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Sorry about the horrendous sounding meeting. I have been there as well. You say things that should be obvious and they stare at you blankly. Why is he classified as Speech impaired and not LD? We had the same issue with DS who had a speech IEP written at age 4 and then a couple years later, school claimed that they can't do anything like OT, etc. because he has a SPEECH IEP. I think in terms of speech, it may limit the services. What they need to do, (and what I insisted on) was a re-evaluation, putting him into a better category, so they switched him from Speech to PI (physically impaired) and then we were able to access services like OT and Dape (adpated phy ed). With Learning Disability, it is also the case that you can access a full range of services. If they have already evaluated him, it should be a matter of checking off the correct box. When is the last time he had a comprehensive eval?

I remember looking into it, and at least in our state, speech services are treated differently. So a "speech kid" is not really looked at like other special education students, probably because most of them are ultimately exited by the time they are early to mid elementary. Maybe aeh can weigh in...

It doesn't sound like they are meeting his needs, regardless of how speech IEPs work. If he fits into a different category then they are required to put him there and give the necessary services.

Sounds like maybe they are creating a solution and then crafting his needs to match it...

If you call your State Dept. of Ed--Special Ed there is probably someone there who answers parent questions and you could ask about Speech IEPs and eligibility for SLD. There may even be a State manual for assessing SLD posted online or an eligibility checklist. I was able to find the regression tables and guidelines for tests they should use to assess kids, etc.

Hi Emma,

I'm so sorry to hear about how the IEP meeting went - I tend to agree with Pemberley - it sounds like the school district knew what they wanted the solution to be and they tried to morph the diagnosis/issue to fit the solution.

I think I've asked before and I'm sure you've checked into it.. but just in case you haven't - some states have non-profit legal groups that specifically help with cases related to disability. If you had a state group in your area, they might be really useful in answering the legal questions re IDEA etc.

Wish I could offer something more in the way of help!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Families must must must get on the same page for the sake of their child/ren. Parents and child being advocated for must talk in advance and agree on what goals they are working toward.

Schools may leverage any potential disagreements between family members to use a "divide and conquer" strategy.

In every family, the division of labor and tasks each person performs may be different. If one spouse has researched IDEA and gifted education, the other may need to be brought up to speed. For example:
- One might send the other links to information and help connect the dots.
- One might encourage the other to sign up on the forum and learn from myriad uninvolved parents.
- Having a third party (advocate) may help the family members communicate on this topic with each other.

Every family is different... whatever approach works for your family, the two parents must be on the same page to successfully advocate to the school on your child's behalf. The child ought to also have some understanding and say in the matter, appropriate to their overall development, age, maturity, etc.

EmmaL, you seem to be very concerned about your posts being quoted and have also deleted many of them.

My advice is that if the information you're disclosing is so sensitive, you should stop posting it in a public place. Once you put something out on the Internet, you lose control of it completely. You don't know if others are taking screenshots of your messages or quoting them elsewhere. By "others," I mean employees at your child's school or your ex-husband or people who know him or know school employees. Or lawyers in family court.

You're obviously stuck in a very difficult situation. Is the Internet really the best place to go for help? Or might the situation just get worse for your child if this PUBLIC conversation turns into grist for the dispute mill?

I think whenever anyone posts about problems with a school or other sensitive or personal information, be it special ed or advocacy for gifted ed, specific test scores, etc. people should refrain from quoting the person because then it's impossible for them to remove the information later. It's an easy way to help someone else out. Sometimes it's worth a small risk in order to get information from people here, esp. if you know you can delete within a couple days. But the quotes are really not necessary.

Yeah, indigo. You should know that when someone posts sensitive information to an international public forum that means it's private. If posters don't want to be quoted they should state that in their OP. People can kind of infer a lot from what is responded with anyway.