I have another update to this thread and wanted to see if any one of the forum users might be able to offer some additional advice.
I was under the mistaken impression that my daughter was no longer attending the small group sessions at her school. She came home last week with a packet and I asked about it because it was the first evidence of what's been happening in her reading sessions and it was completed. She said it was done but they were getting ready to start another. I was concerned because her teacher just stuck the packet in her folder and still we have not received any notice about any of this outside of my DD. The packet was indeed for speed of reading and comprehension questions. Of course, her writing was terrible and the sentences awful, but clearly I could see she was able to answer all the questions and had coherent responses which I would expect. I asked her if it seemed hard and again she replied no.
We have contacted the teacher about the disconnect between our daughter's scores and receiving remediation. This is all being done via e-mail and we are trying to be careful about it. We have asked 2 times now and the teacher keeps using disingenuous euphemisms in response to the sessions calling them "additional practice" "with volunteers" and "reading with other students beyond what is done in the room" and "based upon her own observations and not from the result of any test". The sessions are small group and repetitive which seem to fit the description of how Tier 2 RTI is to be conducted in our state.
At this point, I am pretty concerned. In online research, most RTI sites say parents should be informed and involved when a child enters Tier 2 as it's much more intense and a serious deficit has been noted. I have even seen some sites state that it's against the "spirit of child-find laws" to not inform parents when a child is placed in Tier 2. This teacher has done nothing but attempt to skirt the issue. And it is only when we explicitly question, that we then receive these vague and patronizing responses.
At this point, I am worried about what this means.
Obviously, DD has failed some benchmark. She seems to be in Tier 2 RTI working on comprehension and has been for some time even with a reading MAP score of 98%. Her class reading group is currently reading 400 lexile level books when MAP suggested 600 level (and that was at the beginning of the year). The school has not informed us of anything and the teacher is less than forthcoming. DD is still bringing home perfect test scores and seems happy enough.
I feel we have an uncooperative temp teacher but am not sure what to do about it. How serious is this for my DD? We had hoped to get her advanced as clearly from her test scores the work is too easy. But now, I feel like she may be getting negative remarks in her file with RTI that would set her up for disqualification. Has the school already labelled her? I read online that 50% of the kids sent to RTI are misevaluated or presumed "diagnosed" or that RTI can sometimes be mistakenly used in perpetuity to keep students who really need to be evaluated from having one due to cost. I am embarrassed to say it, but could this also be an extreme measure by an uncooperative teacher to level my DD?
If we demand an evaluation, what does this mean for my DD's future in this district? Will she forever be labelled whether she actually has an issue or not affecting her future class placement? She is young, could she be misidentified as ADHD and we would be stuck with that label? I've also read many younger children in classrooms tend to be given this label erroneously when they don't seem mature in comparison to older classmates.
Should we let it go and wait until the regular teacher comes back after winter break? Or because it's been some weeks now and testing takes time, should we act now and just contact the school counselor and demand evaluation asap as we can't tell about the duration of these sessions? If an evaluation comes back as LD does she go into remedial classes for next year such as master of none said her son experienced?
This whole situation just seems very off to me. I don't understand the disingenuity on behalf of the teacher, I don't understand why information didn't come home automatically as our states DOE says explicitly that when Tier 2 is needed, it's critical for parents to be involved to achieve success. It is one of the 6 common goals identified for the program to "prevent the state from making judgements on behalf of a child without parental input". I don't know what this means for the future and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
