Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Seething at situation re: College Board + LEA

So-- my DD's charter school is not an "approved testing center" and it wouldn't matter if it were, since she's a virtual school student who lives fairly far from that school's offices.

To take exams through the College Board, she has been approved for accommodations by them-- which is a labyrinthine and Herculean feat all on its own when it comes to outside-the-box disabilities, quite frankly.

You get to choose from a short "menu" of accommodations, basically. In other words, if it's about a medical condition that needs management so that a medical crisis isn't triggered by the test environment...

your only legitimate choice is "breaks as needed."

Yup. The rest, you get to negotiate with the test center and proctors on your own. Every.single.time. Presumably, they have a vested interest in not incurring an 'exception' that results in an ambulance transport as much as the student and his/her family.


But the catch is that if your disabling condition is significant enough that you are homeschooling, a virtual school student, or placed OOD?

Your local school DOES NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT YOU for testing. That's right. You have to BEG for a seat.

Yes, College Board has confirmed this.


Now, our local (districted) high school testing counselor last fall for the PSAT was delightful. She immediately understood that basically, we COULD be a PITA every single day of her working life-- but that this, really, was pretty much the ONLY time we'd asked for a thing, and wow, aren't WE nice for being so understanding that a parent basically just SITS right outside the door for the test and all...

but the SAT isn't being offered at THAT local school.

Nope. We have one choice within fifty miles of us. THIS school counselor is a whole different ball of wax. Passive-aggressive, sullen, and ever-so-slightly obstructionist.

She won't give us an answer re: the June SAT. This is the last opportunity for my DD to take the SAT this year-- her junior year, mind.

So I've been waiting for HER to contact College Board to find out what she needs to do, determine what THEY will do, all that stuff.

She calls me back a bit after SEVEN this morning... and immediately announces that while she tried to call yesterday, our land line "was busy" and so she figured (and the tone is important here) she would "wake you up this morning first thing." Well, mission accomplished-- luckily I wake up instantaneously and I'm fully operational in seconds. So she missed her clearly intended advantage on that score.

She informed me of several jaw-dropping things during this conversation--

she has a "window" that DD can be tested during-- and we basically have no input into it. So if she opts to test DD at 3:30 AM on June 1, that's what we'll get.

She CAN refuse to seat my DD. She checked. (she was very pleased with herself about that)

She asked about my DD's PSAT scores. I said "top 50K-- we don't really know beyond that at this point in time." When pressed, she informed me (with apparent malicious glee??) that "212 is only going to be commended. Definitely NOT MNSF."

I was frankly kind of horrified by this entire line of questioning from her. She was clearly determining whether or not my DD is a 'high-enough' achieving student to be WORTH HER TIME in accommodating her.

WOW.

It's either that or something even LESS savory that just now occurs to me-- that she is looking to meet the letter of my DD's accommodations in such a stressful manner that she sabotages her scores.

Yikes.

Anyway. She then told me (when I suggested that we expect DD to test very well and probably only take the SAT this one time) that indeed, once certainly OUGHT to be plenty for this nonsense of accommodating my child.



WOW. So if my DD happened, instead of a high-flying PG kidlet, to be a student with multiple disabilities who was hoping to score well enough to make the cut at the local regional state college...

what? THAT wouldn't be "worth it" to her??

Ugh. I'm just incensed by this entire process. I hate the fact that College Board feels that they are completely above the law about this. It's not even REMOTELY possible that this is functionally compliant with ADA/ADAA given how colleges use the scores on their tests.

So... ACT??

is driving further away an option? I would probably rather do that than take my chances with this one

Sending you a PM.

Same basic process in terms of advocacy.

It's maddening. Getting approval took 13 WEEKS after we submitted a MOUNTAIN of documentation/justification to them. We were not approved for "individual testing" even so.



In other words, we opted to only go through it once, and with the agency that was more normative locally and controlled MORE of the tests, since the approval carries forward in time.

In other words, she (theoretically) could use the SSD # she has to get accommodations for AP exams, SAT, GRE, etc.

Theoretically.


I'm probably not going to be able to help myself-- at SOME point I am going to say to this woman "Thanks SO much for helping us-- aren't you glad that we aren't your problem every day??"

Horrible and outrageous. Are they so above the law? There's no oversight, no one to complain to?

I'm sorry, I don't know what to say. Some people just shouldn't be around young people.

HK, I think you're an expert at this stuff, but if it were me and my kid I would find another location (even if one that required an overnight trip) and once that was taken care of (maybe even after the test) complain politely but insistently to the College Board about this. Kids (and their families) should not have to go to great lengths to find a testing site willing to accommodate testing, and the College Board shouldn't be encouraging this/allowing it to happen. DD's teacher last year was similarly passive-aggressive, and if this person is being so open about their negative feelings I would only worry about it getting even worse down the road--including 'forgetting' some of the accommodations, etc., or making them really unworkable. I can't understand why some people are so nasty. Sorry you and your DD are having to deal with this, and I hope you can find a good solution.

College Board knows. They told me that it just isn't their problem.

They don't HAVE to care, basically.

Yeah, it is outrageous. Particularly since mechanistically, it costs a sponsoring school NOTHING to host my child-- College Board covers the cost of the additional proctor.

I've been told by College Board that they can "give me a case #" if the local school refuses her a seat. The thing is, the local person hasn't done that. I don't THINK that she intends to-- unless she decides in the blink of an eye that she's tired of trying to find one more proctor, and in that case, we will have little warning that she's 'refused' DD until it happens. To be fair, I think that she is trying to find one. She's just got little motivation.

Given how long it took to get resolution on two requested accommodations, also, there's no way that College Board would/could do anything about it in time for that June date.

I'm VERY tempted to complain to DOJ about them. VERY.

I really just kind of posted this as a head's up-- I know that there are other parents here in a similar situation, needing accommodations and needing (though they may not yet know it) largesse from a school that feels it owes our kids nothing.


These big test companies are a law unto themselves-- and believe me, they DEFINITELY see things that way. It isn't that they don't know that they are obligated to kids with disabilities. They know. They also know that an individual family has got exactly zero leverage with them, and so the attitude is "Yeah? So? Bummer for you... but what are you going to do about it?" (said with considerable lassitude and ennui).

Soooo.. just curious... this is a bit of a spin-off to this thread, but fwiw we were planning to have ds take the SAT/ACT through one of the talent searches... if you take the SAT/ACT through a talent search are you testing in a school district location? Does my question even make sense? I'd somewhat assumed ds would be taking the test at the same proctored testing center where he took his earlier talent search tests.. and it's a private center, independent of the school district.

HK, it makes my head spin to read your post. ARGH! It seems like in the end, the time and effort and cost it would take for the people responsible for this to simply be nice and do the right (and legal) thing would be much less than the effort they are putting into fighting.

polarbear

My kids took the SAT through NUMATS in Dec. 2012. Their test center was the high school in our neighborhood. My kids were the *only* talent search students there - the rest were older students who had signed up through College Board.