I'm going to bang my head against my desk so hard soon...
WTF We have a meeting to go over DS's evaluations in 2 weeks. Fine. Now they've scheduled a meeting to get me to approve him being evaluated in another area. WTF. Why can't they do it at all at the same time? I asked if I could sign a form and have him evaluated before our meeting in 2wks and was told there was no way that could happen, they won't be able to evaluate him until the beginning of the next school year.
I just want his plan in place so he gets services starting on the 1st day of school when he starts public school next year. Is that too much to ask?
Re: Special Ed Law....
It's really too bad you don't live in CA, this is my sister's area of practice.
That really sucks that they won't do all the evals now. Sorry.
So they've already completed/almost completed the other evals, in the other areas? I would ask that the scheduled meeting be held and an IEP be developed based on the results of those tests. At that meeting, set a date for a meeting in the fall to bring them team together again to incorporate the additional testing.
Why do they want a meeting to get you to approve the additional testing? Here (in MA), usually you would just have to sign another consent form. Then they'd have 30 days to complete that testing and hold the meeting (which technically should still put you before the end of this school year). Do you get the feeling they may be trying to stall for any reason?see more Failbook
I'm sure that is why...
With my other son his teacher recommended the speech therapist come look at him and see if she thought he needed an evaluation, then she said yes, then I had to come sign a form but first I had to have 10 days notice.. Finally after the teacher saying she though he needed speech in Sept, he started getting Speech 3 weeks ago. 6 mos without services he apparently needs.
Above Us Only Sky
If you have concerns about the timeline the school is trying to set, I would highly recommend you contact your state Dept of Education to find out exactly what the law states re: how long they have to evaluate a kid once consent is signed, etc. They should be able to give you a good idea if what the school is telling you is on the up and up or if they're trying to pull some BS.
My guess would be that they have concerns that he has significant delays in other areas and want to do an eval on those areas.In my state an eval for the category speech language impairment wouldn't cover the areas for the category of something like other health impairment or specific learning disability.
In my district something like this would be handled one of 2 ways. If it's early in the eval period, we call the parent, get verbal consent to do the additional components, and have one eligibility meeting at the end. But if it's late in the eval period, we'll have one meeting to complete the first eval process, then key up a new eval to address the new concerns and restart our clock. I bet this is what your school is doing.
The number of days from consent to eligibility varies by state. In my state we have 45 "kid in seat" school days. Our deadline for new evals was 2 weeks ago because that was 45 days from the last kid day. If consent wasn't signed by that deadline, we will wait until next year to evaluate.
Regarding your oldest son. I guessing there was not 6 months between consent and services, if there was, you should probably be contacting your state dept of ed immediately. However, If the speech path saw your son, said he seems to need services, then waited 4 months until you signed consent, that sounds reasonable. Signed consent is what starts the process, not saying that he probably needs services.
Sorry I wrote a book, but this is what I deal with everyday. I know it's very frustrating to you as the parent and I sympathize. Good luck to you and your boys.