Mary: My son has been dx with anxiety. Anxiety is a neurobiological disorder. His medical team and I believe his ED classification ought to be changed from ED to OHI. He used to be dx (by his pcp) with ADHD. I feel the school treats him in a way that he is controlling his behaviors when incident after incident show he was over stressed and reacted. I live in NY. Are there any good resources that I can use to fight the school?
In NY State, there are parent centers that train the parent to advocate for their child. There are also Special Ed Quality Assurance (SEQA) Regional Associates. Many of these are quite effective. Step 1 is to request a CSE meeting, and propose changing from ED to OHI. It would be very helpful to bring an independent expert to that meeting to support your position. If all goes well there, great! But if you feel like your request to switch to OHI has fallen on deaf ears in that meeting, then it’s time to call SEQA (www.p12.nysed.gov/specialed/quality). (Note, I agree OHI is more appropriate for an anxiety disorder.)