Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional ltr to IEP team modifying (feedback appreciated!)

Hi all. Me again. Trying to get this done by Monday. Sorry to keep bothering everyone!

I drafted the following letter to the IEP team regarding modifying the vague accommodations in DS' IEP. This is just a draft (and I will be adding more to regarding jumping through the hoops to get district to cover/provide vision therapy but i thought I'd just burden you all with this part as this is the part with which I really need some help. Let me know what you think, please! And special thanks to Polarbear, as I lifted a lot of it from one of her posts! Here it is:

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It was a pleasure meeting with all of you on Friday. DH and I are so impressed with what an amazing and dedicated group of professionals we have at (Elementary School name} and in the [School District name]! We feel so very fortunate to have such a dedicated team working with DS.

As I mentioned at the meeting, we are, however, uncomfortable with the way just a few of the accommodations are worded presently. Specifically, the accommodation listed under the section titled "Participation in State and Local Assessments" on page 13 in IEP. This accommodation currently reads as follows:

"Student will participate in local assessments with the following accommodations: - Schedule extended time, provide opportunities for breaks and movement, chunk into smaller segments, monitor the need for a scribe, consider alternate forms of assessment such as oral response, consider reducing the number of responses required."

While we certainly see the positives of leaving some flexibility in the document, DH and I are concerned about the practical problems that could arise when attempting to implement accommodations so vague. We may have a teacher and assistants who are doing the "right" thing and finding the right “balance” now, but what about next year? What happens when a substitute is in the classroom? We are concerned that letting DS use handwriting for an extended written response until he gets tired would trigger anxiety and cause a negative impact on the entire test. I also think that putting the burden on DS to ask for an accommodation, particularly during a testing situation, is not fair and runs the risk that the accommodation will not be given. Although the IEP does not state "student must ask," DS is somewhat being put into that position as the accomodation is written currently - if he gets tired while writing and a teacher or test monitor does not notice, he has to ask for his accommodations. While we realize that this is the first time we are drafting an IEP for DS and, consequently, we are all trying to figure out exactly what he needs and finding that “balance” about which you spoke at the meeting, state/local standardized testing time is not the time to experiment with finding a balance; rather, it is about allowing DS, while using appropriate accommodations, to demonstrate his knowledge and true abilities without the interference from his disabilities.

Therefore, we propose modifying said accommodation to read as follows:

"Student will participate in local assessments with the following accommodations:
- Schedule extended time (at least time and a half), provide opportunities for breaks and movement, chunk into smaller segments, use test formats with reduced written output formats (e.g. multiple choice, matching) to accommodate for slow writing fluency, provide a scribe or provide oral response as an alternate forms of assessment for any assessment that may require written answers of more than five words, and , consider reducing the number of responses required."


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Certainly not an expert here so take this with a grain of salt. I think your fourth paragraph explains and justfies too much. Maybe just state "Flexibility can work in many cases. We would like the accommodations to be more specific". Or, just skip that altogether and go from the current wording to your suggestion (and leave out the "therefore"). I'm assuming that they already know your concerns, right?

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your response, Petunia! Hmmm... I hear you. On the one hand I guess it's too verbose but I just like (actually feel almost compelled) to have my concerns memoralized and clearly spelled out to everyone. I did express them at the meeting but am unsure if I did so well enough. The they came back with their long justification for the bvagueness and I just said "okay" and nodded. I feel like I consented at the meeting. So, I feel like this is my way of saying "I thought more about your argument and it is not acceptable - this is why..." And give them a more eleoquent and substanital argument. YKIM?

Maybe I will do what you suggest and if they push back or give me problems, I can then send my fourth paragraph to them. That may be the way to go!

Okay new revised letter incorporating petunia's good advice (thanks Petunia):

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It was a pleasure meeting with all of you on Friday. DH and I are so impressed with the amazing and dedicated group of professionals we have at [Elementary School]and in the [School District]! We feel so very fortunate to have such a dedicated team working with DS.

As I mentioned at the meeting, however, we are uncomfortable with the way just a few of the accommodations are worded presently. Specifically, the accommodation listed under the section titled "Participation in State and Local Assessments" on page 13 in the IEP. This accommodation currently reads as follows:

"Student will participate in local assessments with the following accommodations: - Schedule extended time, provide opportunities for breaks and movement, chunk into smaller segments, monitor the need for a scribe, consider alternate forms of assessment such as oral response, consider reducing the number of responses required."

While we certainly see the positives of leaving some flexibility in the document, DH and I would like the accommodations to be more specific. While we realize that this is the first time we are drafting an IEP for DS and, consequently, we are all trying to figure out his needs as well as finding that “balance” about which you spoke at the meeting, state/local standardized testing time is not the time to experiment with finding a balance. Rather, it is about allowing DS, while using appropriate accommodations, to demonstrate his knowledge and true abilities without the interference from his disabilities.

