughter. She also has dysgraphia and a 30+ point deviation in written expression.

My first advice is to call your local ARC office and ask about an advocate to help with the process. They are nationwide and the service was free in our case. That was an immense help.

Second, does your state recognize GT? We are in Michigan and in our state gifted programming isn't mandated. That will make a big difference in where you go from here. We discussed the same points of IDEA 2004 that you are mentioning just so you know that you aren't alone in that regard.

The other questions, have you checked that there are qualifications for testing? In our state the child must be tested if a written request is made by the parent or other interested party. The school will tell you there is no need to test in some cases but it is still their obligation to test. I know this varies by state. Is your state accepting the outside eval? I know that that isn't the case in our state, I assume they are if you have the IEP meeting. Our state will look at it but won't accept it for eligibility.

If your son has the diagnoses you mentioned you might be better using an outside advocate like ARC and I definately wouldn't do it after you get a NO from the IEP team. It is much easier to get them involved to help get a YES. They are very knowledgable on the law and won't have any interest with the school district. They can also give you information ahead of time about such things as outside independant evaluations that you can petition for if you disagree with the IEP. You would have to sign that you disagree though. If you get them involved after and aren't aware of these options you can close doors without realizing it.

My daughter has been placed in a happy medium for ELA that we will evaluate again at the end of the year. She is placed lower than her reading level, right around her overall comprehension for fiction because that is lower than non-fiction, and above her written expression level if she is hand writing. We wrote into her IEP that she may type anything lengthy or anything that would fall under "creative" writing so that she is able to work at the higher level.

More would be included and has been agreed upon if she attends for any other classes. (She only attends for ELA, music and spanish right now, this is also written into her IEP.) Things such as grading material on content vs grammar, spelling, puncuation and sentence structure for subjects outside ELA. You get the idea.

We used the laws but were able to do it in a very diplomatic way so that the school was very open to options. I think a lot of it is in the approach and the tone you take when talking to them, and discussing your sons needs. We were very careful to point out things that were helpful to my daughter, things that were working. We used a set of recommendations from Hoagies or from the Davidson Institute about advocating in a positive way. We only brought up specific law, with paperwork, if we were getting a "we don't do that" mindset, and approached it with the thought that maybe they weren't aware that they could. Off my box now...

My 10 year old son also has handwriting issues and would need to type if he ever went back to school. I am sure we would hear the same thing--that it is not fair to the other kids if he got to type.

I never understood this. Kids are allowed to use glasses if they need them to see so they can learn. Kids are allowed hearing aids if they need them so they can learn. My child has a handwriting disability that makes it impossible to work at his challenge level without typing so he needs this to learn.

Too many of our teachers don't understand that an appropriate education involves keeping the challenge level just right because if the challenge level is too great it causes stress and if it is not enough it causes boredom and loss of motivation.

Since my husband's highly gifted son from a previous marriage dropped out of school we already had experience with this loss of motivation problem. We could not let this happen to our son. When the principal and teachers told us we needed to homeschool because they couldn't offer an appropriate education and we learned that our state does not require an appropriate education for twice exceptional children, we had no choice. I don't think this is fair, but like my son once told me I have to deal with what is instead of what should be. I remember seeing the words "children should build on what they know" on the public school's website and then I realized there is a big difference between should and will. They never said children in their schools "will" build on what they know.

My special ed teacher friend and mom of two of my son's gifted friends understands learning differences and the fact that kids need to work at just the right challenge level. Why don't teachers get this when it seems like common sense to me? I think some of these teachers need remedial training. Maybe special ed teachers and OTs could teach the class.

It's always been explained to me, at least in California, that a student qualifies for an IEP when there is a "discrepancy" between achievement and ability. This is unrelated to whether or not the achievement or ability is below grade level. So if a child has an ability to perform much faster but is not achieving a that level, technically they should have an IEP. If achievement and ability are similar, there is no need for an IEP. It sounds like your DS should qualify because his ability is above his achievement. But also in California, the way I understand it is that if a parent requests an IEP evaluation, the school must comply in 60 school days- they cannot say "no we don't think so" without doing the testing and evaluations.

As a middle school teacher and high school VP, I've had several kids accommodated with a computer in the classroom. The way this plays out varies depending on the disability and the course subject. For my high school students, we always required that the laptop stay at school and that it be the property of our tech department. The laptop has no wireless or internet capabilities and is only used as a typing machine. The student must turn in work on a USB drive that the teacher gives the student. That has virtually eliminated any cheating.

My first year as VP, we had a student with a Palm phone and foldout keyboard. It was a disaster for everyone- including the student who was suspended for plagiarism. Cutting and pasting from the internet was the biggest problem.

I think it's time to remind the principal that an IEP/504 accommodations are not about making things "fair" for the other students. They're about making things fair for yours! Sure, it's not fair that yours gets to type- perhaps the teachers should look at changing lesson tactics to a more fair solution for everyone.It's not fair that other students are being taught at their level and yours isn't. If we're working on fair, lets do it across the board.

A teacher friend said that in our district they are no longer using the achievement<ability. The achievement has to be below grade level. You can have a IQ of 150, be performing on grade level and not qualify for service.

Didn't read all of this... but I will echo what Dottie said. It seems that because of where RTI focuses, above level kids are really left out. So far that has been our experience. (Dottie is this a state-wide initiative? It's totally new in our district this year.)

JB

You might not get (or need) an IEP. We have a similar situation with our ds, and he has a 504 plan.

A 504 plan is part of the Americans with Disabilities act. You ds has a diagnosed disability (dysgraphia), and you're asking for accomodations. My ds gets lines to write on, extended time on written assignments, compressed assignments (the rest of the class might have to rewrite 5 sentences but he only has to do 3), partial notes (fill-in the blanks rather than write everything), the ability to type long assignments, and occupational therapy. You might want to ask for any or all of those PLUS assistive technology. Assistive technology is a word processor (our sd uses alphasmart). The alphasmarts are provided by the school system. My ds doesn't have one, but I know other kids who do. Alphasmarts can't communicate with the Internet, so not plagerism worries there. They can have applications installed to help with spelling and word prediction.

The 504 plan is supposed to "level the playing field" for people with disabilities, not for giving kids an unfair advantage. Your child already has an unfair disadvantage, and you're just asking for compensation for his disability.

Try asking about 504's and see if the school is more receptive. If not, you may need an advocate or a lawyer to get them to toe the line.