Advocate Like A Mother

When I was a kid, I loved school, but I didn’t like being the student. I was always fascinated by the classroom and all the supplies that came with it. I still am. When I became a Mom, I knew I was meant for this job and couldn’t wait until I was the parent at school. I’d join the PTO, volunteer for everything, be there for every event the school had, and love every minute of it. That never happened, I never volunteer, the PTO is dreadful, and I can’t wait to get out of this school and never look back. It makes me sad that I never got to be THAT MOM. Elementary school was a disappointment on so many levels. Every year was just another disappointment and another year feeling hopeless. I despise my child’s school.

If you haven’t heard about dumbing down, I’m here to make you aware of it. While I can tell you this story and you’re probably going to think I’m crazy, and things like this don’t happen. They do, they have, and they still are. I fear how many kids this happens to and we don’t know because we are trusting these educators with our children. Keep this in mind while reading, kids who enter special education never make it out of special education.

Preschool and The start of the IEP

When Kyle was Four, we enrolled him into Young Five’s preschool. Kyle was always – not your average kid, he was like a small adult, so we enrolled him with the hopes of him having more interaction with kids his age and making friends. On the 5^th day of his half day at young 5’s the teacher called us in and had written on a white piece of paper of everything Kyle had done wrong in the past few days. There was not one thing he did right noted on that paper. The first day of school was Wednesday September 8^th, 2010. We signed his first IEP on September 27^th, 2010. After Thirteen ½ days of him ever being in school, they suggested that he be sent to Spice class, which is a special education preschool, because he was fidgety. A 4-year-old boy, fidgety. That seemed normal to us. They really stressed that the transition had to be done by “count day” so the process moved quickly. We were not involved in the writing of his first IEP at all. We attended the meeting where they had it all written out, they reviewed it with us, and we signed. It all happened so quickly but we thought that’s how it worked; it was our first IEP too.

I was 24 and had no idea what an IEP was or all the terms and words that they use amongst each other in the meetings. When I went to school Special Education was completely different. As a young mom and this being our first time in school, I put my trust into these educators and thought they had nothing but the best of intentions for Kyle and his education. Knowing what I know now and how the IEP process works I’d give anything to go back to that day and say NO. When Kyle was in spice class I’d volunteer in the class and noticed that some of the kids weren’t verbal, some still wore diapers, I often wondered why Kyle was in this class, but he had adapted to it and was very fond of his teachers in there. Towards the end of the school year we had a meeting where his current teachers, a kindergarten teacher, and a special education teacher from the elementary school came in and talked about his transition to Kindergarten. We were zoned for a different school, but it was suggested that he go to CE because they had a better special education program. Ok, let’s do it! They always made everything sound so wonderful when they talked about all the good things they were going to do for him.

Elementary School

Kindergarten. I remember walking into the school and looking for his special education teacher. “What is this IEP and why do we need this?” I asked her. She proceeded to tell me how he had to have that to get services through special education including OT and Speech Therapy? Occupational Therapy? Speech Therapy? Why does he have all this stuff, why isn’t he in class with all the other kids? She assured me that he had to have these, or he would be struggling and fall behind.

1^st grade through 4^th grade went the same way. Every year I would walk into the principal’s office infuriated about Kyles IEP, how he wasn’t progressing and my gut feelings. Mothers have this wonderful thing called mothers intuition that something is not right. He would send me on my way, assuring me once again that Kyle needed his IEP, or he would fall behind and never be able to do the work that is expected of him. But he’s such a great kid, they never forget to add that in! I’d express it to family and friends, and they would think I’m crazy or obsessing over nothing. But I just knew something wasn’t right. I would leave every single IEP meeting with a feeling of hopelessness for Kyle. Is he unteachable? Is that even a thing? They always reassured me that he was so sweet and such a nice kid but that’s where the good things ended. I have a friend who has known Kyle since birth and is a Special Education Teacher in a different district, and tutored Kyle. She had looked over Kyle’s IEP quite a few times and was mind-blown by what she had read. Comparing the children she taught and their IEP’s to Kyles was proving to me that my gut feelings weren’t wrong. The school is wrong. We had Kyle tested, twice by a pediatric neurologist and each time I was told he has Mild A.D.D (You can check those papers out Here and here from our visit and then this one from out second time going. His IEP was written to accommodate a child that would-be Non-Verbal Autistic. This was not right, and my gut feelings got stronger every year. Kyle was also a “Leading Link” in 4^th grade. Leading Links helped students with disabilities during certain times of the day, they were a friend to them. He signed up for this on his own.

