Tomorrow we have our second SST meeting, only a few weeks late. I'm nervous about these things as usual and worrying that I'm prepared for the meeting. School was given the full workup we did this summer and his counselor told me this meeting will be to set up either a 504 or IEP.

Background for those who haven't been following. DS15 is a sophomore in H.S. and is a underperforming gifted student. We did a full private eval this summer and he has been diagnosed with LD with impairment in written expression, anxiety, depression, and has "traits" of ASD. He has "low-average" processing speed, average working memory that pulls down an otherwise high IQ. Last year he was in full honors classes, but his grades were low enough he was dropped from the honors classes although he is still accelerated in science & math. He tests well, is slow to do homework & doesn't always turn it in on time, but the most frustrating is he gets stuck "deciding what to write" and anything that involved writing suffers.

The "plan" is to try and get some accommodations in school but do remediation' privately one-on-one. He is seeing a psychologist who is an expert in gifted kids and I have found a writing tutor to help him with his writing "block". Any opinions what in school accommodations would best help? I'm going to start with those I think will be easy to get and work my way down.

1. Counselor hand selects his classes. She did it this year although not very successfully, Chemestry & English teacher are a bad fit.

2. Extra time if he wants it (50% more time) for tests & in class writing assignments. He doesn't need this for most math & multiple choice tests but I feels it's simpler for the long runs not to specify this.

3. Use of a keyboard for in class writing assignments. (Sometimes the class goes to the computer lab but not always.)

4. Requiring the teachers to weight his grades like they were the honors or a college class. I'm not sure how to explain this. I'm looking for a grading scheme where homework/seatwork is no more than "10%" of his grade like his math class. In contrast his Chemistry class the "homework" is 25% of the grade. Perhaps its better written that 90% of the grade should be based on tests, quizzes, essays, and labs depending on the type of class. His psychologist says that this has been a very helpful accommodation for other similar teenagers she has worked with even going so far as the grade is only based on "tests & assessments".

His report includes accommodations like a tape recorder to take notes but both my son & I feel this is unnecessary.

Basesd on the first SST and other things the counselor has said also on the table are a resource teacher to help him with his study skills, aka planning ahead of time so homework gets is done in time and turned in. And I know they want him to take their social skills class, I'm OK with this but DS isn't interested. I am considering asking if they can change his Chemestry &/or English teacher. Not sure if it's possible because of scheduling conflicts and it is already 5 weeks into the school year. I want to see how accommodating these teachers seems to be in the meeting tomorrow before I ask.

So far they have been more accommodating than I expected. The only thing I know I have NO wiggle room is they will NOT put him back in any of the honors classes.

Thanks..

One of the main problems with writing is there usually isn't a first draft/second draft. Almost ALL of the essay writing is IN class.. here is a prompt write an essay in an hour and a half.

Oral reports are neither better nor worse for him. His problem is content creation. One of the suggestions the evaluator made was to do more oral reports rather than written ones and I found that confusing.

The reminder and/or extra day might be a good solution. His problem with classwork is MOSTLY a problem with Chemistry this yer. This has a lot to do with teacher style. Three of his classes have the homework online, or for math he has the entire quarters worth of homework already given to him. He doesn't have homework problems when the teacher is organized.

He doesn't need a teacher to give him notes. Usually he is good enough with tests that this is unnecessary. And at least this year non of his teachers considers note taking part of the homework grade.

1. Items only sufficient to demonstrate mastery (especially for math, where advanced classes often have truly excessive problem sets). Or require only starred key items (another way to put it).
2. Supplementary oral assessment. This goes beyond oral reports to having him clarify and expand his written responses on tests or assignments, instead of just marking him down because of insufficient detail. The teacher would pull him aside after skimming over the written test responses, but before final grading, and ask him to expand on any questionable responses, then add his oral response to his grade.
3. Yes to notes provided. Usually, I suggest that the student take notes as usual (as there is some evidence that the process of handwriting notes has instructional value), but be provided with a copy of notes at the conclusion of each lecture. Alternatively, he could receive an outline, or partially-completed set of notes, including all key points, with space for him to add his own notes.
4. "Prime the pump" for tasks involving written expression, using interactive discussion and modeling prior to initiating writing. Writing prompts including sentence stems. E.g., for an essay about learning a new task: "When I first started swimming lessons, I felt..."
5. Make connections between instructional tasks and his personal interests, ambitions, experiences, and prior learning. He'll do better with initiating writing if he can find a way to connect topics to his own experience--if they're relevant.
6. For math & science, no points off for failure to show work, or articulate process, if the end result is correct.
7. Homework counts only positively toward course grades.
8. Except when written expression is integral to the learning objectives, grade only on content. No point deductions for grammar (including incomplete sentences) or mechanics (spelling, capitalization, punctuation).

