Parent Concerns: Inclusion Change

November 7, 2011

ARD/IEP Meeting for Caitlyn XXX, grade 6A

XXXXX School of XXXXX

Parent concerns:

Dispersement of aide/inclusion support time.

Caitlyn continues to have difficulty finding, remembering, and locating assignments in her locker. This is complicated by several factors including:

            1. her manual dexterity with handling a locker and the cramped space within (must hold her books, materials, gym back, lunch, and backpack due to the no backpack rule in class, forcing her to go to her locker every single transition period)

            2. her ability to keep said locker organized so that things CAN be found;

            3. her inability/disability preventing her from locating things without experiencing extreme anxiety and abandoning her efforts so that she reaches her class

            4. Receving a block of inclusion support at the end of the day does nothing to assist her with remembering her class materials, homework, or other items for the previous seven periods during the day.

Caitlyn continues to struggle with keeping up with her assignments in her planner.

This is complicated by several factors including:

            1. Inconsistency of aide or teacher help with checking that the assignments are correct either within the planner or on the website. If she writes down "no homework" or does not record an assignment, and there is no conflicting information on the web parent portal, we her parents at home have no further way of verifying if this is true.

            2. When such mishaps occur, this causes not only a delay in Caitlyn's grade, but anxiety over the missed assignment, possible meltdowns at home that impact her homework *that* evening, and anywhere from one day to several weeks to clear up the assignment with the originating teacher and/or arrange or remind of grade correction.

            3. Lack of detail or followup on some assignments is confusing to both Caitlyn and to her parents. Sometimes on the website this can be confusing as well if assignments are input together and are 2 seperate items (formatting confusion).

Caitlyn continues to struggle with bringing home all of her needed materials and assignments.

This is complicated by several factors including:

            1. Dealing with her locker at the end of the day. Caitlyn needs assistance and a final "check" every day consistently to maintain her academic progress, and to succeed in the classroom the following day without emotional distress.

            2. Dealing with her planner as described above. We are not sure how Ms M is commmunicating daily with her teachers to go over her planner during the time her inclusion is assigned during the last period of the day.

Currently, XXXX is assigning her inclusion time as follows, per my last communication regarding her inclusion schedule, as they have interpreted the IEP schedule:

"everyday in the morning M-F for five minutes (7:55-8:00) to go over preparation for the day"

"Monday                  AP-Science                            2:15-3:00

Tuesday                class not named in email           2:15-3:00

Wednesday           Social Studies                         2:15-3:00

Thursday               ELA                                         2:15-3:00

 Friday                    Pre-AP Course 2                     2:15-3:00"

"On Tuesday I will meet with her for 5 minutes at the end of the day."

Request for Change of Inclusion Services Schedule

We hereby request that her inclusion schedule be changed to be the 3 minutes at the beginning and end of each period, and the transition time at her locker, for a total of 11 minutes (approximately) per subject, per day; 5 minutes in the morning at her locker to replace her materials brought homethe previous night; and a final 5 minutes total at the end of classes to do a locker check for loose papers or assignments. We believe this arrangement gives the most meaningful academic benefit for Caitlyn to succeed in the classroom, wastes a minimum of time on the part of her teachers or administration by preventing many of the previously missed assignements and so forth, and makes every minute of her inclusion time meaningful with direct academic and functional benefit. The current schedule does not provide this level of support.

We have asked on multiple occasions for alternative solutions to be explored by the Special Education team, and have so far received no answer at all except the above schedule. We ask again that if the above solution is denied, that alternatives be discussed which will allow Caitlyn to succeed within her classroom and provide meaningful academic and functional benefit.

Parent Concerns: Assistive Technology and Teacher Provided Notes

November 7, 2011

ARD/IEP Meeting for Caitlyn XXX, grade 6A

XXXX School of XXXX

Parent concerns:

Assistive Technology Accomodations

We know sometimes Caitlyn has her jump drive, and at other times Ms M keeps it. Would it be possible if she is keeping it, to email the documents that it contains to Caitlyn's email?