At the end of 4^th grade, I got Kyle’s report card in the mail. Most kids celebrate a good report card and parents are happy to celebrate with them. That has never happened for us at this point. Every report card you just expect the same thing. Everything Kyle can’t do. This report card hit me different though. He ended his 4^th grade year at a 2^nd grade level. All this time he’s spent in the Special Education Program and he didn’t get past a 2^nd grade level. What is happening when he is here for 7 hours a day. I had enough. Why would I leave him in Special Education when he is not progressing at all? He needed to be in class and maybe he would progress. I called the School Board and asked how I go about amending an IEP. They directed me to the head of Special Education. Kathy. Kathy was not happy to hear I was amending Kyle’s IEP. This is going to make him fall behind, he needs this IEP for all the accommodations he is getting, blah blah …. I walked in there the next day and signed that paper to amend that IEP. Kyle was going to start 5^th grade with no Special Education, No IEP, Nobody keeping him from succeeding and learning.

An Email I sent to his 2nd grade teacher inquiring why he is pulled out of General Education so much when I'd rather he be getting the most out of his time in General Education with his peers building relationships and social skills.

2nd grade evaluation report stating that Kyle does not do well with standardized testing.

Second Grade IEP. Well start tracking the lack of progress here...

Second Grade IEP. The signature on this paper is from the same school psychologist that tests him again in 5th grade.

Second Grade IEP. Things to take into consideration are highlighted in yellow

5th Grade

5^th grade. I knew what we were walking into and I was ready to prove my suspicions right, and they fed right into it. October 12^th was my first meeting with all three 5^th grade teachers, that they requested. I knew exactly how this meeting was going to go. Like every other meeting, but this time I put my phone on record because I knew it was going to be good.

Some highlights and reflections from this meeting along with the recording so you can listen for yourself.

5th Grade teacher’s meeting

“He Never forgot me from that Year” He was in kindergarten when my niece was in 4^th grade and this was her teacher.
“I’m figuring out where do I have to meet him to bring him along, and that I have to tell you is my biggest struggle with not having the extra supports in place with an IEP. Where he can be a part of the mini lesson and then his activity can kind of be tailored and he can be given stepping stones to get through it. That’s the thing that has really been a struggle for him and I feel like there’s been times where he’s missed out on learning opportunities.
So much as a gen ed teacher that we are allowed to do and can do
He’s such a model student
“All of the data that I have in terms of math, he’s at beginning level of understanding” – they really focused on this, but we have only been in school a little over a month. If all kids learned the same, they would all be the same.
“Has he ever had problems with his memory”? This was just asked by the same teacher that stated in the beginning of the meeting that he never forgot her from 4 years ago.
I’m always amazed that instead of helping they just let it go to let me know he couldn’t do that. Shouldn’t they just TEACH him.
Me- “It bothered us that he was being taken out to work on a few things like being able to identify CVC words, I had to google what a CVC word is”.

Teacher- “ I don’t know what a CVC word is” – another teacher proceeds to tell her.

Me- “He missed science to work on that”

That’s bothersome to me. The teacher isn’t even sure what a CVC word is, but Kyle is missing an important subject that carries onto the next grade and falling behind to learn these. WHY?

