Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy A

Is that because of the language program?

It might be time to look at what's available in other districts?

DeeDee

I really am not one to jump the gun on this, but at this point I would be retaining a very experienced advocate and potentially a lawyer, or homeschooling. (HSing is absolutely my option of last resort, so I sympathize if you don't want to do it.) I would also be reaching out to other parents of SN children in the area to find out what their experiences have been.

I can understand why you'd be hesitant of the ED label for a variety of reasons, especially when the district seems to 1) determine placement based on categories rather than actual needs and 2) completely ignore LRE. You'd have to change their mindset to get them to implement IDEA correctly and it'd be an uphill battle. Again, I can understand why you don't want to find your family tangled up in their mess.

Right now, requesting a 504 plan seems like the most sensible course of action to me. Her ability to learn appropriate social behaviors in school setting is impaired due to her disability so she should qualify for it and it'd protect her from suspension and expulsion stemming from incidents that are manifestation of her disability.

She might be okay during the first few months. Even after her honeymoon period, she might end up surprising everyone in the best possible way.

Ds's last school did the whole calling us to pick him up, and then tried to label him ED as well.

We left that school for the charter... No way would he have made it through another year there.

ED kids end up just being warehoused. They aren't held to state standards, or challenged at all.

moomin, is this school your "neighborhood" elementary school - ie the school your child has to attend based on where you live if they aren't attending any other school? Or is it a lottery or other type of optional school program? I only wonder about that since you've mentioned it's an immersion school and in our area, immersion programs are optional school programs (public school) that you can apply for but the immersion programs don't automatically pull from their neighborhood. Hope that makes sense!

The reason I ask that is this - if it's not your neighborhood school, have you looked into sending your dd to your neighborhood school? We sent our 2e ds to an optional school for early elementary because we were very excited about the "optional" parts of the program over the routine curriculum he'd have in our neighborhood school, but found out ultimately that he most likely would have recieved better services (for his LD and for his gifted abilities) at our neighborhood school and it wouldn't have been as large of a fight for those services. This may not be the case where you are, but it sounds like you're heading into a long battle at the school your dd is currently slated to attend. If there was any other option (even private) where you felt you were not headed into such an advocacy battle, I'd be looking into it.

polarbear