We are concerned that at times her access to the netbook is limited (Writing Benchmark would be the latest example), which while we support the decision of her teacher(s) as to when and if it should be used, on at least one documented occasion this has impacted her academic grade directly.

We do not have an official report from the Occupational Therapist assigned by XXX who observed Caitlyn and made recommendations. We do have reports from her physical therapist and her speech pathologist regarding her difficulties with writing, hand positioning and fatigue, and her avoidance of long writing assignments/procrastination due to anxiety and.or dread about the potential pain she will experience due to these things. This avoidant behavior may be misread as "lollygagging" or "blowing something off" when it is a protective mechanism for her body/pain.

Request for Change to Access of Assistive Technology Devices

We hereby request that Caitlyn maintain free access to the netbook for everything requiring writing over one paragraph in length total and/or where legibility is necessary (such as copying down vocabulary words to study the spellings) unless they are required to be written by hand (penmanship being graded, or if this is not an appropriate accomodation on a standardized or class test). Spellcheck and other "assists" can be turned off on any word processing program she is utilizing so that there is no "cheating" for spelling when it is to be graded.

Request for Teacher Provided Notes and Handouts

We also hereby request that all of her teachers provide her with copies of any notes, materials, handouts, things written on the board etc on a daily basis when the work is assigned. She may still be required to take her own notes and do what the teacher determines is needed to do the assignment independently; these notes and handouts will remain as backup in case she does not have time to complete the notes herself, they are left on the jump drive and it is not in Caitlyn's posession that night, or we discover that something is illegible or confusing and wish to refer to the teacher's own instructions as the teacher wrote them. They will be placed in her binder on a weekly basis along with her own independently made copies and archived each six weeks at home (to save space in her binders).

Parent Concerns: Daily Schedules

November 7, 2011

ARD/IEP Meeting for Caitlyn XXXX, grade 6A

XXXXXXXXX School of XXXXXXXXxx

Parent Concerns:

Staff to Student Ratio (Autism Supplement)

Daily Schedules (Autism Supplement)

LISD determined that Caitlyn was not in need of this service at LISD on the fifth grade level where classrooms rarely changed/transitions were minimal.

Request for Change to Staff to Student Ratio (IEP) and Daily Schedules (Texas Autism Supplement)

We hereby request that Caitlyn now qualifies and is in need of these service(s).

Specifically, in the areas of "Daily Schedules", substitute teachers or substitute aide, pep rallies etc. We believe this should be handled as part of Special Ed department practices under the Supplemental Aides and services rationale described in the IEP as "would require excessive teacher attention without aide" and cannot be provided by the general education instructor(s) without impacting the general ed classroom student body.

Also following in section "Staff to Student Ratio", we believe Caitlyn qualifies based on needs for "transitions within the school day" including her locker times, beginning of class, and end of class. Again the justification is that this should be provided by Special Education department because to do otherwise "would require excessive teacher attention without aide" as described in Supplemental Services/Aide in the main IEP.

Parent concerns: Accomodations

November 7, 2011

ARD/IEP Meeting for Caitlyn XXXXXX, grade 6A

XXXXXXX School of XXXXXXXXXXx

Parent Concerns:

Accommodations

Parents are concerned that accomodations are not being consistently implemented by all instructors in all classrooms. Caitlyn is entitled to copies of teacher notes for classes to supplement her own, not based on "teacher discretion", for ALL classes checked on page 17 of 26 on her accomodations page in her IEP. She is only receiving consistent handouts from her Math teacher, and her Turkish teacher. Other subjects there are sometimes items sent home, but other things that should be provided are not being provided (chunked assignment schedules with due dates listed clearly, vocabulary lists, notes for class, etc).