ETA:
9. Scaffold lengthy or complex projects into smaller benchmarks, with well-defined criteria.

Sounds great but a since a lot of the kids would like/benefit from that don't expect instant enthusiasm. He will have to learn to show his working though even if not graded on it now. Oddly when I was at university most of the stuff I was graded on was homework.

Very true. But these are actually all accommodations that have been offered to students in my workplaces.

I've heard this before when advocating for my 2e ds, and fwiw, I think it's an important point to understand when advocating. When this is mentioned in a meeting, I think it's really important to steer the conversation back to the child that the meeting is being held for, and to remind everyone in attendance why the accommodation is necessary to allow this particular student to access his education (i.e., be able to fully comprehend instruction or be able to fully demonstrate his knowledge etc). Point out whatever data points you have - testing example or reports from OT/neuropsych etc - but be sure to immediately point out that "this isn't about gaining an advantage, it's about guaranteeing his right to access his education". BIG difference.


Maybe, maybe not. A lot depends (in the US) on what you choose to study when you're in college. Another thing to remember with this type of accommodation - you are trying to let the teacher see what the true level of knowledge is, in a student who really *can't* communicate effectively through writing. Having a ds who struggles with this tremendously, I don't think that many people really understand expressive language challenges. Another thing that happens with students who have challenges with reading/writing/whatever is that they become overloaded with homework - not because they have difficulty understanding the concepts but because they have issues with putting their thoughts on paper or reading the material or trying to stay focused or eye strain or whatever - and that in turn sometimes prevents them from being successful in school because they are too inundated with work (much of which has nothing to do with what they are learning but has everything to do with their disability), and if they are able somehow to put all the required homework time in that often means no free time left over for *life*.

Sorry I think I'm about to climb on a soapbox so I'll step down

bluemagic, you've got a good set of accommodation suggestions above. I can't think of any others at the moment. Good luck with your meeting!

polarbear

I've heard this before when advocating for my 2e ds, and fwiw, I think it's an important point to understand when advocating. When this is mentioned in a meeting, I think it's really important to steer the conversation back to the child that the meeting is being held for, and to remind everyone in attendance why the accommodation is necessary to allow this particular student to access his education (i.e., be able to fully comprehend instruction or be able to fully demonstrate his knowledge etc). Point out whatever data points you have - testing example or reports from OT/neuropsych etc - but be sure to immediately point out that "this isn't about gaining an advantage, it's about guaranteeing his right to access his education". BIG difference.


Maybe, maybe not. A lot depends (in the US) on what you choose to study when you're in college. Another thing to remember with this type of accommodation - you are trying to let the teacher see what the true level of knowledge is, in a student who really *can't* communicate effectively through writing. Having a ds who struggles with this tremendously, I don't think that many people really understand expressive language challenges. Another thing that happens with students who have challenges with reading/writing/whatever is that they become overloaded with homework - not because they have difficulty understanding the concepts but because they have issues with putting their thoughts on paper or reading the material or trying to stay focused or eye strain or whatever - and that in turn sometimes prevents them from being successful in school because they are too inundated with work (much of which has nothing to do with what they are learning but has everything to do with their disability), and if they are able somehow to put all the required homework time in that often means no free time left over for *life*. Accommodations as suggested above can bring the overall homework time load back down to a manageable level.

Sorry I think I'm about to climb on a soapbox so I'll step down

bluemagic, you've got a good set of accommodation suggestions above. I can't think of any others at the moment. Good luck with your meeting!

polarbear

Thanks for all the suggestions, I just got back from hanging out with a RL friend. Talked with her about it it went well at first but by the end it disintegrated into her telling me she just thinks my kid is being lazy and doesn't really want it badly enough. Was very frustrating and why I often don't like to talk with her about the situation.

polarbear, I'm grateful to read your words. It's just so frustrating when he has nothing to say. And he then gets frustrated and then anxious and it bleeds into everything else he does.

aeh, Thanks for your list. Lots of good suggestions there.