“We have the options to ask the experts” Experts as in the special education teacher, school psychologist, speech pathologist and school social worker. Those are the experts. Read on to see how good these “experts” were.
“I just don’t want to pop his bubble of happiness and positivity and he thinks he’s with us, but we keep handing him things he can’t do and it just doesn’t feel right. And our hands are kind of tied at the Gen Ed level.
Just because he has an IEP doesn’t mean he has to miss a subject area. Please know were advocates I just met the other day with Mrs. Hart to work out a schedule. They do need work to bridge the gap. Bridge the gap is a term that is used often.
We need to figure out where the disconnect is because guess what? This time next year, middle school. 35 to 40 kids in a class the pace is (Her snapping fingers quickly) He’s going to have no Idea.

After this meeting they had 30 School days to complete their evaluations and we had winter break in there as well. Our next meeting was our MET. MET is short for Multi-disciplinary evaluation team. This is the team of “professionals” responsible for evaluating a child suspected of having a disability. After the evaluation is complete the IEP team determines your child’s eligibility based on a recommendation from the MET. Keep in mind, there are some diagnoses that teachers and school psychologist are not qualified to make. ADHD, autism, and most physical and developmental delays require medical diagnoses. Prior to this meeting the head of Special Education for the district had never met Kyle. Everything she discusses is based off what she has read on paper. The school principal was the gym teacher before he got the job as principal.

Highlights from this meeting with my thoughts as I listened back ↓.

