I am brand new here, but I have a question that I urgently need answered, and I can't seem to find anything via google. I am not very familiar with IDEA.
I will try to be brief. My wonderful four year old daughter has high functioning autism. She was evaluated by the school district last fall and attended their special needs preschool for almost the entire school year. We were dissatisfied with the services that were provided there, and made the decision to remove her from special ed and have her go to a private preschool. She also receives private therapy. By wonderful luck Adah was also accepted by Head Start as a diversity student, and is attending Head Start as well.
She has made incredible progress and likely no longer qualifies for special ed. We refused a re-evaluation only to keep our options open, in case she regresses. At the beginning of this school year I spoke with her special ed teacher, Mrs H and the school district special services office. Special services moved her file to "inactive status" and wished me luck with Head Start and Kindergarten next year.
Yesterday the special services office called and asked why we had decided to reactivate her file. We hadn't. After many phone calls, I have discovered that Mrs. H decided to return my daughter to special services without contacting me or her current teachers. Her only explanation was that she saw DD's name on the Head Start roster and assumed we wanted services. I had made it clear several times before this to Mrs H that we absolutely would not be returning DD to special ed.
I know that in the grand scheme of things this may be small, but I am beyond angry that this teacher thinks that she can move kids around without even talking to their parents. I will be speaking with the principal and the director of special services to tomorrow. I guess I want clarity about whether this whole fiasco was illegal? I want them to understand beyond any shadow of a doubt that ANY changes to my daughters education plan need to begin with me. If it weren't for that phone call from a random secretary who thought things weren't quite right, I wouldn't even know that DD was back in SE.
Gail,
I did not at all mean to imply that Sp Ed. is somehow below my daughter, or not a help. Only that the things available to us in this particular school are not helpful.
Adah is very high functioning. She has had several independent evaluations, and all have agreed that she no longer meets the criterea for any ASD, including PDD. No one is saying that she is cured, or didn't have autism to begin with. Only that she has made remarkable progress. We continue to work on her speech and abstract thinking. I expect that she will continue to struggle in these areas her entire life.
She is recieving speech therapy, and is beginning sensory integration therapy this fall. We are paying for both ourselves. Literally the only option for her in this school district is to be placed in a classroom with children that are 5-6 years old, physically much larger than her and have behavior problems. There is no peer modeling, and zero interaction with NT children. To me it is obvious that it is not the right placement. I have begged for other options, and there are none.
Given that this was our only option AND if they re-evaluated her she probably would not even qualify for ANY services, we decided to remove her from their program and create our own. Everyone (current teachers, doctors, OT, PT) felt that this was the best plan.
While I don't want to turn down services that may help, I don't want my daughter enrolled in services that won't be helpful, especially without my knowledge and consent. That is what I was asking about.
I hope that clarifies some.
I have read this over and over and I am confused.
While I understand she made incredible progress- how would you know she would no longer for sped? Did you take her for an independent eval if you did not want to school to eval her?
You refused a re-eval. You also pulled her out of the services she was getting as you did not like them.
I am just confused.
You sound like you don't want sped at all- and it sounds like the school wants to return her to sped- and you don't like that. My son is 11 now, and I absolutely did not want to hear what the teachers told me at 2 yrs old, or 3 yrs old....
And, while I am not sure why the communication was poor, as sometimes, unfortunately communication is- you sound like you don't want sped.
Sped helps these kids, and while the services you did not agree with- it sounds like the school certainly tried to help her.
Sped is not beneath us as parents. It is there to help our kids. Many on this board are seeking good, fair sped services. Some people have kids that aren't on a plan that they WANT on a plan.
I say- take the services- dont turn them down.
Again-- maybe I am confused- I have been fighting a bug all week!
It was explained to me that once you are in special ed the only way to