Our district refused to write an IEP because DD was not "failing", but she was not writing more than 2-3 sentences in class. When they do standardized testing, it is always for reading/math and she does great on those tests. They hyperfocused on her math/reading scores and didn't seem to care that she was barely writing anything in class. I asked for an eval and the longest writing piece (and only writing piece) they looked at was 2 sentences long, vs. almost every other student writing more. They computed a range of scores with my DD near the bottom. They claimed "She is in the range, therefore services aren't warranted". (What?!).
I dug up all the State manuals for various disability categories, like specific learning disorder (written expression) and Other Health Disability (ADHD). There was nothing in there about a student needing to be failing. For the SLD category, she had the large discrepancy between cognitive ability and achievement. However, her writing score on the WJ was NOT below average, because she was able to use cognitive ability to compensate on some parts of the test, putting her composite in the average range. Since her classroom writing was clearly impaired, she should have been able to easily qualify for an IEP in either category, but the school insisted she has to have below average test scores. To say this was frustrating was an understatement. All that the law says is that a students educational performance or achievement has to be impacted compared to typical peers, at least to qualify for the ADHD. But the school took a very rigid approach, equating achievement or performance to mean "below average range on tests". Classroom work didn't really matter to them.
We ended up switching schools and they classified her as Other Health Disability for ADHD. That category is more flexible than others.
So my suggestion is to look up manuals, eligibility checklists, etc. from your State. You can try calling the State Dept. of Ed and talk to someone in special ed compliance. Also, put in a written request for a comprehensive eval. If they fight you they have to go through a formal process. Also, make sure they have any outside neuropsych evals and ask the neuropsych to recommend an IEP in the report. The school has to consider outside evals. If they refuse, you can go through the formal process to fight them (like due process), but you need things in writing going back and forth.
