An update, the bad and the good:
Bad
I've concluded that focusing on what the school should or should not be doing is a waste of energy. It's too draining, emotionally, and time-consuming, mentally, to fret about the justice/injustice of the situation.
I reached this conclusion after receiving the Notice of Action (evaluation refused), which said "immediately contact if you disagree," making contact via email, and receiving no response whatsoever. I can only assume that the SPED processor would not ignore my inquiry if this wasn't supported by the district culture.
Good
DS seems to be improving on the organizational piece of the puzzle. More assignments are being handed in during school and so there is less scanning/emailing taking place.
We accidentally stumbled upon something that *might* be making a huge difference: a page of his planner was destroyed, so for that week, I created a replacement page with no visual clutter, that followed the actual order of his classes and gave him much more room to write. Voila! Suddenly the planner makes sense. Suddenly he can remember what he wrote in the planner to begin with, and can tell me verbatim without looking. Coincidence? I don't know or care. I think it was spaghetti who suggested the custom planner--best tip ever.
Important: DS is slowly coming out of his shell a little, and actually DISCUSSING with me when he feels overwhelmed, and is willing to analyze a bit. He even made the connection that his (severe) seasonal allergies have an impact on his attention/focus and that "of course" he'd feel stressed on a day with several major assignments, test, and quizzes all happening.
Even More Important: DS is starting to tell me about odd interactions with teachers, in detail. Most recently, he explained that there is a very difficult dance-type move used as a warm-up in PE, and that it's the bane of his existence because he can't do it. PE teacher asked why he's not doing it, he told PE teacher because he doesn't *want* to (he doesn't want to, because he can't--ha). I explained maybe telling teacher it's difficult for him would be a better response but he's not ready for that level of vulnerability.
Best of All: Received glowing, gushing email from science teacher about how much she loves having DS in class--that he is funny and she loves joking in class and he gets her humor and vice versa. It's a little ironic that his math/science teachers like him best when his strength area is really more humanities/arts oriented but I'll take it anyhow. My working hypothesis is that science/math folks are more logical and less likely to take offense to his blunt, literal communication style.
So, that is where we are at the moment. He is going to have a private SLP evaluation, and I hope we learn more about pragmatics and written expression. He is continuing with CBT therapist who seems very helpful so far. His new psychiatrist wasn't thrilled with my plea to discontinue SSRI for now but was willing to allow it. If we try again, or try a new one, it will be during an extended school break.
I feel like I've kind of given up, in some ways, but the stress made me physically ill. So, for now, we'll just have to assume the school is not interested in helping DS (although they are quite happy to complain, when necessary). Some of the observations last year's teachers made (DS is negative, other kids don't like him, etc.) appear to have been situational. Nobody is saying those things now--and he seems to be having a lot of social interactions (still all at school, but okay), several friends he's texting with, etc.