5th Grade MET

The school psychologist says, “If there’s anything we have in here that’s not accurate let us know, that’s why we put draft on the top.” This is important later in the meeting when I did let them know something wasn’t accurate.
Friendly and outgoing in all caps his teacher says. We’ve heard that one every year, every meeting.
“In his 5^th grade classroom during math instruction Kyle whenever I walk into a room he is always happy and always attending to whatever Mrs. Psycher is doing. He was attending to Mrs. Psycher who was explaining some things regarding value of 3 dimensional prisms. During the instruction he was attending, he appeared to be engaged in everything she was saying.
He got started on his work, he was engaged and he was appearing to be working correctly but Mrs. Psycher came over and saw what he was doing was not accurate and she explained what he needed to do, reclarified and he continued working but again was not able to do it correctly so she came back over again and then when she modified the assignment, made some changes to it, made some adjustments then he was able to complete it with success. WAIT A MINUTE! I thought we clarified in the meeting with the teachers that their hands are tied at the Gen Ed level and there’s only so much they’re allowed to do. Interesting.
Psycher did his running record and he’s reading right now at an instructional L which is benchmarked for the middle to the end of 2^nd grade. He is able to decode with 97% accuracy which is ok at that level. However, his retelling and his comprehension was not there for that level. He was not able to retell even when he was given the opportunity to look back on the text. He also was only able to give the correct answer for one out of 4 comprehension questions.
For the writing prompt They used a 3^rd grade rubric because using the 5^th grade rubric the skills were all above where he was at so she moved down and used the 3^rd grade rubric to get a grade level for him.
His total score fell within the second-grade range. He wrote a story out of sequence; he wrote about his birthday. He wrote some things from the end of the night and then he said, “then we went to dinner” which had actually happened earlier in the day so some of his sequencing was out of place in the story. **This is where I stopped her to let her know something wasn’t right in their draft. For Kyle’s 11^th birthday we had a glow in the dark party. If you’ve ever thrown a birthday party, you know that’s a busy day from the beginning to the end. We had the party in a banquet room and called it Kyle’s Glowing Crazy. After the party and cleaning up we were starving and realized we really did have dinner, besides cake. We went to Mr. B’s after the party and had a late dinner, which is normal for us.
I clarified to her that we did go to dinner after and that he was correct. She responded with he said 11 pm we went to bed then we went to dinner. She changed her story twice. I’m speechless.
She changed her story!
The principal says “ You know I walked into the room this morning and the first question out of my mouth was, did he qualify and where did he qualify. And from my end he qualified in the area that maybe we have suspected all along is that he has some significant gaps in his ability to get the content covered. Which is going to require a bigger amount of support. Which all along we’ve always at Clarkston Elementary Id say we advocated to have him have a higher level of support. What we found on the testing and I’m just saying what I asked this morning he, based on his ability the output he was able to show in the testing he needs a higher level of support. So, to answer your question, that’s what I’m seeing is he needs a higher level of support. That’s some valuable advice from the former gym teacher.
Here’s where I’ll just stop and say here, ok, so your asking the question and I think all along and this is just me being honest we’ve had the hang up on ADHD or ADD and all that stuff, that’s not what were going to say today. So were not going to say ADD or ADHD today like that’s not going to be our focus. Our focus is going to be gaps in his education so he is going to need, when we say there was a little bit here and a little bit there we have to keep in mind through this whole process for those of us who have been in all these meetings and done these. There’s been many of times where you said you thought it was a load of BS and maybe it was because of the ADD or ADHD and that’s why you thought it was a load of BS.
We let them know you guys have had full access to him with an IEP this whole time and nothing has improved.
Kathy steps in, We did a comprehensive evaluation so I’m going to ask the evaluation team to kind of report out on what they found. That’s the starting point to determine does he have a disability and if he has a disability what is that disability and how does it impact his learning and then we move into the IEP.
The part were getting into now relates to standardized testing. ** I thought we clarified in 2^nd grade he did not benefit from standardized testing? We Did!
There’s different certification areas and the certification area were going to find him eligible under is cognitive impairment and that is an area of certification which really suggests a child has more global learning needs. That their struggling both in terms of their ability as well as their academic achievement and some adaptive skills which are some of those skills that may be relate more to why we know he has great social expressive language there are some things he struggles with adaptively in terms of some problem solving that’s a little more kind of common sense problem solving within the classroom. Or being confused about everyday things that are kind of going on in the class, not related to academics.
They did an IQ test. His IQ score was a 59. Which again is a standardized test. It’s not based on something he learned at school. The intent of an IQ test really is to predict a child’s ability to be successful in school academically.
“Kyle came to me, he’s very cooperative. He works really hard, he’s known my… He has such an incredible memory for like unusual interesting details because he remembered my daughter who’s now 21, he remembered, he was in kindergarten and she came over and was in my office and he met her.”
“The difference between a cognitive impairment and a learning disability is its more across the board impacting his ability beyond math and reading. I think one of the things I want to make us mindful of is because he seems like he’s presenting so much more typical in some of his conversation the kids like this are sometimes highly vulnerable both socially because people will assume that he can probably be taken advantage of pretty easily and people will assume that he’s just typical like any other kid but because he’s coming in with these other needs I think this program and particularly moving into middle school were going to have to be very careful that we have enough supports in place so he’s not vulnerable he could find himself in some spots that he’s not sure what to do with and kids sometimes take advantage of that because they might not know”. -Kathy
Academic achievement test. This looked at his performance in math, reading, and writing.

Math concepts and applications, he scored in the low range.

Letter and word recognition were below average.

Written expression was low.

Everything he tried to do was difficult. NOT ONE STRONG SKILL. Reading Comprehension was below average – he reads short simple paragraphs and answers questions about them and that was hard. Letter and word recognition were below average.

Kathy- “Can you explain instructionally based on what your seeing here where his instructional level you would recommend?”

Hart – His instructional level for 1^st grade including this and what I also saw in some of the curriculum based measures math is definitely within the 1st grade range, writing is 1^st to 2^nd grade, and his reading is at the end of 2^nd grade. So overall he’s within the 1^st to 2^nd grade range. Which makes it exceedingly difficult for him when he’s in a 5^th grade classroom. Reading and writing can be adapted a little bit because a lot of reading and writing is individualized for their independent level but when Kyle’s reading a book that’s at a 2^nd grade level it looks very different than a 5^th grade level text so that can affect some students.”

