Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Public School with IEP or Private School?

Yippee!

Also very happy to see hear that you made it through the storm relatively unscathed.

I need a bit of advice...

The school year got off to a GREAT start. DD was excited about school and was her old happy-go-lucky self. Not a hint of anxiety and everyone telling me how wonderful she is. We started seeing the first hints of some anxiety by Friday afternoon but not sure why. When I mentioned it to the special ed teacher the school jumped all over it. A call from the social worker, notes and emails from the classroom teacher, etc. I couldn't ask for more.

Then I found out that DD will not be working with the "fabulous" special ed teacher we had been told about and the OG tutor verified was wonderful. That teacher's schedule is full so they have assigned DD to the other special ed teacher. When we were on the fence about public vs private this fabulous special ed teacher was the main argument everyone used for sending her to the public. The district wanted DD with an OG trained teacher and was going to bring someone to the school to work with her until they found out this teacher was going through the OG training this past summer. In other words she was absolutely perfect.

I decided to stick to my plan and let the district do what they think is best but continue to document, document, document in case it doesn't work. Now however I found out that she isn't really working the other special ed teacher either - she is working with her student teacher. This is so far from the "fabulous" OG trained teacher we were told she would have I just can't believe it. She spent her time with him the other day sounding out the word "cat". Cat was the first word DD learned how to spell when she was 3 and certainly didn't need to work on sounding it out. When I asked DD if she told the teacher that she knew the word she said she didn't get the chance "He told me to sound it out so that's what I did."

So do I continue to sit back and let the school do what it wants while I document it or do I make a fuss? Is having her work with the student teacher ok? Do I take the decision to have her work with the student teacher when they haven't yet gotten a handle on what DD's true abilities are an indication that this second special ed teacher is really not a good match for the situation? I don't want to undermine my relationship with the school or the special ed teacher she was assigned but I am not feeling very confident about the situation.

Thanks for any ideas or input.

Emm. Is it too late for the private school? Many private schools accept kids after school starts.

Otherwise, did the school tell you that your daughter would be working with the really good special ed teacher? If they did, it might be helpful to remind them.

As for the sounding out of c-a-t, I would lose no time and go talk to the OG trained teacher (NOT the student teacher) immediately. Be honest and gently assertive. Ask them to test her. Ask them to test beyond grade level. Get the general idea of what will be on the test so you can prepare her for it ("Will she be reading and answering questions? Will she have to write stuff? etc.). I know that any test prep has a bad reputation around here, but it's critical to avoid surprises on a test. Little kids can shut down if things aren't right. If you claim she's gifted and then she doesn't do well on the test because something about it surprised her and scared her, you'll have trouble convincing them about her after that.

It seems so right to let people who seem to be experts run the show. This course often seems to be best, and being a pain is no fun. But at the same time, sometimes it's better to be assertive. A lot of teachers/administrators don't think past grade level, for example. It's been my experience that this idea just doesn't occur to them (not ALL of them, just MANY of them). Remember, HG+ kids are rare, and schools are focused on low performers.

Random anecdote: after my son had been offered a grade skip a few years ago (skip 3rd, start 4th in the fall), they gave him a 3rd grade math book to do. This was in the spring. They wanted him to work through the book so that he wouldn't be confused in 4th grade. It was trivial for him: he was already finishing 5th grade math and messing with algebra at that point. At a conference, his teacher told me, in a surprised tone, "He's doing very well; I actually think he might even be able to do stuff past the 3rd grade level!" I had spent the autumn in meetings asking if there was there anything they could do to help him work at his level in math. This teacher was at those meetings and had looked at the work he had done. Yet the message wasn't getting through. Sorry to say that this problem has repeated itself a few times since then with other teachers.

So my advice is to push gently but hard and get stuff in writing (at a public school or a private one). When you rely on a conversation, they may say something that you interpret the wrong way and vice-versa. Everyone sees the world through the lens of their own circumstances, and what seems so obvious to one party is not obvious to another. Example: everyone will tell you that Mrs. X is the best special ed teacher ever! You will make an assumption that she will teach your child, perhaps not knowing that she's oversubscribed or maybe even moving to Maine next year. From their perspective, they're just telling you about one great special ed teacher at a school that has three other special ed teachers. They aren't making a promise that she'll teach your child; they're just stating a fact about the school.

It's maddening to feel forced to drill down to a level of detail including, "And will she teach my child next year? Precisely what will she teach?" But sometimes you have to. My rambling advice is to pick the stuff that you're willing to leave up to fate and pick the stuff that's most important, and focus on the latter. Get details and get stuff in writing.

HTH.

Am I right in understanding that the special ed teacher currently assigned is NOT OG-trained? (Let alone the student teacher...)

If so, I think you go back to the principal and nicely say that most things are going very well (and thanks for the great teacher placement and so on) but that you are concerned about your DD's reading instruction. Appropriate instruction for a dyslexic usually means a highly-trained OG teacher.

If they can't manage to reassign the qualified teacher to your DD, they need to hire someone qualified. If they really are resistant, say the words "free, appropriate, public education" (FAPE)-- it's the legal acronym that means your DD is entitled to have her actual needs met. You might do a little reading on Wrightslaw to give you confidence.

