I’m a 10th grade student in a rigorous boarding school. While I was an excellent student in middle school (scored 93 percentile overall on SSAT). But the rigorous environment in boarding school has been a struggle for me. Recently I’ve been having problems finishing tests on time, and had problems with my writing. I was assigned a writing support tutor last year. This year my parents became concerned and sent me to a neuropsychologist for an evaluation. After many different tests, the psychologist said that I have some moderate to severe “processing issues”. The psychologist suggested that I get extra time on tests and a distraction free environment for tests.
I went to my schools support center and the head of the center said that I would not be eligible because my grades were “too high”. I get mostly Bs, and a couple of As, and even C’s. I was surprised to hear about this. I thought that if a disability is diagnosed that the school had to accommodate me. This is a private school so I guess they are not required to follow the legal regulations around this.
Can anyone suggest what I can do? I really feel like having the extra time will help me achieve better grades. Even though I’m a solid B/B+ student, I’d like to do even better.
I would get the psychologist to write a letter to the school. That is ridiculous. To the best of my knowledge one’s grades should be irrelevant in a medical diagnosis
There are two issues here. The first is that a school only needs to provide accommodations if they feel that a disability is interfering with your ability to succeed in school. How this is defined will depend on the school and the adminstrator in charge of making those decisions. Some schools understand that a student who should be making As but is making Bs needs support while others belief that a B is good enough. Sometimes it takes quite a bit of effort to get the administration to understand that there is an issue.
But you have a second problem. The law that American schools must follow, called IDEA, does not have to be followed by private schools. In fact private schools do not have to provide special education services or support to their students and can remove a student who they feel is not doing well in school, even if it is due to disability. You are not protected at a private school. The question your must ask is whether this private school is the right place for you.
I would have your parents step in to see what they can get the administration to do for you, but the law is not on your side here. It is unfortunate but true.
I think you may be asking whether you need or would qualify for extra time under any scenario. The guidelines that are relevant are more than 1-1/2 standard deviation disparity between ability and achievement. So 22 point difference between a WISC and a Weschler (including taking advantage of the error bars in the score) is an indication of a learning disability. This is a pretty high bar, incidentally.
That said, even in a public school setting, you are in an uphill (but winnable, if everyone is on the same page) battle (see @LKnomad’s first point).
As was pointed out in an earlier post, grades and disability are often conflated. Students with good grades and on grade-level performance will not be granted accommodations under special education/IEP because the IDEA accommodates children who are performing below expectancy… Section 504 parallels the IDEA, but may grant accommodations to higher functioning students,
In contrast, the ADA and comparable Section of 504 requires provision of accommodations that compensate for the functional limitations of a person’s disability. I would even bet a school would proclaim with pride that it had graduated a student with disability who ranked first in the class and not just a graduate with a medical disability. Moreover, there have been lawsuits won when persons with superlative academic skills were denied accommodations because they were “too smart.”
Private schools often have formal plans rather than IEPs or 504 plans or state clearly that they don’t provide accommodations. If your school already provides some accommodations, your foot could already be in the door. I would investigate published rules for providing accommodations and compare your situation to those standards. I would also look at the diagnostic information about my disability and focus on recency of diagnostic information, a history of specific problems you have and continue to have because of your disability (history and functional limitations) and whether extended time was recommended and why specifically. Descriptions of disability documentation are found on both the SAT and ACT websites.
Too smart for disability accommodations is ridiculous! If someone lacks functional limitations then s/he will not be accommodated. Think about and describe the limits experienced by your disability.
That is absolutely ridiculous. Hell, I have straight As and my school accommodated my disability(well, I can’t say that completely, but they tried). It’s not always about grades, it’s about your health- try taking that approach with school administrators.
I think the law applies to you is not IDEA, but may be 504…and they key word is equal access…I don’t know what the psychologist wrote, or may be the recommendation is not strong enough…you may want to get a formal diagnosis for the evaluator to explain how your disability is affecting you…
" To the best of my knowledge one’s grades should be irrelevant in a medical diagnosis" Not really, IDEA likes to equate cognitive and physical disabilities so for fun, it is worth considering the parallel which would be a runner who hands in a request for a handicapped parking spot because during testing it appeared that the runner could not walk.
Just to clarify there is some false info here. The IDEA doesn’t pertain to private schools but the ADA does and it requires them to provide “reasonable accommodations” for students with disabilities. You can even find information on the NAIS website regarding the ADA and a list of frequently requested “reasonable accommodations”. Let them know, that you know the law and you will get further in your requests. There is no stipulation that if your grades are good, you do not qualify for reasonable accommodations. LKnowmad and ItsJustSchool are a bit misinformed as are most that haven’t had to go through this. Schools routinely deny help then adjust their stance as parents or advocates educate themselves. It’s unfortunate that it’s so hard to get very simple accommodations. Good Luck!
I’m not an expert in this by any means, but I have a D2 who is a 10th grader and has a 504. Did the psychologist produce a full psychoeducational evaluation report with the scores of standard tests such as WISC? If so, then have your parents write a letter to the 504 coordinator at the school, including the report and requesting an evaluation by the school’s 504 team. My understanding is they have to conduct an evaluation that considers input from a variety of sources, which should include your teachers and parents. At our HS the 504 coordinator convenes a meeting where the teachers report on the student’s performance in the classroom. For example, my kid’s teachers reported that she would still be writing long after all the other kids had finished the test or in-class essay. Several of the teachers would give her extra time on their own and confirm that based on their observation she needed it. That kind of observation from your teacher helps supplement the information in the report. My D goes to a public HS with a fairly affluent student body, and so the 504 coordinator seemed a bit wary of parents trying to essentially buy their way into accommodations, so she made a big point of emphasizing their strong reliance on the observation of the teachers. But that observation should go beyond grades and into how the student actually acts and performs in the classroom.
10th grade is an important time because now the College Board honors accommodations that are contained in a 504 and regularly used by the student.
My son is a 10th grader at a public school and his WISC showed a huge gap in processing to the magnitude of 60 points. Granted some sections were in the high 130s but he on occasion has the same trouble finishing tests. It was key to get the accommodation done this year so that he can get 1.5 times during the PSAT, SAT, and hopefully ACT if he takes it. The testing along with the results from his PSAT clearly showed he needed more time. He began guessing at about 75% way through the reading and writing sections. Our approval from the College Board came last week.
Many schools try to pull this, but they’re not allowed to. Success = passing in the context of 504 accommodations is counterintuitive, and the dep. of ed. Actually specifically addressed this in a letter last year because so many kids with ADHD aren’t being helped. That said, some schools won’t give in no matter what.
I have a 504 for 1.5x time, but even with the full battery iq test showing a 50 deficit between verbal & perceptual reasoning, and processing speed &a working memory (current, and back through elementary), one school district wouldn’t cover me, and I didn’t get a 504 until we moved.
In some states the policy is that you HAVE to be failing, which breaks federal law, but there isn’t very much oversight.
It actually doesn’t matter how low/high your scores are as long as the deficit is there. Through middle school, my processing was like 60, and wm 90, but then in high school they came up to like 100, and 110. I qualify for accommodations because my verbal reasoning is like ~150, and pr is like 140. There were other tests done on spreed vs performance which showed that, for example, I was in the 50th % for fluency, and the 99th% for ability on math, meaning that 50% of people can do more math faster than me but not that many are actually better at math. (With those scores, I was still denied accommodations, even though I was failing most tests, because I was passing classes)