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I don't think your focus is misplaced at all.

Does the school accept that your son is GT?

Do they recognize 2E issues, generally speaking? So that they can imagine a GT child who is also behind in some areas?

If the answer is no to either of these questions, your job will be much harder. I don't know if that helps, but it's what I think of right off the bat. There may be some educating involved for you...

Hey, MON, I forget which state you are in. I think that the answers to your questions lie in the state special education laws and whether gifted is recognized as having special needs. In terms of the IDEA, it doesn't sound like the issue meets requirements from my understanding of the law. But if your state recognizes gifted within the special education laws, then you have a better chance of advocacy.

Under special education laws, the schools are not required to ensure that all children are working up to their potential or at their level of ability. They just have to show that the child is getting a "free and appropriate public education" (fondly referred to as FAPE) in the "least restrictive environment" (LRE) possible. I'm not up on the most recent changes to IDEA so I'm not sure if they've changed that wording or not.

But, as far as I can tell, if the dysgraphia and written expression disorder are not currently interferring with any of his academic performance then you are likely to have a hard time convincing the school to provide services. Have you considered a special education advocate? Or checked to see if your state offers any free legal counsel for special education needs? I always suggest finding the Center for Independent Living that serves your area and see if they have a youth advocate or resources regarding special education laws in your state. You can find that here:
http://www.ilru.org/html/publications/directory/index.html

I hope that helps. And best of luck with advocacy. I'm not saying he doesn't need help, BTW, just that advocacy using the special ed laws might be hard. I still strongly urge you to keep on advocating!!!

We just did this with my daughter. She also has dysgraphia and a 30+ point deviation in written expression.

My first advice is to call your local ARC office and ask about an advocate to help with the process. They are nationwide and the service was free in our case. That was an immense help.

Second, does your state recognize GT? We are in Michigan and in our state gifted programming isn't mandated. That will make a big difference in where you go from here. We discussed the same points of IDEA 2004 that you are mentioning just so you know that you aren't alone in that regard.

The other questions, have you checked that there are qualifications for testing? In our state the child must be tested if a written request is made by the parent or other interested party. The school will tell you there is no need to test in some cases but it is still their obligation to test. I know this varies by state. Is your state accepting the outside eval? I know that that isn't the case in our state, I assume they are if you have the IEP meeting. Our state will look at it but won't accept it for eligibility.

If your son has the diagnoses you mentioned you might be better using an outside advocate like ARC and I definately wouldn't do it after you get a NO from the IEP team. It is much easier to get them involved to help get a YES. They are very knowledgable on the law and won't have any interest with the school district. They can also give you information ahead of time about such things as outside independant evaluations that you can petition for if you disagree with the IEP. You would have to sign that you disagree though. If you get them involved after and aren't aware of these options you can close doors without realizing it.

My daughter has been placed in a happy medium for ELA that we will evaluate again at the end of the year. She is placed lower than her reading level, right around her overall comprehension for fiction because that is lower than non-fiction, and above her written expression level if she is hand writing. We wrote into her IEP that she may type anything lengthy or anything that would fall under "creative" writing so that she is able to work at the higher level.

More would be included and has been agreed upon if she attends for any other classes. (She only attends for ELA, music and spanish right now, this is also written into her IEP.) Things such as grading material on content vs grammar, spelling, puncuation and sentence structure for subjects outside ELA. You get the idea.

We used the laws but were able to do it in a very diplomatic way so that the school was very open to options. I think a lot of it is in the approach and the tone you take when talking to them, and discussing your sons needs. We were very careful to point out things that were helpful to my daughter, things that were working. We used a set of recommendations from Hoagies or from the Davidson Institute about advocating in a positive way. We only brought up specific law, with paperwork, if we were getting a "we don't do that" mindset, and approached it with the thought that maybe they weren't aware that they could. Off my box now...

My 10 year old son also has handwriting issues and would need to type if he ever went back to school. I am sure we would hear the same thing--that it is not fair to the other kids if he got to type.

I never understood this. Kids are allowed to use glasses if they need them to see so they can learn. Kids are allowed hearing aids if they need them so they can learn. My child has a handwriting disability that makes it impossible to work at his challenge level without typing so he needs this to learn.

Too many of our teachers don't understand that an appropriate education involves keeping the challenge level just right because if the challenge level is too great it causes stress and if it is not enough it causes boredom and loss of motivation.

Since my husband's highly gifted son from a previous marriage dropped out of school we already had experience with this loss of motivation problem. We could not let this happen to our son. When the principal and teachers told us we needed to homeschool because they couldn't offer an appropriate education and we learned that our state does not require an appropriate education for twice exceptional children, we had no choice. I don't think this is fair, but like my son once told me I have to deal with what is instead of what should be. I remember seeing the words "children should build on what they know" on the public school's website and then I realized there is a big difference between should and will. They never said children in their schools "will" build on what they know.

