Parent Post: The Final Battle Part III: The Battle Never Ends
Parent Post: The Final Battle Part III: The Battle Never Ends
Mute me now! Update to our continuing struggles with the school district over getting a 504 plan in place for a kid with dyslexia and dysgraphia.
Last time I wrote about this we’d had a bad meeting with district reps with their denial of a 504 plan for Abby. In the aftermath we filed a grievance with the district, sent a complaint to the Office of Civil Rights, and asked the Pacer Center for advice. We’ve now heard back about all of these. Of course the district denied our grievance. I’m pretty sure the person who wrote the denial was the same woman we spent two hours arguing with at our last meeting. This is like having the police investigate themselves. But I’m not surprised. The OCR called and said there was nothing they could do until we’d gone through the entire procedure as outlined by the district. They closed our complaint and said we could file again later. Thanks. Pacer said they thought we were doing everything right and had no useful advice. Great.
Positive things:
Abby is on the school radar. It’s sad, but the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I’m pretty sure we’re now the parents that will be making the school roll their eyes and say “it’s those people again,” every time we call or email. We realize we’re just going to have be in their face all the time. The district swears Abby will be monitored closely and we will get a meeting about how the she’s doing 4 weeks after the start of the school year. We’re probably going to get Abby switched to a different counselor. The woman who she’d be assigned to in middle school spent the last meeting rolling her eyes, sighing, and generally acting like we were wasting her time. Fuck that lady.
They also say they think Abby should apply for AP classes. They say the kids who take them want to be in them so they’ll be a better environment. It’s great they think she can handle it.
Negative things:
I feel like everyone we’ve talked and argued with must think we’re crazy assholes. I don’t want this to influence what anyone thinks of Abby. I almost want to have meeting in order to de-escalate bad feelings, but they’re the assholes, not us, and I don’t want them to think we now agree with them.
We are skeptical of these AP classes. An essay is required to get into them. Abby is working on it now. But we question their motives for suggesting them. It seems like a trap. If she doesn’t get in, what does that say? “Sorry, guess she’s not smart enough.” If she does get in but can’t hack it she’s going to feel dumb. If she gets in and it’s so much work she needs to quit swim team she’ll be really disappointed. Are they going to put her in them no matter what as a way to placate us? It’s hard to see the upside. But they totally make it sound like there are two levels here: AP is for kids who want to go to college and regular classes are for dumb kids. I’m sure that’s not the impression they want to make, but there you go.
Switching schools isn’t feasible. Another public school isn’t going to do anything different, it would just have a new set of people to argue with. And the nearby private school for kids with learning disabilities is $20,000 a year. So Abby is staying in this district we pretty much hate. We’ll be open enrolling Coop elsewhere when he gets to kindergarten age. I cannot imagine him sending him to the same elementary school that never picked up on Abby’s issues in five years.
And so it goes.
AP classes are a double-edged sword.
ReplyDeleteYes, the kids want to be in them, but they can also be just total BS classes.
Part of the eye rolling could very well be "great, here are parents that know what they are talking about. Now I will have to do my job the right way."
ReplyDeleteMy experience with AP classes was mostly very positive, and the difference between teacher and student quality/caring/involvement between on-level and AP classes was kind of terrifyingly huge. And I went to a pretty well regarded public school.
ReplyDeleteThere is generally a lot of reading in most AP classes, so that might be difficult with the dyslexia. In my case, the workload was high, but not excessive - I did drama and had no problem spending time with my friends and girlfriend. Again, if reading takes longer, that could make time management more challenging.
Also, if she is college bound, my own experience suggests getting those classes out of the way in high school is better than in college if possible. I took 2 AP English classes, and my guidance counselor gave me the incorrect information that the college I was going to would only accept one of them, so I never took the test in my second AP English class.
I put off taking the required equivalent class until my senior year of college, went into a lecture hall with ~300 students and listened to a terrible lecture and promptly dropped the class. I KLEPed out later, but if I had just taken my AP test, that would have been more awesome classes on the Roman Army or Anglo Saxons I could have taken.
Yeah, the thing they kept stressing at big public middle school open house was that Pre-AP classes were for confident readers. That's what gives us pause and makes us question motives for suggesting them. Assisted reading technology is supposed to be available.
ReplyDeleteThere are three pre-AP classes for sixth grade: science, social studies, and english. She really wants to do the science one, is meh on social studies, and is not so sure about English. Neither are we. We'll see where they want to put her based on grades and test scores.
The focus on standardized test scores is a whole other issue.
I hate those standardized test, My kids school gets totally shut down for them, two weeks of these poor kids getting crammed and not learning anything. Neither of my girls have dyslexia, but they both seem to enjoy the AP classes and are doing better in them than they were the normal classes. Might have something to do with class sizes.
ReplyDeleteThe best advice I can give anyone about pretty much anything that deals with other people is try to see it from the other person's point of view. Empathy is everything. The school officials should be seeing your concerns as valid.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand if you are dealing with difficult school administrative people the best thing you can do is kill them with kindness. Don't bend over backwards but any time they bring up something that is hard or impossible ask leading questions like "oh what can we do as the parents to help you do that?" In one regard it makes them feel like what they are doing is appreciated, but paints you in a good picture. It also knocks any excuses they may use out from under them.
Barry, you should know that I'm incapable of kindness. :)
ReplyDeleteCasey Garske you can still be passive aggressive even if you aren't doing the kindness thing. It's like Lawful Evil. You think hey, this guy is following the rules. It's cool. Then BAM! Evil sprouts out and tyranny unfolds.
ReplyDeleteNoah Stevens it was during a meeting we called to discuss the district denying a 504 plan for Abby. What's been baffling to us is that we haven't cost the district a penny, and since a 504 is in-class accommodations, it still wouldn't cost the district a penny. We're the ones who paid for testing, got the diagnosis, and are paying for private tutoring.
ReplyDeleteThe meeting was going long as the district reps tried to tell us we didn't need a 504 because everything we wanted done they already did automatically with tier 1 and 2 interventions. Our point was that since the school never noticed one thing about her reading ability in four years, that we wanted something in writing saying they had to address it. This counselor didn't do a lot of talking, her boss did (who talked like a lawyer). What the counselor did was mostly sit back and act like we were wasting her time.
Again, speaking from experience, the AP classes are significantly different than regular "gen pop/general population" classes. The teachers may put a good bit more effort and the kids will get to do a LOT more hands on in the AP classes.
ReplyDeleteI'd be willing to bet the district is going to pull the "well she's smart enough to get into AP classes..."bs as if IQ and learning disabilities had anything in common. Also don't let them offer a "deal" with her getting into AP classes for dropping the issues.
You have got to become "that parent" in order to make sure Abby's rights are honored.
Hang in there! Seems like you're doing a great job. Have you heard of any other parents having similar problems? I wonder if the school would be so resistant when they're multiple families in their office.
ReplyDeleteMight be fruitful to contact your local newspaper, too. This is the sort of thing my town's paper would be happy to report on.