My son is due for his triannual with his school district in October .The
school district wanted to assess my son early March at first but now in the
summer. I am very leary because I think they want to stop my son's
services. I asked to please name all the professionals involved in the
assessment and the amount of time that each will take. This is what I
received.
School psychologist 10 hours
Speech and language 4 hours
Autism Specialist 4-6 hours
Occupational Therapy 4 hours
We had been receiving funding through the school district until October
but as we have switched providers they have been less than forthcoming
with any reimbursement (although they promised that they would). In the
last 2 almost 3 years that we have been with the school district we have
had our son observed a total of three times at 45 min to 1 hour each
time. He had a two hour assessment with them at age three. What gives
with all these hours? Any one else ever had so many hours devoted to
your child by the school district ? It just seems so over the top
excessive.This time is an estimate..time to test, to score the test, to meet with the teacher or speak by phone, review the old repots, any old progress data. Testing is not rushed..it is done with 100% professional ethics and the intention is for all of the findings to be exact to be accurate, to clearly indicate where your student scores compared to a group of his peers. Not only does the results of the test show levels of skill or non-skill, but the examiner must also consider these in the way they apply to your student. Your student can score the same on these tests as my student but the results are interpreted in a personal way. This all takes time, lots of time, test, think, discuss, write report, design goals, make recommendations or accommodations. My school routinely devote this much time..and guess what, themore sever students get even more time...time to make sure all of the results are perfect. Afterall, these are humans we are talking about here. If you are in most professions you can fudge a litle here and there, you can slack off and what does it matter...not so with humans. This is where your faith in your professionals gets you more. They know you love the student, they know the student has your life in turmoil, they know that what they report must be as perfect as they are capable of...because these are humans, these children fill the days, the weeks, the years, the careers of these examiners, these therapists. This is what they do with their life. And their desire is to get it right.
My understanding of the evaluation process is that there is to be a review of the existing data by the IEP team [34 CFR 300.305(a)(1)], which includes the parent. Although a meeting is not necessary. If you have tests done outside, then this is the place to bring them up, since they have to be considered part of the existing data.
The IEP team, including parental input, decides what additional data is needed to make eligibility and programmatic decisions. [34CFR 300.305(a)(2)] The school provides prior written notice [34 CFR 300.503(b)(c)] about the evaluation plan.
The parents them give informed concent knowing what tests are to be used and why, and what sort of person (and with what qualifications) will be giving the tests. Parents have the right to refuse tests that the school district wishes to do over, if they believe that is wise.
When we have had autism tests done by an outside evaluator, they took about 1/2 a day to run the test, an hour to review with the parents, and a couple of hours billed to write the report. So the time for that part is not excessive if the SD plans to do a good assessment.
But on the other hand, we were disqualified for special ed services by a school psychologist using a CARS test to overrule our outside evaluation such as the above. We later found out that the CARS is a 10-15 minute screening test. So I would view your fears as not being completely groundless.
Remember that if you feel the assessments are in error, and you disagree you can ask for independent evaluations, and the school district has to either file for a due process hearing (and they will have to prove that their tests are good) or fund the outside evaluations. I do not think that I'd do this procedure w/o legal help.
I'm not an advocate or lawyer, all this is IMHO.
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