Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy When to let it go...

I'll not re-post DS7's story but he's HG and dysgraphic. And happy. He loves school. He hates writing. I'll admit, sometimes I can't even see the disability or I doubt the diagnosis. I did see it very clearly last week studying for a spelling test. We did teacher-assigned written spelling homework for three nights. On night four, I gave him a written practice test for homework. He got three out of ten correct. The other seven weren't even close. I don't even know how he came up with what he wrote. He was engaged, but he just couldn't do it...until I got out the Scrabble tiles. We worked for 15 minutes and I quizzed him again the next morning-orally. He got them all right.

The school has been 100% against us. I don't know what else to say about it. They will NOT help him at all. He meets the state standards-case closed. It energized me a bit to see so clearly what he needs when he was working on his spelling test, so I emailed the principal today. I honestly didn't expect her to do anything, but I didn't expect this response either, "I know it can be frustrating to a child (and to the parents) when they have great success in one area and challenges in another as they feel like they "should" be able to do well in every subject." What?? It's not that he feels that he "should", it's that he can't. BECAUSE OF A DISABILITY.

I don't know how to work with this. I had planned on pressing for the 504 accommodations, but now I just feel defeated. Again.

Is there ever a time to let it go? He's happy at school. The work is super easy, so he's getting by with the writing for now. His standardized test scores are through the roof. Teachers aren't complaining. DH and I are the only ones who see an issue. Do I wait until teachers are complaining, his grades do suffer and he's really frustrated? That sounds insane and wrong on every level, but I can't make the school care.

Because he loves it so much, I'd like to make public school work for now. Is there anything else that I can do? Is it ever okay to let it go for a season? Am I crazy for even suggesting that?

Is he 504 eligible? That is, have they found him eligible?

If not-- you've got nothing at the moment, in terms of leverage.

And NO, I would not just let this go.

But think of it this way-- that disability process MUST work forward to back or the school would have every parent breathing down their necks to "adjust" things that their precious snowflakes simply find unpleasant, hard, or unrewarding (to either parents or child). There's a big difference between "I have no readiness or ability for this level of material that is 'advanced' relative to grade, and it's going to be a CONTINUOUS battle to get me through it" and "I can't WRITE my answers or they don't make sense-- I need another way of getting what I know across to those evaluating assessments because I know a LOT if you give me a chance."

The latter is disability. The former is special-snowflake-ism. Schools SHOULD ignore the former, and should at the same time find out ways to accommodate the latter so that those students have the same opportunity to LEARN at school as other children.

But the first step is teasing apart who is who.

"The work is super-easy, so he's getting by" is a clear warning sign in my mind. You can deal with it now, or you can remediate fall-out in a year or two. IMO, you're better off getting the 504 plan in place NOW than waiting until he's in crisis and you're all frustrated and anxious to move things faster than they can reasonably go. (Schools move slowly on this sort of thing.)

ITA. Do you have a written eval from a neuropsychologist? Have you talked to the district-level people, or just the school?

There are things you can do to make a 504 happen even with a recalcitrant school.

Yes, I have a full outside psych eval with diagnosis and recommendations. When we met to start the eligibility process, the assistant principal mentioned the 504 and said we could get one "right now." After several email exchanges, the 504 offer seems to have mysteriously vanished from their minds. I was going to pick up that fight again but I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall.

I have only worked with the school. I was trying to honor the chain-of-command but it seems that even the principal isn't terribly concerned about any of this.

Written documentations-- from here on out.

You need a letter of understanding pronto. Write something up which details your interactions, what you were told and when (and names/titles).

Then lob that into their court with a deadline for them to "correct any misunderstandings" that you may have. For example, your "misunderstanding" that your child IS 504-eligible. (Yes, yes, I know that wasn't a misunderstanding, but it'll get things moving, at least.)

ITA with the above. I took a quick look back through your August post to remember some of what's gone on at school this year. I'm curious - have you tried finding a parent advocate to help you navigate through the school system?

It seems pretty clear that the school doesn't want your ds to qualify for services, but it's also somewhat clear that they are using what's essentially a smoke-screen to show he's not qualified. It's easy to say he's meeting standards, but they might not actually be testing the areas he's challenged with. That happened when we were advocating for our ds. I had to be very diligent in relating the info contained in ds' neuropsych testing in a way that correlated to examples of actual work from ds that countered any point the school staff tried to bring up saying ds was "ok" or "meeting standards". Disorders of written expression and related challenges aren't necessarily easy to identify for people who aren't familiar with both the concept and the child. I had to know first of all what I wanted from the school (IEP vs 504, what accommodations etc) and then I had to basically put together a presentation showing that he had those needs. In addition to putting together the data and examples that illustrated ds' needs, I also had to somewhat anticipate the arguments the school would throw back at me and plan ahead to counter them with either work samples or data or research etc.

