The school has scheduled my son's IEP for Wednesday. Two things will be discussed.
The first is that they are not qualifying him for gifted. The second was to exit him from special ed for his learning disability.
After an hour on the phone with the diagnostician, we came to the agreement that my son will not be exited from special ed but will be given a new IEP with a specific learning disability (dysgraphia) that will be in place for 3 years before he will need re-evaluation again. We will specify that he will no longer be pulled out of regular ed class but will be provided support on an as-needed basis by the special ed teacher who will collaborate with his regular ed teacher to see what areas my son is struggling with in the classroom.
He is being exited from O.T., because the skills he needs for academics have met acceptable grade level standards (handwriting). We will continue to work privately on the shoe tying, bike riding, pants buttoning skills.
Most of the hour was spent arguing about the gifted placement. She said that he increased 20 points on some portions of the IQ battery she gave him compared to his initial private testing 3 years ago. And she said that after testing him, she is very aware that he is a brilliant kid who is most likely gifted but because he IQ test came in at 119 and that it needs to be 130 for gifted, she can't qualify him.
She recommended that I give it three years and request that he be re-evaluated at the end of mid-school. She also said that with the IEP in place, he will be given the accommodations he needs to handle mid-school such as being given more creative projects rather than worksheets, etc.
I am still very torn about accepting this plan, because I worry about misbehaviors starting to crop up when he becomes bored in mid-school. Up until now, just making it through the workload has been enough to wear him out, because he's been compensating for the dysgraphia. But as he's mastered some of those compensations and made remedial gains in areas where he was struggling, I've seen his performance really take off this year. (And if I hear one more mom tell me, "Oh, we all want our kids to be gifted, but sometimes we just have to accept them as they are..." I'm going to scream. I've had a gifted kid, and I've had a normal-IQ kid. I know that it's no dreamy bowl of cherries, but I also know the character traits and learning styles, and I understand if I don't advocate to get my kid what he needs to succeed, nobody else will.
And so, while I know none of you know me from Adam, I'd love your insight.
If you didn't read the initial thread, you can see his test scores
Gifted Issues Discussion Forum