Therefore, we propose modifying said accommodation to read as follows:

"Student will participate in local assessments with the following accommodations:
- Schedule extended time (at least time and a half), provide opportunities for breaks and movement, chunk into smaller segments, use test formats with reduced written output formats (e.g. multiple choice, matching, etc.) to accommodate for slow writing fluency, provide a scribe or provide oral response as an alternate forms of assessment for any assessment that may require written answers of more than five words, and consider reducing the number of responses required."

Additionally, we think similar modifications would be beneficial in similarly vaguely worded accommodations contained in the “Modifications and SDI” sections of the IEP. Under the SDI section, on page 16 of the IEP, it reads, “Allow additional time to complete written work.” We propose modifying that accommodation to read, “Allow additional time (at least time and half) to complete written work.” And modify the accommodation “Monitor the need for a scribe” to read, “Provide a scribe for written assignments of more than two sentences.” On page 18, we would to modify the accommodation that currently reads, “Consider oral forms of response when assessing math-fact fluency” to “Provide oral response as an alternate form of assessment when assessing math-fact fluency.” Additionally, on page 19, we would like to change the accommodation that says, “Schedule extended time” to “Schedule extended time (at least time and half) for assessments.” We would also like to modify the accommodation that reads, “Consider alternate forms of assessment such as oral response” to “Use test formats with reduced written output formats (e.g. multiple choice, matching, etc.) to accommodate for slow writing fluency.”

Finally, we would like to go ahead and get an evaluation by Dr. S--- and pursue getting DS’s vision therapy through the school district. What do we have to do to put those wheels in motion? Do we need to put this in the IEP? I know that you mentioned that Dr. S---- needs to be ‘re-certified’ by your board – do DH and I need to formally request that be done? I assume the doctor’s certification needs to be valid before we schedule the evaluation.

Thank you so much for everything you are doing to help us in this process. It is very clear to us that you are very committed to DS’s success and we deeply appreciate that.
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How's that? Better?

Bumping this to see if anyone has any imput before I send it!

Just one last thought - why are you putting balance in quotes? It seems a little snarky.

Good luck!

Thanks to both of you! And please I want feedback so your thoughts are valued and welcome!

I said at the meeting, not very strongly, "These accomodations seem vague to me." (DH actually said nothing.) They (school people) did most of the talking and, in response to my saying that, three of them (Asst Dir of Special Ed, DS' teacher and Special ED aid to DS' class) all spoke about how we do not want to "enable" and how we need to find that balance between "supporting and not enabling." That was all I said about the vagueness of the accomodations. After each person defended the vagueness. I kept silent and nodded.

Talk of "enabling" by school staff honestly sort-of makes me cringe - as if his handwriting/vision problems are some sort of addiction that Ds and us, as his parents, are in charge of. DS WANTS to do things like other kids.... He wants to keep up and do things by himself. He does work on handwriting a lot - he gets OT at school and private OT weekly plus he writes for homework, etc. I don't think anyone is enabling him at this point. I have had to talk a lot with DS about being able to accept help and be okay with needing therapy for his challenges, etc. BUT I did not say that - I simply kept silent and nodded.

But I do agree the first draft was too verbose. MON - do you think the second version is still too much in light of what I am posting now about what I said at the meeting? I could scale it down more I suppose!

Also put balance in quotes just becasue I was quoting them - they used that word... not meaning to be snarky...I guess I was just sort of indicating 'I heard you, I know you are concerned with balance, BUT...'

I can certainly remove the quotes if it helps the overall tone - I think they're worth removing rather than come off snarky!

Also when they defended the vagueness of the accomodations they said "this is a living breathing document, we can change it if we need to." And I nodded and said "okay, that's true." But as I mulled it over and discussed it here, I realize that with DS' anxiety I would rather start off specific and doing more and then tweaking it down as we realize he doesn't need as much; rather than putting the onerous on DS to "fall apart" (my words b/c that is exactly what happened) again like he did last year before soemthing is done, YKIM? DS really had a bit of a break down last year (and he was only in kindergarten!) It was awful to watch and as far as I am concerned he nor I can go through that again! It seems a bit like the school would rather err (if they can get away with it) on the side of 'let's just sit back and see if he deteriorates again and then we will know he needs more specific support and we'll step in and tighten things up.' Whereas, I would rather start out making sure he is supported and start eliminating things and loosening things as we see he is really okay. "Fade with success" is kind of my motto apparently and theirs seems to be a kind-of 'introduce if/when DS starts deteriorating again' or 'if we happen to notice that he is actually capable of so much more but is being held back because it takes him several minutes to write a 9 (and often he has to erase and re-write until he thinks he has it facing the right way or even risk getting it marked wrng because he accidently wrote a 6 (and I have seen him do several times at home with homework))

I agree with mon. I would include an "executive summary" in bullet format of the changes you want. You don't want the staff to have to work too hard to find the changes. I would consider eliminating the explicit statement that their accommodations are "vague." It sounds like you accusing them of something. I would offer your changes as "clarifying" language or something similar. If you feel that the explanation portion is necessary, keep the longer version after the exec summary.