You've received excellent advice above mom2one. I have just a few extra thoughts for you re advocating at school.
* While the school may come up with a different diagnosis or different perception of impact on academics and need for remediation/accommodations/support... chances are good that if you have meaningful test results (as in, your child didn't just zone out and not answer questions on something or he wasn't purposely being defiant during a test).. the testing that you've had done privately, combined with the testing the school does, combined with "data" in the form of classwork, homework, behavioral challenges etc all are consistently adding up to the same story - they are just possibly looking at different pieces of the full puzzle. So when you are advocating, the important thing is to know all you can about how your child is impacted in academics and social situations at school (and in homework), have a good idea of what services and supports you feel he needs, and understand the "data" you have (tests, classwork, evaluation reports etc) that demonstrate the need clearly.
* I don't know how your school district works, but in my school district there were two large potential "gotchas" when advocating for an IEP that it's important to be aware of (in the event they are happening in your school district). The first is an existing set of guidelines for qualifying. The decision to qualify a student for an IEP should be made by a team (should include teacher(s), parents, SPED staff rep, OT/SLP/etc as meaningfully needed), and the "guidelines" are simply meant to be guidelines... however those guidelines can also be presented to parents as absolutes. It's important to know what those guidelines are, whether or not your ds qualifies under those guidelines, and if he doesn't, know what data you have that you can use in place of them to show that he needs services.
* This may not be true in your school or district, but there are some schools/districts that will try purposefully to not qualify a student for an IEP - the reason can be anything from not budget issues, staffing challenges, to not wanting to deal with it. If you find yourself in that situation, don't let comments thrown at you to deter you to... deter you. Stay calm, press forward, repeat repeat repeat what your child needs, what data demonstrates the needs, follow the process, and ignore the noise.
* When you hear comments such as "he's got good grades" or "he's got good test scores" - thrown out to imply that therefore he doesn't need any services - stick to presenting the data that shows that he *does* need services. It helps to have a perspective of what each type of data shows too. For example, my ds could not, for the life of him, write in response to an open-ended prompt when he was in elementary school, yet he scored "advanced proficiency" on state testing in writing. The gotcha was the state test didn't include any questions that called on that skill. Grades typically include averages of many different types of skills, so having good grades doesn't necessarily indicate that there isn't a significant challenge with one specific skill.
* If you have a local (or state) group that provides advocacy advice (parent navigators) they can be an excellent resource to ask these types of questions. I relied on our state group quite a bit when I was advocating for (successfully) an IEP for my ds in elementary school. For all the great advice you can get online, nothing beats being able to talk to an advocate who has knowledge of your local school system - because they can often tell you exactly what words to use that will work, what has been proven to not work, and possibly give you advice on working with specific schools/school staff.
* Since your ds' school staff has considered ADHD to be the issue in the past, if you find they are still throwing that out as a diagnosis when you meet again, I'd suggest a few things to mention. First and foremost, if the school questions the private evaluation diagnosis, simply ask in return if the school is questioning the diagnosis of a locally respected, highly respected, board certified (whatever applies) professional. Second, let the school know that there are symptoms that are shared in common between ADHD and ASD, but how you approach accommodating/remediating/etc may be different based on understanding the actual diagnosis. Lastly, if the school is adamant that they see ADHD when your private professional sees ASD, you can choose to either try to work through a reasonable set of accommodations/services/etc regardless of diagnosis, or you can request an independent evaluation at the school district's expense. In reality, I suspect that the school won't argue with the private professional's report as long as you stand firm that you accept it and respect the professional who put it together. They may question it, but politely reject the questioning and move on.
* It's common practice for a school to do their own evaluation prior to agreeing to an IEP, so don't let the school insisting on this worry you or cause you to agree to a 504 without first requesting an IEP eligibility review. When you fill out the IEP eval request, be sure to request OT and SLP evals as part of the process, as well as the TOWL (Test of Written Language) or an equivalent test.
Gotta run - hope that makes sense!
polarbear