Oddly 4th-8th grade there were TONS of lengthy projects but in H.S. there are very few. Last year and this year I believe there will be only one long project, a second semester social studies/history project. Math is just homework/tests. History is reading the book, quizzes & tests, a few in class debates and the one required spring project. Chemistry will be mostly labs, tests, quizzes and problem sets. English is reading books, taking tests and then writing mostly in-class essays, and some grammar/vocab. Spanish is weekly vocab, homework, participation, speaking, tests. There is a lot of writing in both English & Social Studies but most of it is short answer, or quick 75 minute essays.

Seems odd that the younger grades spent so much time focusing on this. My kids were always doing long complex projects one after another. I noticed this with my daughter as well. This may be partly honors/AP vs. non-honors classes in the H.S. though. I believe many of the AP classes assign big projects after the AP test is taken since we usually have 5-6 more weeks of school.

Back from the meeting. I think it was mostly successful although I they didn't agree to all the accommodations I wanted they came up with others that were good. No problem is getting a 504, we decided that since I wasn't asking the school for remediation this was sufficient. I have signed the forms to start the process but the paperwork hasn't been completed so accommodations could still be negotiated.

No problem with extra time for in-class writing activities, they have a detailed plan where for in class English essays he will be expected to spend that "extra" time doing a prewriting activity, and then get the regular amount of time to do the actual writing. This seems a good plan because extra time can just mean he spins longer.

Main accommodation I didn't get was the grades are only based mostly assessments, vs. seatwork/homework. They didn't say it was out of the question, but that they wanted to try other strategies first. The class where this is most critical is Chemistry where he is currently failing. Assessments are at 85%, homework is a big fat 0 at this point. He will be required to do a homework contract with this teacher for the next 6 weeks. This is required because he is failing. Because this teacher is known to have problems with organization, this is as much for my benefit. I didn't know how critically bad it was until this week since the teacher hadn't updated anything.

No social skills class at this point, he is not interested. And the fact that he is in marching band and robotics club make both I & the psychologist comfortable that he is working these things through on his own. And he does see the outside psychologist.

They were happy to include the keyboarding for in-class essays but my son doesn't think it's necessary and is resisting that accommodation.

All in all.. I think I am overall lucky. I really like the current high school psychologist. (Hated the one who was there when my daughter was in H.S.) They are willing to put in a 504 for a kid who mostly isn't failing but underperforming. They were very happy with the outside report I provided them. They seem to "get" what the issues are better at this meeting. Most of his teachers seem to have taken the time to get to know him (despite 40+ kids in a class) and realize he is quite bright. This meeting hopefully now makes them all aware of his issues particularly the anxiety that sometimes cripples him. The Chemistry teacher whom I am the most frustrated with does seem to KNOW her material, my son likes her and the psychologist & counselor claim she is very compliant with other kids who have 504's.

Crossing my fingers this helps.. We still aren't where we need to be. And it takes his COMPLIANCE and the older his compliance is becoming more and more of an issue. Guess I'm hanging over his head that if he fails Chemistry he retakes it this summer instead of going to camp.

Great news!


It's also important to remember - accommodations can *always* be negotiated, even after the initial paperwork is completed. If an accommodation isn't working or another issue comes up that requires an accommodation, you can call a 504 team meeting to discuss updating the 504 at *any* time.


Do they have a plan for the pre-writing activities? I'm just curious, given that I have a kid who also benefits from pre-writing strategies


Is the homework grade a zero because your ds isn't doing the homework or because he's not getting it turned in? Or does he not know what the assigned homework is? This is an area our ds is struggling with, in just a few classes where the teachers are not organized and predictable re homework assignments, and where the teachers are not posting homework assignments in easily accessible places so that ds can look up and double-check assignments.


How does the homework contract work? Does your ds have a way to verify what he's supposed to be doing for homework or is the contract just about getting it done and turned in?


That all sounds good - and jmo, but if he doesn't have to fit in the extra class, that's probably a good thing too, because taking the social skills class at school would take away an elective, right?


