<p>There definitely are inconsistencies in the OP’s post, but the information on special ed laws that the rest of you are posting is valuable for everyone! I have to point out that the chances of someone who is “mentally handicapped” being able to become a certified public school teacher are slim to none, at least where I live (Mass-Conn area). There are very difficult standardized tests, such as the Praxis, that have to be passed. I know people who have attempted multiple times (especially in Mass) and never passed.</p>
<p>There are many ways to become involved in education. I know some students who work in licensed daycare/nursery schools, and as coaches in some of the department of developmental disabilities facilities helping others with disabilities. The kids I know DID go to college. They do not have public school teacher certification, but they are quite good with young students and are successful at their jobs.</p>
<p>The A’s that your son seems to be achieving may be due to his IEP. My friend’s son (who has since graduated from high school) also had an IEP (Asperger’s, ADD, normal but low IQ, other things). He attended regular classes as well as spent time in the resource room. He achieved A’s and was inducted into the National Honor Society. His A’s were by no means the equivalent of the “regular student’s” A’s. His grades were based on whether he was achieving his IEP goals. If he did, he got an A. His “A” would have been a “C- to C” at the most for a regular non-IEP student. IEP’s vary greatly depending on the diagnosis and needs. It might be helpful to meet with some of the teachers and visually see his work put up against other student’s work in the class. This will give you a better idea of the quality of his work compared with the quality of the other students work. </p>
<p>I’m not saying that this is the case with your son. Some IEP’s are for simple services such as extended time and/or separate testing accommodations. Other’s allow for more involved accommodations. A lot of the questions that you have can easily be asked and clearly answered during your IEP Special Ed. annual meeting. You can also request to have a meetings with teachers and others at any time during the year. </p>
<p>Many of your posts just don’t make sense to me. Parents are usually well informed during IEP meetings. A parent advocate usually attends (for your support) as well as the director of Special Ed, teachers, OT and Speech therapists, psychologist, etc.</p>
<p>Thumper1- definitely. Another job is to be a special education paraprofessional, and be assigned “one to one” to a handicapped child. Often physical strength is needed for that job, I know one strong young man who does a wonderful job in that capacity.</p>
<p>Thumper’s posts are right on target. </p>
<p>I also think there is something odd about all this. </p>
<p>Separating this out to two issues, one being the teacher, and the other the bigger picture with services/testing questions for the son, sounds good, as someone said, although they are related.</p>
<p>A warning about college disability services: they are sometimes difficult to get help from as well. Good documentation and strong advocacy can be needed there, too.</p>
<p>For an online program with diploma, there are many, many choices. We have been using Educere (Aventa Learning is part of that) and a diploma that Aventa uses through a school in Maine. But there are a lot of possibilities, some very challenging, some remedial, and everything in between. Online courses are quite costly, I would add.</p>
<p>"The A’s that your son seems to be achieving may be due to his IEP. "</p>
<p>Yes. Around here this is considered a “modified curriculum”, and will be reflected by an “m” on the report card, generally with an explanation in the comments section.</p>
<p>A couple of things…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Any time you want to request anything from the schools, teachers or school district, put it in writing. This ensures that there is a paper trail and it starts the clock ticking for evaluations. Keep a copy for your own records.</p></li>
<li><p>If a student has an IEP it means they need specialized instruction, not only accommodations and modifications to the curriculum.</p></li>
<li><p>A child may not be eligible for an IEP based on the evaluations, but, if a child has a disability or a history of a disability they are entitled to accommodations and modifications and related services through a 504 plan.</p></li>
<li><p>If an IEP meeting is conducted and any of the key members is missing, it cannot be an IEP unless the parent gives consent. Key people: Student, parents, Gen Ed teacher, Special Ed teacher, Administrator. Others are invited and must give input if they provide any of the services on the IEP.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Contact you local parent advocates, (PTI) for what the state law says, but remember that Federal Law supersedes and will only be trumped if the state law is more protective of the students rights.</p>
<p>Wow thumper, you really know how this works huh?</p>
<p>our tiny school had to hire a half time “administrator” just to attend those IEP meeting -sucking down 5% of the whole school personnel budget.</p>
<p>db44126, everybody here seems to be offering a lot of good advice! Take some time for yourself & go into a Barnes & Noble or other Big Box Bookstore & read up on Learning Disabled colleges and so on, there is a lot of good information out there… Take some good notes (don’t buy the books) Be frugal but be informed!</p>
<p>OP- you’ve gotten a lot of good advise here from posters far more knowledgeable than I.</p>
