Tomorrow we have our second SST meeting, only a few weeks late. I'm nervous about these things as usual and worrying that I'm prepared for the meeting. School was given the full workup we did this summer and his counselor told me this meeting will be to set up either a 504 or IEP.
Background for those who haven't been following. DS15 is a sophomore in H.S. and is a underperforming gifted student. We did a full private eval this summer and he has been diagnosed with LD with impairment in written expression, anxiety, depression, and has "traits" of ASD. He has "low-average" processing speed, average working memory that pulls down an otherwise high IQ. Last year he was in full honors classes, but his grades were low enough he was dropped from the honors classes although he is still accelerated in science & math. He tests well, is slow to do homework & doesn't always turn it in on time, but the most frustrating is he gets stuck "deciding what to write" and anything that involved writing suffers.
The "plan" is to try and get some accommodations in school but do remediation' privately one-on-one. He is seeing a psychologist who is an expert in gifted kids and I have found a writing tutor to help him with his writing "block". Any opinions what in school accommodations would best help? I'm going to start with those I think will be easy to get and work my way down.
1. Counselor hand selects his classes. She did it this year although not very successfully, Chemestry & English teacher are a bad fit.
2. Extra time if he wants it (50% more time) for tests & in class writing assignments. He doesn't need this for most math & multiple choice tests but I feels it's simpler for the long runs not to specify this.
3. Use of a keyboard for in class writing assignments. (Sometimes the class goes to the computer lab but not always.)
4. Requiring the teachers to weight his grades like they were the honors or a college class. I'm not sure how to explain this. I'm looking for a grading scheme where homework/seatwork is no more than "10%" of his grade like his math class. In contrast his Chemistry class the "homework" is 25% of the grade. Perhaps its better written that 90% of the grade should be based on tests, quizzes, essays, and labs depending on the type of class. His psychologist says that this has been a very helpful accommodation for other similar teenagers she has worked with even going so far as the grade is only based on "tests & assessments".
His report includes accommodations like a tape recorder to take notes but both my son & I feel this is unnecessary.
Basesd on the first SST and other things the counselor has said also on the table are a resource teacher to help him with his study skills, aka planning ahead of time so homework gets is done in time and turned in. And I know they want him to take their social skills class, I'm OK with this but DS isn't interested. I am considering asking if they can change his Chemestry &/or English teacher. Not sure if it's possible because of scheduling conflicts and it is already 5 weeks into the school year. I want to see how accommodating these teachers seems to be in the meeting tomorrow before I ask.
So far they have been more accommodating than I expected. The only thing I know I have NO wiggle room is they will NOT put him back in any of the honors classes.