My special ed teacher friend and mom of two of my son's gifted friends understands learning differences and the fact that kids need to work at just the right challenge level. Why don't teachers get this when it seems like common sense to me? I think some of these teachers need remedial training. Maybe special ed teachers and OTs could teach the class.

It's always been explained to me, at least in California, that a student qualifies for an IEP when there is a "discrepancy" between achievement and ability. This is unrelated to whether or not the achievement or ability is below grade level. So if a child has an ability to perform much faster but is not achieving a that level, technically they should have an IEP. If achievement and ability are similar, there is no need for an IEP. It sounds like your DS should qualify because his ability is above his achievement. But also in California, the way I understand it is that if a parent requests an IEP evaluation, the school must comply in 60 school days- they cannot say "no we don't think so" without doing the testing and evaluations.

As a middle school teacher and high school VP, I've had several kids accommodated with a computer in the classroom. The way this plays out varies depending on the disability and the course subject. For my high school students, we always required that the laptop stay at school and that it be the property of our tech department. The laptop has no wireless or internet capabilities and is only used as a typing machine. The student must turn in work on a USB drive that the teacher gives the student. That has virtually eliminated any cheating.

My first year as VP, we had a student with a Palm phone and foldout keyboard. It was a disaster for everyone- including the student who was suspended for plagiarism. Cutting and pasting from the internet was the biggest problem.

I think it's time to remind the principal that an IEP/504 accommodations are not about making things "fair" for the other students. They're about making things fair for yours! Sure, it's not fair that yours gets to type- perhaps the teachers should look at changing lesson tactics to a more fair solution for everyone.It's not fair that other students are being taught at their level and yours isn't. If we're working on fair, lets do it across the board.

A teacher friend said that in our district they are no longer using the achievement<ability. The achievement has to be below grade level. You can have a IQ of 150, be performing on grade level and not qualify for service.

Didn't read all of this... but I will echo what Dottie said. It seems that because of where RTI focuses, above level kids are really left out. So far that has been our experience. (Dottie is this a state-wide initiative? It's totally new in our district this year.)

JB

You might not get (or need) an IEP. We have a similar situation with our ds, and he has a 504 plan.

A 504 plan is part of the Americans with Disabilities act. You ds has a diagnosed disability (dysgraphia), and you're asking for accomodations. My ds gets lines to write on, extended time on written assignments, compressed assignments (the rest of the class might have to rewrite 5 sentences but he only has to do 3), partial notes (fill-in the blanks rather than write everything), the ability to type long assignments, and occupational therapy. You might want to ask for any or all of those PLUS assistive technology. Assistive technology is a word processor (our sd uses alphasmart). The alphasmarts are provided by the school system. My ds doesn't have one, but I know other kids who do. Alphasmarts can't communicate with the Internet, so not plagerism worries there. They can have applications installed to help with spelling and word prediction.

The 504 plan is supposed to "level the playing field" for people with disabilities, not for giving kids an unfair advantage. Your child already has an unfair disadvantage, and you're just asking for compensation for his disability.

Try asking about 504's and see if the school is more receptive. If not, you may need an advocate or a lawyer to get them to toe the line.

If your son qualifies you really want an IEP.
Here are a few important differences between these two laws.

1. Section 504 does not require written plans.

2. Parents have few rights under Section 504.

3. The school does not have to invite the parent to the meeting when the 504 plan is developed. The school must notify the parent that a 504 plan was developed.

4. Section 504 has fewer procedural safeguards to protect the parent and child.

5. What appears to be discrimination may really not be discrimination.

6. Section 504 protections follows the child after s/he leaves the public school system. IDEA does not.

In many school districts how well a 504 plan works depends on the teachers implementing them. I have heard of many people who have them in place and nothing is done with them.

The Arc is the world�s largest community based organization of and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It provides an array of services and support for families and individuals and includes over 140,000 members affiliated through more than 780 state and local chapters across the nation. The Arc is devoted to promoting and improving supports and services for all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

In our area they have an advocate specifically assigned to work with families with children in the public schools. Community Mental Health's Director of Family Services actually was the one to suggest that I contact them about my daughter. I had never heard of them myself before this and certainly wouldn't have thought to call them about a school situation.

A 504 plan is actually part of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and is NOT part of IDEA (educational law). A 504 plan is basically just identifying that the child has a disability that justifies reasonable accommodations for success in the classroom. It is based on antidiscrimination laws, not equal access to education laws. 504 plans are often most useful for children with physical disabilities (ie: needs to have alternate seating in the classroom or needs to have someone help them get from class to class) but not cognitive disabilities. Schools sometimes prefer to do a 504 plan first when possible and appropriate - there's typically much less involved in terms of paperwork and needed resources for the child.