<p>But one caveat for you- as an observer of many friends and family members who have gone the gauntlet of the special ed/special services/IEP infrastructure: Don’t act precipitously. There is no need for you to decide tomorrow or on Tuesday to move or change school districts. There is no need for you to hire the first neuro-psychologist who gets referred to you. There is no need to retain a lawyer this week.</p>
<p>I am a little worried that after hearing what must have been sad and disappointing news from a Dr in the NICU all those years ago, and then hearing about your sons limitations 10 years ago, you will now over-react and try and do three years worth of action in the next week before school is over. I’m sure you only had your sons best interests at heart in every decision you’ve made.</p>
<p>I agree with most of the others that there seem to be some missing links in both the paper trail and the services provided to your son. I also agree that most school districts would have concluded a while ago that you would take at face value what they told you and therefore they put their energies against more demanding parents/more challenging kids. But I caution you that trying to correct what’s gone on in the last 10 years in a matter of weeks is going to frustrate you, cost you money that you may not have, and also frustrate your son.</p>
<p>Educationally speaking, there isn’t much risk in waiting a month to decide whether or not to try and get your son moved to another district, and if your current district will pay for it. Neurologically speaking, you aren’t losing that much time by waiting just a little to get your ducks in a row. Legally- you’ve got as strong a case in July as you did in May, if you should discover that the school fell down on the job or missed a couple of legally mandated services that your son should have been receiving but has not.</p>
<p>I agree 100% that every communication with the school should have a back up written record (get a district official to sign and date the summary of your meetings that you have.) I agree 100% that you should keep your mind open, try to forget whatever labels or categories you’ve been told your son falls into. I applaud your effort to treat your son like your other kids- which must be a very positive and supportive enviroment in which to live and grow up.</p>
<p>Finally- when is the last time your son had a physical? Before you go off all guns a blazing, make sure his vision, hearing, blood sugar, etc. are all in normal range. There are times when very exotic learning issues can be greatly improved with some very low tech fixes.</p>
<p>I agree with Blossom that it’s not time to make precipitous choices. It is time, however, and past time, to find out exactly what the student’s diagnosis is, whether his A’s are comparable to other students’ A’s, and where he is along the college preparation path. It’s time, and past time, to get a current diagnosis. Db, you should understand his diagnosis well enough so that you could explain it to the rest of us. (Not that you have to explain it to us-- that’s your choice-- but you should be able to explain it.)</p>
<p>Thank you for all the excellent advice as well as support. While my story may seem to have inconsistencies, I am guilty of a lack of knowledge and being somewhat naive, not of fabricating a story. which seems to be the general consensus. What possible reason would I have to come here and intentionally do something like that? I assure you I have none. My only reason for coming to this site was to get some advice, which again, I have received excellent advice and am very appreciative of. </p>
<p>Developmental delay and developmental disability seemed one and the same to me until I recently read over some info I found as well as thumper 1’s previous post. As far as my son having an IEP, yes, he does still get an IEP. He is in regular classrooms, but because he still has some special ed, he still gets an IEP. As far as my other son who graduated engineering and is now getting his degree in engineering, he graduated the top of his class in HIGH SCHOOL in engineering where he took it at a vocational school and then went on to college to get a degree in engineering. Back to my son, Jonathan, I still plan on going to the school to see his records as well as talk to the principal about his teacher. I’m hoping there is something in the records that I’m missing. As everyone said, it’s unlikely that he would still be having an IEP without having eval’s. As far as signing the IEPs, I’m afraid I may have trusted the school’s diagnosis and plan more than I should have, something else I highly regret. Blossom, what you said makes a lot of sense. I won’t try to do everything this week. </p>
<p>Again, thank you for all the advice.</p>
<p>I did not read through all of the posts, but keep copies of all testing and results. If your son does go on to college, you may be asked to provide testing and diagnosis information for any accommodations. It will also save you from having to re-test. The responsibility shifts to the student once he starts college versus public school where the school should be responsible for testing (although it sounds as though you haven’t had great support).</p>