Since Caitlyn receives AT accomodations involving a laptop and a flash drive in Social Studies and ELA, there are also times when this information may be on the flash drive but it is in the posession of someone other than Caitlyn when she comes home or left in her locker, so we cannot access any documents on it.

In the area of "Reducing Work without Reducing Skills" there are times when this should have been implemented - again this is not noted as "teacher discretion" - such as the Poetry Project which could have been reduced to 20 poems from 30 without negating the purpose or scope of the assignment. (This is only used as an example as it is a recent project). Assigning math problems that are even number instead of the entire worksheet would be another example. For most assignments, the only ones that need "Reducing Work" are those requiring lengthy writing portions based on our observations. While we do not feel that right now this is impacting Caitlyn greatly, it is affecting her academic grade and stress level. It should be immediately implemented and followed so that it does not BECOME a problem.

In the area of "Chunk Lengthy Assignments Into Smaller Units", this is also not being done. XXXXXXXXs own schedule for some things such as the provided schedule for the Science Fair is acceptable for that project; it chunks the project down into areas; it provides clear due dates; it is easily accessible to the student. However, areas *within* that schedule still need clear chunking. An example would be to assign Caitlyn to do 1 thing on Monday night and 1 thing on Tuesday night, instead of 2 seperate areas that are both due on Wednesday. This allows us to better monitor her progress at home and keep her up to date within the class so that she does not fall behind or require extra time to complete an assignment due to confusion on her part. Another recent example would be the Drama Project from ELA for which we did not receive a sheet with the chunking, description of exact assignment, and due date for each section of the project. These are required and noted in her IEP.

In the area of "Access to Technology for Writing Assignments", this is also NOT listed as "based on observation" or "by teacher discretion". Caitlyn should have had access to the AT since the first day of school for all subjects noted in her IEP which are checked, which are: ELA; Reading; Social Studies; Science; Electives. The laptop should, based on her IEP, be available in all classrooms where she MIGHT need access to it at any given time. She should not be required to fetch it from another classroom or to lose instructional time to retrieve it.

In the area of "Organizational Help w/binder(s) including notes/homework" we request to add the word "agenda" or "planner" to this area. She is required to receive this during all of her classes, every day. We believe that this would require excessive teacher attention to do so by her General Education teacher and that the school and Caitlyn would be better served by having this done by her aide at the beginning and end of each class listed in the IEP (All subjects including electives, except Gym).

Request for Implementation as written of the IEP accomodations above, commencing on today's date, consistently and with accountability.

Request addition of the word "agenda" or "planner" to the subject area "Organizational Help". This is page 17 of 26 in her IEP.

Written Notice of Refusal

Written Notice of a Refused or Tabled Action

Student Name: ________________________________________      Birth date: _____________

Parent(s): ____________________________________________       Date: _________________

IDEA (20 U.S.C. 1415(c)) requires "an explanation of why the agency proposes or refuses to take the action and a description of each evaluation procedure, assessment, record or report the agency used as a basis for the proposed or refused action;"

The Texas Notice of Procedural Safeguards states that "A prior written notice must describe what the school is proposing to do or refusing to do. It must explain why the action is proposed or refused. It must describe other options that were considered by the ARD committee and why those options were rejected. It must describe each evaluation procedure, assessment, record, or report the school used as a basis for what it proposes or refuses, and any other factors relevant to what is proposed or refused."

Purpose of this notice:

___ An action being refused by the LEA

___ An action being tabled by the LEA             Date of next consideration: __________________

Notice:

1. A description of the action refused [or tabled] by the local education agency.

2. An explanation of why the local education agency refuses to take the action [or tables it].

3. A description of any other options the ARD team considered and the reasons for the rejection of those options.

4. A description of each evaluation procedure, assessment, record, or report the local education agency used as a basis for the refused [or tabled] action.

5. A description of any other factors that is relevant to the local education agency's refusal.

___________________________________       _______________________________________

                    (Signature)                                                    (LEA Position)