The current IDEA revisions have moved away from the discrepancy model and that's where RTI (Response to Intervention) comes in. The idea behind RTI is that the schools would be compelled to provide intervention to low achieving students without having to develop a full IEP (lots of time, paperwork, resources, etc). It was, I believe, a change in the act that was driven by NCLB - to help bring up the lower achieving students.

So, gifted kids *do* get left out of this. In order to get, say, a computer for typing a report under a 504 plan you would have to demonstrate that the child is being discriminated against, based on his disability, by NOT providing the computer. In order to get the computer under an IEP, the child has to be determined eligible for special education services (meet entry criteria for one of the eligibility categories, typically after full blown assessment by the team) and then the team must agree that the computer is an appropriate accommodation based on the presenting disability to help the child succeed *at an appropriate level* (read: grade level)in the classroom.

Wonderfully written Debbie. By the way I should have mentioned that my information on 504 plans was taken directly from Wrights Law.

MON- Sorry for what appears to be old or incomplete information. Our district is still very much operating in the discrepancy model. I was just in an IEP yesterday where the district special education coordinator was arguing against an IEP because the child has obvious learning disabilities but is also very low functioning in general. Perhaps it's something they whip out when it's convenient.

Sounds like it might be time to get an outside advocate on board, or at least get a consult.

MON, thanks for posting that article. I thought this was an important point:

I was told by a teacher friend that they are no longer looking at discrepancy between IQ and achievement. If you have to be below grade level and in many places, at least more than 1 grade level behind to get services.

I'm sure others here will have more concrete and helpful info for you.

Is writing his main issue? What is "adversely affecting his performance?"

I have no advice at all. I just wanted to say that I think that you are a wonderful mother, taking on "the powers that be" and advocating for your child. I'm new to the gifted arena and am just appalled that all states don't require that gifted children receive necessary services.

No advice, just support. I hope things work out well for your DS, one way or another, MON.

Sorry to hear of all your frustration. You've convinced me that we will get nowhere at DS6's school for an IEP or a 504 either - though I will try anyway. Again this morning the school counsellor has written that as he has all "Es" on his report card so she doubts CSIT team is needed for his BIP. Funny though - because he acutally has 3 "S:, a totally FAILING for "conduct" and a "U" for unsatisfactory on work study skills. If his conduct is a true "Grade" - then that blows that argument and as I argued with them previously - if a 3rd trip to the Office of Student Conduct really does result in 11-364 days suspension - then wouldn't that qualify as a disabiltiy that's inteferring in his education?!

I'm sure there is room also, to argue that work study skill habits alone would be affected in future if not now by ADHD and possibly require an IEP? Does anyone have a strong opinion on this?

I personally can't see the sense of developing a BIP if they are going to do it based on an FBA they did before he was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD? Unless they would create it exactly the same way, based on behviors observed regardless? Psychologist just wrote and asked us to bring extra information re diagnosis etc. Thank goodness! The counsellor just doesn't seem to be "getting it".

I don't right now feel the need to remove DS6 from class - seeing as they are adamantly against skipping grades so far! Class is working out better and they gave him a "corral" / "private desk area" already which seems to be helping. (Not sure that would go down well under the anti-exclusion laws of a 504 - but it might be okay as an accommodation in an IEP?)

My main concern is that they don't keep on suspending him for behavioral reasons.

I'd really appreciate further clarification from anyone here that knows for sure whether CSIT teams HAVE to legally do something. Is it true that they need a diagnosis before they can test of their own accord? I read somewhere that they have a certain amount of days before they have to respond to a written request and that if they test and a parent disagrees with their diagnosis it's legal for the parent to insist that the school pays for a second opinion from an outside source. Don't know if that only applies to VA.

We were told at the last meeting that even though they might chose to do extra tests on top of what we were getting done privately, they certainly would not repeat any tests within a 6 month period, esp. with gifted child - as they tend to remember the answers. That seemd fair enough - but it also seemed liked they were passing the buck - quite happy for us to part with our money first.

I also don't like the counsellors tone in regard to their coming up with a BIP when she says things like "he must learn to conduct himself a specific way around adults". A child with ODD is obviously not necessarily ever going tolearn that unless there is way to get them over the ODD, and as that is apparently liked to the ADHD, I guess "curing" that is the key.

Thoughts?

Keep on advocating for 2E kids will still be my motto. I think it's awful that gifted kids are not reaching their potential and schools don't care - possibly even worse that accommodations are not being made for gifted kids with disabilites.

Seems to me there needs to be a change in IDEA. 2E needs a blending point between the current PArts B & C and the legislation that deals with GT.

Secondly - States with a GIEP - according to what Dottie says -don't accommodate to disability properly either. Seems to me we need IEP, GIEP and something in the middle. Can we start a campaign? Got confirmation that someone name Connie Lorenson is already lobbying in Fairfax VA for this!

Sorry again - too many subjects in one thread probably!!