<p>Skimmed through the posts. I caught the prealgebra in grade 11, that is typically a middle school course. He would need at least algebra and geometry to have 2 years of HS level math- usually required to be admitted to 4 year colleges. We also have second hand knowledge of what the teacher said- you only have his interpretation of events. Keep in mind that only around 1/4 of adults in this country will have finished college, ie gotten a bachelor’s degree. Also remember that the Bell curve is real- 1/2 the people are below the average, with most clustered around the middle. Special ed classes would mean your son is significantly below the average, as does his current math class. This means the regular HS pace was too fast for him (if there were specific learning disabilities you would have been informed). College would be even faster paced, how much so depending on the college. He may be able to handle the material, but if it takes him too long it isn’t a practical choice. A teacher needs to be able to keep up with the thought processing of at least average kids (most don’t with the gifted kids). Your son may want to be a teacher because he realizes how much they have done for him, but his abilities may not lie in that area. Since your school system has advanced him to some regular classes I doubt they just labelled him and ignored his needs, changing schools won’t change who he is. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that he may not be college material. There comes a point when people have to function independently- to be a teacher he has to be able to handle college work on his own. The classroom needs people who are a step ahead of, not a step behind, the students, regardless of the age/grade level. A very concrete example is a basketball player who has help on the court in making baskets, if the player can’t do it on his own he can’t make the team. Not all people can do all jobs. </p>
<p>I may sound harsh, it is always a parent’s dream to have all options open to their children. The reality is that we have to deal with limitations and find a best fit, not try to make square pegs/round pegs fit each others’ spots. Every parent shifts their dreams for their child as they discover their child’s strengths and weaknesses. Your son needs to have aptitude testing at this stage in life to give him positive, realistic options for after HS, not just being told what he can’t do. Good luck.</p>
<p>MD Mom, thanks for the advice. I found out from the school today that he is to go to the MRDD for an OETI test (which is actually supposed to be done at 16 years of age). </p>
<p>wis75, I don’t think you were harsh at all. I’ve had my doubts about his ability to become a teacher. I have a couple of cousins who are teachers, and I know what they had to go through to get to that point. I have gotten a lot of alternatives still related to teaching that many have provided on this forum, which I have begun relaying to him. I don’t want to tell him he can’t do something, but I want to gently start suggesting alternatives to him. What you said makes a lot of sense. Thank you.</p>
<p>db44126, I have a few questions that you are of course not obligated to answer, but that might help clarify your son’s situation:</p>
<p>What are (1) the MRDD and (2) an OETI test? I tried to google both acronyms and still don’t know.</p>
<p>Has your son ever had an IQ test?</p>
<p>How did your son do on the SAT?</p>
<p>Does he get time-and-a-half on tests as part of his IEP?</p>
<p>Also, db44126, you can find a lot of information about IEPs online. For example, the Ohio Department of Education has a section of its website devoted to students with disabilities [url=<a href=“http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEPrimary.aspx?page=2&TopicID=981&TopicRelationID=967]here[/url”>Special Education | Ohio Department of Education and Workforce]here[/url</a>]. </p>
<p>The Ohio DOE website also includes a link to a Parent’s Guide [url=<a href=“http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/DocumentManagement/DocumentDownload.aspx?DocumentID=54545]here[/url”>http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/DocumentManagement/DocumentDownload.aspx?DocumentID=54545]here[/url</a>]. Check out page 15 of that Guide, which gives information about evaluations. Note that it says “[y]our child’s evaluation must . . . [n]ot use any one measure or assessment as the single reason for determining whether your child is a child with a disability and for determining a proper educational program for your child.”</p>
<p>Another helpful website is [url=<a href=“http://wrightslaw.com/]wrightslaw.com[/url”>http://wrightslaw.com/]wrightslaw.com[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Sodium Mom,</p>
<p>MRDD stands for Mental Retardation and Developmental Disability, which is actually the Board of MRDD, a group that aides people with disabilities. It starts with preschool and goes through adulthood. They also administer what is known as the OEDI (typo)–Ohio Eligibility Determination Instrument, which measures functional abilities in mobility, receptive/expressive language, self-care, self-direction, capacity for independent living, learning and economic self-sufficiency.</p>
<p>As far as I know, my son has never had an IQ test, and he did below average on his SAT. He does get time and a half on the tests he takes as well as has access to the teachers’ notes for studying. He can have the questions read to him, but he’d rather read them himself. </p>
<p>Thank you for all the websites you provided.</p>
<p>“MRDD stands for Mental Retardation and Developmental Disability”</p>
<p>Hmmmm…not TOO politically correct! I think that’s what most states call the “regional center”. Around here, you can’t qualify for services without both documented psych testing ( WISC for most kids, DAS for Black kids) AND a tool that measures functional limitations. It is NOT easy, and those who qualify are quite fortunate, at least with regard to lifetime eligibility for services.</p>