Do you think he needs the keyboarding accommodation or did the psych that did his eval think he needed it? Have you thought of telling him he has to try it but also giving him some kind of reward for doing it? I realize he's 15 and it's very different from getting a younger child to use accommodations - I'm living with a 14 year old And a 12 year old prodigy (not a prodigy with respect to intellect, but with respect to acting like a teen before her time lol). But I've also found that it's really useful with my ds to get him to actually use an accommodation for a certain period of time - because in spite of resistance to try it, as long as the accommodation is something that really is necessary or really will help - after he's been forced to try it, he usually realizes life is much better using it and that takes away the resistance to use it.


This is great - I hope that this psych stays at the school for the remaining years your ds will be there!


Don't ever forget - a 504 plan isn't about *grades* or performance - it's about access to education. If a child is not able to access their education. I know you know that, just wanted to point it out for other parents of kids with disabilities who might be reading this



For anyone who's struggling with advocating for their children at school, having that outside report from professionals really does make a big difference. It's easy to argue, attempt to intimidate, or dismiss a parent who has no data - but professional educators are not going to argue the opinion of a board-credentialed, degreed, whatever psychologist or dr etc.


You aren't where you need to be yet, but you are *so* much farther along than you were last spring! I'm impressed with all you've accomplished and how you've gone to bat for your ds - you've done a wonderful job advocating for him. Compliance isn't easy - but again, if you just keep at it, encouraging him to use the accommodations etc, I think he'll gradually realize that it's all good.

Hang in there,

polarbear

The pre-writing work got me thinking about tools I've used for guiding brainstorming sessions. Basically, many people have no specific idea not for a lack of ideas, but for a lack of constraints on the multitude of possibilities.

One of the best tools is to introduce an external, not necessarily connected constraint. So, you can have a box of pictures (see http://www.ideo.com/work/method-cards ) and you pull a card and try to write towards your topic in a way that you see as related to the picture on the card.

You can also use internal tools, probably the most common is "who, what, where, when" but there are other ways to constrain things. This sort of approach allows a logically inclined person to feel controlled in their exploration.

Building a set of imaginary fictional narrators and choosing one can also help to delocalize the proces, to distance the writer from the responsibility for their writing.

Writers' toolkits will have things like starter sentences, that can be good jumping off points. There are also fomulaic tools for getting thoughts out, kinda a more specific who, what, where with a Mad Lib structure.

On topic nonsense writing may also help, like:
"Christopher Columbus, third cousin thrice removed of the renowned Christopher Kringle, made a paper boat to sail across the bathtub."

I think that is still to be determined. I am going to suggest that his private writing tutor work with him on best pre-writing strategies for him. I know there are dozens of different ways. I do know they are going to require he WRITE something on paper to work from. It sounded like the teacher & psychologist already had a plan formed but we didn't go over the details.

I wasn't able to figure this out by myself. We got somewhere in the meeting. Some of this seems to be miscommunication, not knowing when or what was assigned. Some of is his anxiety kicking in. Much of it is unfinished work and that he doesn't like to turn in unfinished work. This teacher emphasized that while homework is graded on completion if it's 70% done, you get a 7/10 still better than a 0/10. Part of it is when a ship starts sinking, he doesn't try and rescue himself but gets embarrassed and just wants to go down with the boat.

He will be required to go see her once a week at "office" hours. There will be a form that the teacher & he will have to fill out and that I will have to sign. It will include dates for upcoming work, what his current missed assignments are, and she will be required to take late homework for the past week at that time. (She generally doesn't take late homework.) He is encouraged to skip & circle any homework problems he doesn't know how to answer. At this point it will be a 6 week contract and at that point be re-evaluated.


This wouldn't be an extra class. They schedule this during school once a week, different period ever week so it doesn't affect any one class too much and try to take into account not having them miss any tests.


He just doesn't think it would help. About 50% of the time these writing assignments are done in the computer lab anyway. I am not sure who this would be administered and probably need to ask. Perhaps they send him to another room to do the essays? Thinking about it further, as this is a fairly common accommodation my guess is they send him to the resource office to do the assignment but I should ask.

So do I. I really didn't get along with the psyc at this school when my daughter was there. I spend the whole time fighting to keep my daughters IEP until after they need a full assessment her junior year.


Thanks I know but it's easy to forget. I really appreciate your responding. This whole thing can get overwhelming and it's nice to talk with other people going through similar things.