My thoughts – He has had an IEP since the day he started kindergarten. I have gone along with their IEP process and all the LRC classes and time he has spent out of general education. This is 5 years of an IEP and all the special services that he needs. We amended Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy because he needed the time in his classroom doing the work in there to help him progress, rather than being pulled out for 20 minutes to go work on something completely different than go back to class. So, all this time he spent in the classes your telling me he needs now hasn’t got him past a 2^nd grade level. What is putting him back into them going to do. If you check his report card, his reading level went up in the first marking period, without an IEP! Imagine that. He hasn’t progressed under your plan since 2^nd grade. Without your services he moved up a reading level in a few months.

We want something to believe in. This is where I am getting REALLY suspicious, and INCREDIBLY angry.
She’s drawing on the whiteboard what a cognitive impairment looks like for a student. We are looking for growth, there absolutely has to be growth. Possibly reflecting back, we should have had more special ed instruction and I don’t know if that conversation was had or not.
The plan would be to come up with a very very specific plan of progress. So, the responsibility of the IEP team with the gen ed input is to identify specifically where he is. If Math is at the 1^st grade level by the end of the year, we’d like to see growth toward that 2^nd grade level, probably not at the 5^th grade level. Our expectation always is a year. Now some kids based on their disability, if his disability is such that he’s demonstrating some pretty low intellectual skills in certain areas that’s going to have some impact in his growth. But your exactly right we have to have evidence that he is making growth and that responsibility would fall on these guys.
When he starts getting activities to do and intensive instruction within he special ed team that would be a joyful moment for me. * He’s had “Intense Instruction” since kindergarten. *
If listening to this speech pathologist doesn’t make you feel like…..what just happened. I don’t even know at this point. She says Um every other word. Is she just going to teach him to say. Um. Um.
I think your testing again reinforces that his ability to talk is kind of a relative strength right now so it gives the idea that’s he’s understanding more so its deceiving because he sounds like he’s pretty verbal. His verbal skills are higher than his receptive. **His ability to talk. He sounds like he’s pretty verbal?!? This is coming from the head of special education who has never met Kyle. She is basing this statement she made off what she has read on paper. Yes, that’s how bad it was. This is why I started recording these meetings. I would have never of caught that while sitting in that room overloaded with information.
I can not comprehend one thing this lady is trying to tell me. She’s the speech pathologist. Do you feel like I do, like all the other teachers are guiding her along? I’m sure he will benefit wonderfully from working with her. Oye!
He’ll meet with her twice a week for 25 minutes. I’d rather he stay in class and not be interrupted on what he’s learning in there for 25 minutes, twice a week.

After this meeting we went home with the same thoughts we had after every other meeting we’ve went to. Why isn’t there ever any improvement or anything that could make us feel good about Kyle’s education. The feeling something isn’t right. Oh, and what’s cognitive Impairment? I reached out to Kyle’s tutor and I sent her pictures of the draft IEP and the result papers from the MET. My phone rang later that evening and it was her. When I answered she exclaimed “Are you fucking kidding me!?” She seen the IQ Score. Something I didn’t even think was so serious. I’m not sure on IQ scores, but she was. An IQ score of 59 according to 123test.com puts you at cognitively impaired.

After hanging up the phone I got online and started to do my research. It was all coming together just as I thought it would. According to This the vast majority of people in the united states have I.Q’s between 80 and 120, with an I.Q of 100 considered average. To be diagnosed as having mental retardation, a person must have an I.Q below 70 to 75. If a person scores below 70 on a properly administered and scored I.Q test, he or she is in the bottom 2 percent of the American population and meets the first condition necessary to be defined as having mental retardation.

