Christina: As a dyslexia support group leader, I’ve seen that our school district consistently uses every means at their disposal to delay providing services. They deny testing to children who clearly need it, children who have repeated a grade or whom outside CTOPP-2 testing has shown to have processing skills in the bottom 1%.
They hope parents in our wealthy town will simply seek and pay for outside tutoring OR seek as outside assessment and pay for it themselves. When parents provide their own testing, the school pushes for a 504. If the parent insists on an IEP, the school then insists on doing their own testing. They delay services by at least a year or more this way. Their goal is to make you give up and stop asking for services.
What are the most time-effective strategies a parent can employ to get help for their child quickly while still holding the school district to account? Can a parent file a UPAP that they are putting their child in private tutoring/private school immediately after being denied the IEP assessment? and successfully recoup later? Must they go to due process first?
Can a parent send their child for a private assessment and — if the results show disability and need — file UPAP and begin private tutoring or private school with the expectation of successfully claiming compensation? Must they inform the school district and given them a chance to do the right thing? Even if it means the school will delay another 3 months with further testing?
Ultimately, we parents want the school to be held accountable for these children getting the help they need, but we want the kids to get help quickly!
Thank you!
It appears that you are describing a systemic problem in this district. A state complaint can be made for a group of students, as well as specific students. Outside entities can also be involved, media, OCR, federal dept. of education. This is what brought attention to a similar situation that affected many students with disabilities in TX. Their is a national Decoding Dyslexia organization with chapters in many states. You can look into having the national organization assist you, if your state does not have a chapter.