As blackcat says a lot of this depends on the teacher. But it can also depend on the principal's attitude and school district philosophy. In K we brought in our eval showing a documented fine motor deficit and told them we were doing private OT. We said that we also suspected dyslexia and requested that DD be evaluated for in school services. We were told "no" over and over. Their position was "She would never qualify for services. She's too smart." We were in an interdistrict magnet school in the neighboring city. They had too few resources and way too many kids who needed them. Suburban kids were there to raise their scores not to use their resources. She was receiving private OT so they were not going to do anything more for her. This situation had *disastrous* consequences for DD. If we had been residents of that district we would have been out of luck. She would have been placed in a private and we would never have known enough to get her privately tested.
Fortunately our home district intervened and tested her discovering a profile they had never seen before. At first they were bending over backwards to meet her needs. We had a fabulous first grade teacher and a very, very experienced spec ed teacher doing pull out for reading. As the year went by they added more pull out for speech, OT and math. Unfortunately we had an absolutely terrible principal who was very into ensuring that there was a box for everyone and that everyone stayed securely in their box. Not a good situation for my very out of the box kid. The principal made clear that she felt the whole 2E thing was nonsense and went out of her way to make things very difficult for DD. Things got nasty. Very nasty.
By second grade the district intervened and started throwing services at her right and left. She had a classroom teacher who just didn't get it. She could not, would not and did not follow the IEP. The district provided first a part time and then a full time para. We waited almost the whole year for an Assistive Technology evaluation that was supposed to be done the first week of school. DD made little if any progress in any area. It was a total waste of a year.
Now for third grade we have her in an out of district placement and she is doing amazingly well. She broke through her blocks and is now reading and doing math at grade level. They have her using assistive technology throughout her school day and she is becoming independent in doing research, creating PowerPoints and brochures and training on Dragon Dictation. She is also accelerated 5 grades to participate in an 8th grade reading comprehension group every day. The district is also paying for an outside education consultant to oversee her program and make sure her needs are being met.
So as you can see there is a wide range of responses. In many ways it depends on luck of the draw and/or tenacity of the parents to get the child what he or she needs.