5th Grade MET Reports

The IEP Meeting

Our IEP meeting was scheduled for February 3^rd and this time we weren’t going in alone and we definitely we’re not signing that IEP they were going to present us. When Kyle went to tutoring, they did some reading comprehension assessments there to see where his level was so when we entered that IEP meeting we had evidence to back it up. The assessments that he did, his tutor took them to her school she worked at and had them graded by another teacher. Kyle’s tutor called me and informed that she had someone else to come to the meeting with us that she had talked to about what was happening with Kyle. We all met at a local indoor play place for kids so we could talk while the kids had fun. We were definitely going into this meeting prepared. I did not let the district know that we were bringing advocates to the meeting with us. It needed to be a surprise so they couldn’t be prepared for it. It was an adrenaline rush walking into this meeting. I’ve waited years for this moment to happen, to finally prove my crazy theories right.

Here’s a recording of this meeting and some highlights with my thoughts on them:

IEP Meeting

A vineland test. I have never taken a vineland test for Kyle. Wasn’t even sure what it was until I did my research and became angrier. A vineland measures the person and social skills of individuals from birth through adulthood. Because adaptive behavior refers to an individual’s typical performance of the day to day activities required for personal and social sufficiency, these scales assess what a person actually does, rather than what he or she is able to do.

To determine the level of an individual’s adaptive behavior, someone who is familiar with that individual, such as a parent or caregiver, is asked to describe his activities. Those activities are then compared to those of other people the same age to determine which areas are average, above average, or in need of special help. There is a teacher version and a parent version. The parent questionnaire can be processed as an interview or a parent survey. The parent version will address a wider variety of adaptive behaviors then the teacher version, which only addresses behaviors observed in the classroom.

The Vineland assess adaptive behavior in four domains: Communication, Daily Living Skills, Socialization, and Motor Skills.

Medical background. We have a Letter from his doctor stating that he met all of his developmental milestones on time, or ahead. Which is in contradiction to a cognitive impairment.
The Idea that he had that low of an IQ and that it would not be evident until he’s in 5^th grade is quite honestly ridiculous. It would have been quite apparent prior to this. He’s been in this special ed program since day one and it has never been evidenced before that there was a possible cognitive impairment? It’s never been brought up at his previous mets.
That’s a concern because either you all fell down, twice during METS in all of these years during Kyles education or there’s something seriously wrong with the assessments that were done.
My biggest concern is that your trying to give him a certification of cognitive impairment with an IQ of 59 when at this point the evidence that we’ve seen really does not support that.
Not that he doesn’t need special ed, we’re not saying that at all. He’s far from mentally challenged and it’s a pretty big jump to go from adhd to an IQ of 59. Oh, and his reading level has improved since I amended his IEP – Just want to throw that out there again!
Kyle’s tutor – “Can I ask an honest question? Everyone that knows Kyle and looked over these test results did you honestly look at this and say Oh yea, he’s cognitively impaired and his IQ is 59? Do you really truly believe that he has an IQ of 59?” The school psychologist answers, “I do, and I feel that Mrs. Psycher when she first came to us that was her concern.” ** Wait, she was concerned that he was mentally challenged?**
He is a vulnerable kid and when I look at kids who have some adaptive skill deficits such as I feel that Kyle does I think he’s vulnerable and I think that is a concerning factor as he moves forward. I think that when Mrs. Psycher came to us she wasn’t putting a label on him but she said that my underlying concern for this kid this is far beyond a specific learning disability and probably more than just a distractibility issue but somebody who probably has much more significant disability, and that was what she had said, I went into this completely open minded.
**Ohh I love this part!**

School psychologist – I feel that if we would have had an opportunity to have ongoing special ed intervention with him and gotten to know him better

Both of us- “When have you not?!” **I am mind blown at this point** You’ve had full access to him. His IEP has only been amended for 5 MONTHS! Oh, and his reading level improved in that time.

What adaptive skills are you showing that he’s low on specifically? That he’s that low on.

