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THIS ^

This is exactly the roadblock we are up against.

I don't understand why the parents have to come up with all the ideas and come to the table with specifics when it should be the education professionals that put forth some effort and ideas! Shouldn't the school be stoked to see how far they can go with these students? Shouldn't the teachers see these students as a professional challenge and be excited to push them? Why is it such a huge ordeal when you have a student that wants to learn and is capable of learning more than what is being offered? Why are they squashed down instead of lifted up?

MON, I'm so sorry.

Do the higher-ups who supervise special education in your district know what is happening in their schools?

It may be worth engaging them in a conversation about this-- not to get anyone into trouble, but to make it clear that the process is not serving students or families that well, and to encourage professional growth for the people who are acting more like three-headed dogs at the gates of Hell than like people who help children.

I imagine in horror what happens to the student without a devoted, educated parent. (No, actually I don't have to imagine it-- I've seen it.)


I read this as meaning: "We still don't know what Common Core actually means and we are terrified of it." Also: "it is so unusual to have a capable student who is sometimes unable to speak that we don't know what to do with that."

I would absolutely want this point in writing, for precisely these reasons. The teachers who are afraid of common core will not make accommodations unless explicitly instructed to do so.


Again, this means "accommodations are for struggling students, not 'normal' or 'gifted' students." Glad you got something in writing.


She is the counselor? I would be tempted to ask point-blank: why exactly do I have to fight? Who is unwilling to make the appropriate accommodations? And why?

But yes, it's so often like this...

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it will be ten times as hard in college, where there is no child find mandate, and they can make you go to each professor, every single term, to advocate for accommodations. Oh, and require fresh documentation every year (at a couple of thousand bucks--or more--a pop).

As an education professional, these kinds of stories really make me angry with, and embarrassed for, my professional colleagues.

One tactic to try with the "but it's standard procedure for everyone" line is to point out that not all schools are as "good" as this one, and you want to be prepared, in the event that some unexpected life circumstance forces you to move elsewhere, with a 504 document that would help the new setting provide your child with all his necessary accommodations. Also, at some point, you will have to consider the paper trail for college, as college 504s usually take as their starting point the last few high school 504s.

I hate that "yes, but it's policy so we won't put it in." Policy can change. And you know what, it's flatly CHILDISH to refuse to include a provision that matches a policy. I've actually sweetly but obstinately refused to move on from a line-item that is treated that way, myself-- "well, I don't see why including it is a problem if it's already policy. Can someone explain to me why there is a rule about that? Can you show me where it says that we can't? No? Well, then, since it's a necessary accommodation, then policy or not, it belongs in the 504. Why are you making such a big deal about not doing that? Why?"



Yes, it is so often like this.

I've only ONCE used the following highly confrontational statement, but BOY, did it get results:


Is this truly "Can't" or is it "don't want to"?? Because those are RADICALLY different statements. If this is what this student NEEDS, then "can't" is the ONLY legally valid limitation on accommodations. So-- y'all check with legal, and I strongly advise a call to OCR for some technical assistance, since there seems to be some confusion on your part about the difference between cannot and will not. If you "won't" do it-- I'm afraid that we're going to need to document that you're aware of the liability that you're assuming, and you are CHOOSING to take it on anyway. In spite of expert guidance to the contrary.

They were pretty hostile at that point, so it wasn't like I had much to lose. Next meeting, not-so-hostile and arrogant about it. Actually, "sheepish and willing" sort of sums it up.

One final note about your list--

Section 504 is pretty clearly not about a "menu" of accommodations for students to CHOOSE from. Because it's not about a fixed set of disability categories or educational opportunities, see-- so the law is pretty open-ended in INTENT. That is, it basically just states that whatever it is POSSIBLE to do, and whatever it is NECESSARY to do, that's what has to happen for an individual student. Period.

Letter to Zirkel and some digging about "undue burden" ought to fix that particular misconception.

This stuff makes me SO angry. It's fine for kids like mine and MON's, because we will fight, and we're capable of knowing when we're being handed baloney. Most parents, not-so-much.

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As for higher ed being ten times worse.. meh-- not our experience, actually. Colleges actually seem to WANT to do the right things, in contrast with so many of the school staffers that I've encountered both personally and as an advocate. Honestly, it was EASY. REALLY easy. DD14 managed it all on her own-- with only a couple of faxed documents and a pair of phone calls to confirm things. Yes, individual negotiations (kind of)-- but most campuses have an office specifically dealing with accommodations for students who are QID's. It's only a problem if you have to GET an evaluation for the first time at that level, but it's still possible.

Higher ed was better than what MoN describes even fifteen years ago. I know because I was regularly supplying flexible and individual accommodations THEN-- with guidance from the DSO on campus. Extra time... physical accommodations, providing notes to students with written expression disorders, tests given at testing centers, etc. No big deal. Not even 20 years ago.


It does get better.

I work at a college and we, too, have a central office that coordinates accommodations. The office collects all of the documentation and then sends it out every term to all of the course instructors for that student. The course instructors do not know the nature of the disability, but are instructed to provide specific accommodations. The students who need extra time typically take exams in the testing center instead of in the classroom. Most faculty are quite willing to provide accommodations, although I do know of a professor who refused to caption videos for a hearing-impaired student. The student had to switch to a different class because she was missing too much information from the videos.

That's more or less how it works at my university, except that our office of disabilities does the captioning- it's not my responsibility!

I understand this sort of thing varies a lot by university, but also be aware that some universities are spotty according to disability (ours is awesome for deaf students, less awesome for executive skills problems), and also through time: I've noted a distinct drop in our ODS quality in the last two years.

But for the high school, yeah, the more I interact with our high school, the more I get the message that they are uniterested in parent participation in planning.

Oh, they will do the captioning in the disability office at my college, too, but the professor was not organized enough to send copies of the videos to the office to be captioned!

I've often thought that university instruction and administration would be 1000x better if the ODS would serve the faculty as well!

Glad to hear that others have had such positive experiences.