Last night was Parent/Teacher conferences at my kid's school. I had my 3rd grader's first and was told that he is testing at an almost 6th grade level for reading and mid way through 4th grade for math. The teacher raved about how smart he is and how he is ahead of the game. Easy peasy conference with that teacher and I walked out feeling great.
Next, I met with Drew's significant special needs (SSN) teacher who showed me the sight words and letter sounds he is working on learning and the basic addition he is working on. She told me how hard he is working and what a great year he is having, which made me so happy to hear. His progress is slow but he keeps moving forward which is just great. Still feelin' good at this point.
Then, she brought up his next IEP meeting which will be the beginning of May (for those of you not in the know, the IEP is basically his learning plan for the next year. I meet with literally a team of people from the school and we hammer out what they are going to focus on in the coming year, it goes in the plan which then becomes the school's legal obligation for my son.) Every 3 years, the schools are supposed to re-test any student on an IEP to see if they continue to qualify for services and this year is our 3 year evaluation. Drew's teacher told me the paper for me to approve testing was coming home soon and said she had been asked to talk to me about us doing the I.Q. testing this go around.
A little back history here, the last time his 3 year was up, I agreed to all testing but indicated I had some reservations about the I.Q. testing portion and how it might be conducted. I spoke at length with the psychologist who would do the testing him letting him know what concerns I had and he in turn told me how he was going to make sure that all those concerns were addressed and that the testing was done in a meaningful way. Flash forward to a few days before the IEP meeting when I got the testing results and found out that of the 15 subsections in the standardized IQ test used by the district, the psychologist only tested my son on 3. 3, out of 15! 20% of the test! And, to make matters worse, the testing on 2 of the sections was done at lunchtime on field day. Not a day I would think would set a child up for optimum performance.
I showed up at the IEP meeting asking to have the testing thrown out and fully expected that to be a slam dunk. How can you give a child an IQ number and a disability label based on only 20% of the IQ test???? Doesn't even make sense. Instead of the slam dunk, I spent the following 3 months fighting with the district. It took countless letters, a few heated phone discussions, the district doing nothing for a good month I think in hopes that I would give up and finally me threatening to file for due process before we FINALLY got that sham of a test thrown out of his IEP.
So, back to yesterday, Drew's SSN teacher informs me that she is getting heat from the district that if I don't agree to the testing, they might be "forced" to take away Drew's services. In a way, I would like to see them try that. Plunk my 11 year old down in the regular-ed 5th grade classroom, with no support and see how that goes. My 11 year old who is only a very beginning reader, who is still working hard at getting simple addition down, and who needs a model to do any handwriting.
I walked out of the building, with all those previous good feelings gone and instead feeling like there may be yet another fight in my future. I just felt frustrated with the constant battle involved in making sure my child gets the education that federal law says he is entitled to. Why can't the school just do what they are supposed to do?? Why can't they care enough about my child to make sure the testing they put in his permanent file is actually complete, not to mention accurate. Why does this have to be such a battle? (Just to let you non-special needs parents in on a secret here, just because federal law says schools are supposed to do certain things, doesn't mean that they automatically do those things. In my experience, they often need repeated reminders about what those laws say).
I am wishing there was an Easy Button but fortunately, I come from a long line of stubborn Icelandic people and I can dig in when need be. Plus, truth be told, I will go through the fighting with the district, the I-am-stressed-out, over eating of brownies, the laying awake at night fantasizing about punching out the district head of special ed (this stuff brings out the 12 year old in me), the hours spent on Wrightslaw's website, and more to get my boy what he is entitled to and what is best for him. Maybe it isn't easy but it is so worth the effort.
