Looking for advice on how to hand a move to a new district with a 504. I had no trouble getting a 504 for my DD14 in our former district for a visual/motor integration issue (most likely dysgraphia but no official diagnosis, but 4th percentile on a Beery VMI). Now, we have moved to a new district and I am getting a lot of push-back on the 504, so much so that the 504 coordinator is commenting that she has reviewed her work and that DD's writing is legible & that she is writing the same quantity as other students. Any suggestions on how to avoid pitfalls would be appreciated! Am looking at another 504 review in the near future per the 504 coordinator.
revmom, fwiw - I had a tough time advocating for accommodations for my ds, and his school tried their absolute best to deny them. We were ultimately successful in our advocacy (in our case, we were advocating for accommodations and an IEP, not a 504). Here are my suggestions, based on our experience with a school that was doing everything they could to try to prove our EG ds did not have a need for accommodations:
1) The single most helpful thing I've had in advocating for my ds was a report with an actual diagnosis by a private professional (in our case, it was a neuropsych report and later on we also had a private SLP report with a diagnosis). The school would try and try to argue that test scores and classroom work showed that everything was absolutely "ok", that ds wasn't the "best" in class but he "wasn't the worse", that his handwriting "was neat and legible" etc - but we would politely and gently yet firmly ask one simple question in rebuttal to all of that "are you challenging the recommendation and diagnosis of a credentialed and respected neuropsychologist?" They couldn't say no to that.
2) Understanding the root issues behind our ds' diagnosis and how it impacts him in the classroom, on academic work, and in test settings. I think you're already 99% of the way here, but when you *suspect* dysgraphia, for example, you don't know for sure. If you knew for sure it was dysgraphia, you would know for sure that it's not simply a matter of legible handwriting that is the issue - the challenge is that the act of handwriting takes up all of a student's working memory, which in turn may prevent them from accurately spelling or using grammar, but more importantly the written output they produce with handwriting prevents them from expressing their full breadth of knowledge and ideas - that part really isn't about being an "A" or "B" student, that inability to express their full knowledge is in violation of FAPE, and that's what accommodations via Section 504 are set up to prevent from happening.
3) Having work samples and tests that pinpoint the exact ways in which their work is impacted is extremely helpful. The neuropsych testing ds had showed the justification for a diagnosis, but when the school tried to argue that it didn't, we requested they give ds two other tests that illustrated the root of ds' challenges. These tests might not apply to your child, but I'll mention them so you'll understand what I'm getting at re specific testing and examples. Our ds had very legible handwriting by the time we were advocating for accommodations because he had been through private handwriting OT. It was, however, extremely *slow* - you can test this yourself to see at home first if your dd has slow handwriting. There are different ways to test, but a private tutor had suggested to us we have ds write the alphabet, upper and lower case, and time how long that took, then divide to get letters per minute. You can google "letters per minute + 9th grade" etc online to get an idea of the different ranges that are considered typical per grade. We knew from that type of measure that our ds wrote very slowly, so we asked the school to also measure his handwriting speed. They balked, but we politely kept asking, and when they did they had to admit he was about 3 years behind grade level re speed. That in and of itself should be enough to argue that a student is allowed typing accommodations.
4) Know your school district's *true* policies and true practices on the things you are advocating for. Practice can vary from school to school, but policy should be the same across the board for the district. We found that consulting with an advocate filled in those knowledge holes for us. We didn't then go back to a meeting at our school and outright say "We know you *have* to do .... per school district policy" or "We know we would have .... without fighting at School ...."... but it gave us the confidence to know what we could request and to not back down in our requests in meetings with the school. Our school staff did try to bully us (in a nice way) by not offering up information and by trying to pretend they couldn't do something or it would be too difficult to do or by telling us it would make our ds "stand out among his peers" (in a negative way) or by telling us he didn't need it. But when we knew what we were asking for was a typical accommodation and that it conformed to school district (and state) policy, they only tried to talk us out of it until they realized we were standing firm - because they would have been out of compliance had they refused our request.
5) Include your dd's voice in these meetings - you could have her present if you think she would be up for it, or you can bring her voice in through your own testimony. Either way, at 14, she's definitely old enough to have her needs heard through her voice. She still needs you as her primary advocate, but her voice is very important.
Gotta run - hope that made sense! Good luck advocating -
polarbear