And I'll be honest about something - we did give up - not on helping ds but on the school he was at. We moved him to a private school which meant moving him out of a program that we felt very strongly we wanted him in (not for the LD stuff but for his academic strengths). We made the decision to give up the IEP and services we'd fought hard to win, because the fight didn't stop with receiving the IEP - once we had the IEP we had to fight to get the services delivered. Over and over and over again. Ultimately changing schools was the best decision we ever made - just in this one instance, for our one ds. The difference for ds was that the staff at his new school accepted what we told them about ds, believed the private reports, and were very eager to help ds in whatever way they could. It was up to us to provide the OT, SLP etc, but the school would *never* have felt ok with saying "our goal is that he meets state standards". The difference in the school's attitude and willingness to help not only made *my* life 1000 times easier, it gave ds his self-confidence back. In some ways, I feel like it saved his life - it made that much of a difference to be in a different environment.

Again, that's just our one situation. We did give up something big - we gave up advocating for and expecting services from ds' public school. But we *never* gave up seeking accommodations, remediation, working toward living with and succeeding with his disability. If we'd said "the fight is too tough now, ds is happy, let's wait a year in first grade", that simply would *not* have worked. It would have instead most likely made it 10 times more difficult to advocate the second time around, and 100 times more difficult for ds because he'd have to fall further before getting help.

While there may be days when the good things about school seem to be everywhere and you're able as a parent for a minute to feel like dysgraphia doesn't exist, I'm guessing the chances are good that for your ds, there is never a day he doesn't think about it. I could be wrong, but that's what it was like for my ds before he had accommodations, even on the days when there wasn't much writing at school. He always felt different and always wondered why he couldn't do something so simple that all the other kids could do. It really hit his self-esteem in a big way at 7 years old. OTOH, having parents who stood up for him and fought for his accommodations etc gave him hope, and by the time we were ready to give up on his school, he'd given up on it too. In 2nd grade he was happy there and didn't want to move, by the end of 5th grade he wanted no more of it. He saw how the school was denying anything was wrong, he knew something was wrong (and he had a name for it by then and an understanding of what it was), and he knew the school staff wasn't helping. Don't discount the message from the school that your child is receiving every day when a teacher is telling you, the parent, that there is nothing wrong - your child is hearing the teacher say the same thing (maybe not the same conversation, but he'll get the same message).

So my recommendation - you can't ever give up or set aside the advocating and seeking what's best for your ds for even a minute, but sometimes you need to step back and reframe what you're seeking, how you're going about it, and look to see if there are alternatives that might work better.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I think you have given the principal a chance - the next step in "honoring the chain-of-command" is to move it up the food chain. I would forward the principal's recent email and a copy of your report with diagnosis and evaluations to central office. Tonight. I would look at your district website and find the director of special Ed, director of special services or director of Pupil Personnel Services. I would reference the prior agreement but only forward the other emails if this person balks at putting a 504 in place.

In second grade my DD (with a laundry list of LD diagnoses including dysgraphia and dyslexia) averaged only 70% when she had to write her spelling tests herself, *above 95%* when she could do them orally. This accommodation was in her IEP all year but it was hard to get the teacher to understand and implement her accommodations. Getting the 504 in place will be a start - it may still take time to get everything worked out and implemented.

I am confident this will work out. And no this is definitely not one I would just let go. If he is dysgraphic his challenges are likely to get worse - you want to get things in place now.

Good luck!

ITA with HK, though I'd be wording it a little different, because I wouldn't allow there to be any question of whether the child is 504-eligible. Rather than hinting at a "misunderstanding" that the child may be eligible, I'd take that as a given, and hint that there has been some form of "miscommunication" regarding its implementation, so if someone can provide advice on the next step in the formal process, so we can move it along, that'd be great.

I mean, you have a formal diagnosis from a qualified professional. Eligibility IS a given. There's no reason for further debate.

Excellent point.

I really don't think giving up is the way to go, either. My kid does really well at spelling tests (and it carries over to his writing, as well), but the act of writing itself seems painful. Right now, we are again going back & forth on a dysgraphia diagnosis (after my last post, I decided to follow up again).

Like masterofnone, I am compiling documentation. Worksheets where things are easy for him, vs worksheets where he has to write a lot of sentences. And, like masterofnone, I am explicitly teaching writing and grammar rules to my child. While he may be at grade level now, I think the teachers/principal don't know how much work goes into it. I worry a lot about writing expectations going up through the grades. Typing is one solution that seems to be working better for my child.

Keep researching, keep asking questions, and compile documentation -- don't give up.