School Psychologist – within the school settings? What kind of things?

Lori- “Yea because obviously we don’t have home”.

School Psychologist – we had some information historically and we do know that Kyle’s been a student that’s been struggling since he was prior to the age of 5. He’s had some delays in terms of his language development which accessed him into the spice program. so, I think there’s some miscommunication as far as some information that’s reported but what’s actually happened. So, we know that early on he’s been a student with some needs since he was in a young 5’s program and he was referred to spice. He came to us as speech and language we changed his certification to add because we did recognize that he seemed to have more than just speech and language delays. But I think it has been tricky for parents ongoing to accept special education support as well as additional evaluations. So, to be honest we have been feeling like were trying to meet their concerns with what they’ve been upset about in terms of special ed and yet still try to provide Kyle service.

Me – She has been reading Kyle’s IEP since 2^nd grade

Lori – I’d like an answer to my question though in regard to adaptive skills

**Their answers are so painful**
On his report card It shows an independent reading level of M, but then in your reports it is different. Instructional L but is unable to retell the story or answer comprehension questions correctly. So, there is some discrepancy there. Also, in preparation for this meeting because she is his tutor Melissa did some assessment on Kyle. She did not score these; she took them to an independent teacher who doesn’t even know his name and scored them for her. He did great on all of them.
We got the option to get outside testing but as Kathy said the only drawback on that would be that it postpones starting any intervention with him.
Our perspective on that is, I discontinued services In September and Kyle continued in tutoring and improved his reading level while in tutoring but while not receiving Special Ed services. Lori’s recommendation to the parents would be to put it on hold.
We ask to see the IEP they drafted for this meeting. We hadn’t seen in yet. The teachers were going to give it to us but Kathy asked that if were not going into an IEP she doesn’t want to propose something that were not going forward with.
School Psychologist – “We didn’t come in on any preconceived notion that he was going to be on any type of track other than being eligible or not for an IEP”.
Lori – “ Well a lot of times once you get that CI cert and you see the IQ and you see those deficits then thoughts start to formulate. I’m not saying you assumed, It’s an honest question, it’s a valid question because we know the decisions about whether a child is going to graduate is made long before that box is checked.” This is about if he is still on a diploma track or do they just have him on course to get a certification of completion.
Kathy – “So we’ll move forward under OHI (Other Health Impairment) which was his previous certification, we could do that and we could move right into the IEP and talk a little bit about, we need to take into consideration some of the most updated assessment as well. The label is not going to drive our assessment as much as where some of those needs or some of those gaps are. Then what we would do is we would move into the goals and objectives…”
Me –“ So it would change from cognitively impaired to OHI?” Kathy – “In the short term as were saying that right now…” Me – “So everything you guys just did was ….
Lori asks them to give us 5 minutes to talk amongst ourselves and our options
Kathy gives us options to discuss before they walk out.

Option A: we adjourn today and I give you some options of outside evaluators, and independent evaluator where we’ll do some more assessment. Then we’ll come back together and review that assessment and go to an IEP. That likely will take another 30 school days typically.

Option B: That we move into an IEP today as OHI, the IEP is still going to reflect some of the assessment we’ve done because that’s what is going to drive our instructional plan. We put that in place, that can be in place while we’re getting some of those other assessments. We come back together and we either amend the IEP, amend the eligibility or whatever that additional assessment is.

*I was all for an outside assessment. UNTIL, they wanted to pay for it but I had to sign a paper that gave them the right to send their assessment over before he would be evaluated by the independent evaluator. So…he’d know what to look for? It seemed very biased so I chose not to go through with it.

Option B is crazy. So, we can just change his certification like that. We’re going from A huge label of cognitive impairment back to OHI. That was pretty easy.
Our thoughts are candid. We say Fuck. We are mad. I knew it would be this way going in and I was ready.
We’re getting an extension. I’m doing this so it’s 30 days I know he will benefit from being in his classroom.