Today we met with the assistant principal, school system psychologist, gifted and regular classroom teachers to discuss the outside evaluation we had done on DS (HG plus dysgraphia).
The psychologist recognized the giftedness but didn't acknowledge the dysgraphia. She was careful to say that they had a process to determine this (state-mandated RTI). She commented several times his writing achievement scores were on grade-level. She made it clear that the baseline for my son's eligibility would hinge on his ability to meet grade-level standards. She even went to far as to say, "Our job is to make sure he meets state-level standards. It's not our job to make sure he meets his potential." She told a story of a very bright boy who graduated from the district who could be anything he wanted but was running a comic book store. She said they just can't be responsible for kids meeting their potential.
The gifted teacher also did not acknowledge a problem. She mentioned the checklist she made last year for DS and how that cleared everything up. She said it was perfectly normal for kids to reverse letters, ignore punctuation, etc at this point in their schooling. Her opinion was that he needed help with work habits, not writing. At one point the psychologist offered that the school may be able to help with an OT eval and the gifted teacher piped in and explained how DS would never qualify for an OT eval. She offered to take his work home to her husband who is an OT, but she assured us he would never qualify because the quality of his work is fine.
The asst principal is the only one who seemed to acknowledge and care about getting DS some help. She recommended beginning the RTI process and also work on a 504 in the meantime. They would do some preliminary assessments to pinpoint his exact needs and go from there. They will have Tier 2 intervention/accommodation recommendations to us next week.
DH followed-up with an appropriate email but this feels like we're fighting a losing battle. What now? RTI seems like a waste of time based on what the school psych said. If all they are going to do is accommodate in the classroom, that doesn't really address the dysgraphia.