I'm glad all else is going swimmingly. Because of that, I suggest you look at this as a solvable problem, because it will encourage the school to do the same. If they say "impossible," keep asking for "appropriate"-- you may want to have scientific literature on hand that backs up the need for OG, which shouldn't be hard to find.

If they still say "impossible," perhaps you might talk to a special ed advocate as your next step?

DeeDee

Pemberley - it's great that you are documenting. It's my experience that 'things change' and it's you job to keep the communication flowing back from the child to the school so that they can keep their complicated picture up to date.

The first thing that you want to communicate is how she is doing social/emotionally. So if the anxiety kind of went away after last Friday, let them know that. If it's continues let them know that too.

2nd type of useful communication connects the anxiety to what you think the solution might be. So if the anxiety seems to be connected to the student special ed teacher - and CAT - let them know that. Since you don't really know what is the cause, it won't be difficult to present this as 'one possible part of the puzzle' and that won't offend anyone.

They really want to help.

Love and More Love
Grinity

I spoke with the director of special ed for the town and explained my concerns about the student teacher, i.e. I don�t mind a student teacher working with DD once the qualified teachers finish assessing her and can provide appropriate guidance but I am uncomfortable with how it has been handled so far. She will talk to the actual special ed teacher about my concerns and encouraged me to speak with her directly as well. I said that I will give it some time for them to work it all out but I don�t want to go too far down the wrong path while we are still trying to dig out from the damage caused last year. The other day DD said she worked with the actual teacher and the student teacher together so I am encouraged. As long as her anxiety isn�t triggered we�re doing well.

Both the director of special ed and the fabulous teacher told me that OG is just the new fancy term for what they were taught as undergrads in the 1970's so the formal training is not needed. Not sure I buy that but it is what both told me last week. I am, of course, documenting.

Oddly both the teacher and the director of special ed seem shocked that I even knew that a student teacher was working with DD or that he had her sounding out �cat�. I just ask DD about what she did in school that day and put the pieces together - not sure why that would seem so surprising�

Thanks all. Will keep you posted.

This sounds good, Pemberley. It sounds as though they are on alert that you are paying attention, and they're responding to your complaints, yet you haven't made them mad. Fine place to be for now, as they work out the kinks.

I'd say, as long as her anxiety isn't triggered AND she's getting appropriate instruction, things sound good.

Well done!

DeeDee

This is the essence of getting things done. Enumerate what will be done and ensure it matches the overall strategy.

Thanks you for the post.

We had our meeting to update the IEP yesterday and things are continuing to go well. The student teacher leaves at the end of this week so DD will be working with the actual special ed teacher starting next week. They are changing the timing of her pull out and will be working on sight words. I assume this is progress. The classroom teacher said that she was able to confirm some of my reports about testing inaccuracies (one time she assessed 1/5 and 3/5 vowel sounds but another time tested at 5/5 for both long and short vowels) but the special ed teacher seemed a bit surprised - she hasn't seen that sort of inconsistency. She did report that DD had read "fluently" for her one time, though. I think bit by bit they will get to an accurate read on her. If not she'll keep getting lots of extra attention...

They are now adding pull out time for math as well. This surprised us because on her testing she was "high average" - just shy of "superior". She has always "missed" the numbers 13 and 15 when counting so I think it is probably a good idea.

They brought in the school OT and asked her to work with DD - this was a big relief because we tried all last year to get OT in school and kept hitting a brick wall. It's interesting that this request was what led to the whole eval, 2E discovery, complicated IEP, etc and now we are finally getting that component added in. They are also going to have her evaluated by a speech pathologist. I had been told her speech was difficult to understand because she was using such advanced vocabulary - developmentally she was not necessarily ready for such complex words. We discussed that she always dropped her first consonant sounds when learning new words so it made sense to me that she tested as having trouble with initial word sounds. Maybe this is somehow a piece of the puzzle too.

All agree that she is happy as can be at school - no problems with anxiety. The school social worker is meeting with her once a week to help with coping strategies for when things arise. All good.

All these added components are why we had trouble deciding between public and private over the summer. I guess they confirm that we made the right decision - I'm not sure how it all would have been addressed if we had gone to the private school. Probably lots of extra expenses for the services.

I realize that I will have to keep pushing for enrichment to meet her comprehension needs. They don't have a formal mechanism for it in 1st grade so it is up to the classroom teacher. She is more than willing to provide differentiated instruction but I'm not sure she gets the extent to which it is needed. I made clear that I am going to insist on it so hopefully it will work as we move forward.

I thanked everyone profusely for having created a situation that is "better than best case scenario" and they said that it was my providing such detailed information for them that allowed them to make the transition so successful. I guess that is part of the message to share here - don't be shy when advocating for your child. Tell them what they need to know - use examples and make specific requests. A lot depends on your school and it's policies - I did not have a lot of luck last year at the big city magnet but I also learned from that experience to be insistent. It seems to be working at the local public - at least so far. Will keep you posted.

Thanks so much to everyone for their thoughtful advice as we were trying to figure this all out. I can't tell you how much you helped!