Needing advise on how to handle situation

The no child left behind act states that is the school your child is attending fails to meet certain criteria, or(I would assume) offer programs necessary for your child to be able to continue their education , then the district must offer you alternative arrangements. For example your school no longer offers Special Ed programs, then the district should offer to let you transfer to another school in the district that does. If there is no other school in the district that offers the necessary programs then there are tax deduction to offset the costs of obtaining those programs or services. I'll poke around in the next few days and see if I can find the actual law and get you a link to it, maybe there will be some useful information in it.)

I do know the NCLB act Doesn't guarantee the government to foot the bill up front, and in many cases you may have to pay yourself, then take a tax deduction later.

I have 2 children with special needs, our school district always tries the same thing. It is illegal for them to deny these services and especially saying they can not afford it.School districts get federal monies to provide these services to special education depts. They can NOT eliminate a special education dept. it is illegal! You also have the Americans with Disabilities Act on your side, they are violating it. Do you have an IEP? What state do you live in? Our state has Ohio Legal Rights, they will help citizens and children with disabilities fight for their rights. The school does not have a right to do this, they are hoping you don't know your child's rights that the law gives her, fight them. I have and I always win.

Thanks guys for your responses. We put together an IEP the end of the last school year that specifically states she has to have an aide. These children deserve an education the same as children without special needs. They have put our children in their grades with no help.

LCW, our school district is small and the next school system is out of district. We have told the school we will send her somewhere she can get hte help she needs and the pricipals response was. Its your money, we don't have to do anything to fund sending your child to another school.

Bossy, thanks for the link. I will begin researching and when I get enough information gathered, it is off to the school board and if that don't work, I am sure there are other people higher up that will listen.

You're welcome,Tammy. Get on the docket for the next school board meeting and bring your info to back you up. If that doesn't work,go to the school super. A lady in a town near by went through the same thing as you. She went to board meetings,higher ups and when she couldn't get any help,made alot of noise to the local paper,she finally got results.Keep strong on this,your daughters' rights are being violated.Good Luck-let me know what happens :D ...Karen

THAT IS A LIE! Any school district that can not provide the educaitonal needs for a special educaiton student is LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR SENDING THEM TO THE NEAREST SCHOOL DISTRICT THAT DOES AND THE HOME DISTRICT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TUITION AND TRANSPORTATION!!! End of story. IEP's are renewed on a yearly basis. REMEMBER: YOU ARE THE BOSS OF THESE TEAM MEETINGS NOT THE PRINCIPAL/TEACHERS/ETC...Write to your state board of education, superintendant, organizations that advocate for the disabled, etc.... You are in the right, the principal is a liar and doesn't know anything. The school is just trying to save and cut costs. I don't care how poor or small a district is that does not get them out of following the law for it's disabled students.

Tammy I feel for you on this. When my six year old son started prek a few years ago I had a simular situation. As he is not in special ed but he is on focalin, which if he does not take then he does not do a thing at all in school. When he started pre-k it was less than a week into the school year and his teacher was bragging about how smart he was. That changed quick when they got the iq and other testing done then he was a special needs child. In all aspects he is a special needs child he is blind in one eye without his glasses it's never the same eye since as he get's closer to an object his brain switches eyes therefore the whole room changes. Try it sometime walk around while closing one eye then changing and closing the other one real quick very hard to do. Then he was so add that when he did zone out you could turn the tv off and he was still watching it as if no one touched it. Before getting him tested for all this though you can imagine what his eyes did for his hand eye cordination, there was none, and the zoning out he wouldn't touch his schoolwork. The counselor and everyone else thought since he passed all the special ed testing and didn't even qualify for speach therapy that it would just be best to place him in headstart since they have more programs. That didn't happen after talking to the director of headstart she didn't feel they could do anything different for him there than they could in prek so it took him barely passing prek and kinder and not qualifying for any aide of any sort to go have him tested for the add. This year I am glad to report that he is doing his school work so much better no notes from the teacher stating that he is not concentrating and a lot better attitude when he get's home from school. So just fight the district if I had it to do all over again I would have fought the headstart's decision to not accept him. Maybe we would have figured more out before kinder and he could have started out in school excelently.

Amy445 just made an excellent point that I would like to elaborate on a little more. Get a petition going, share your story around the community, and get enough signatures. Write to your congressman and include the petition.

Hi tammy, here is a link to the US Dept. of ED The link takes you to the NCLB FAQ page, but you can go elsewhere from there. Hope this helps.

Thank you LCW. Tonight, I am starting to gather the inforamtion. There is a school board meeting next Thursday night and we are on the agenda. The way the pres of school board stated that we will express all our concerns, then the next meeting they will make a decision on what we have brought before them.

If that doesn't work, Tammy,just keep going up the ladder.The one who makes the most noise wins!I'll say a prayer for you and your daughter...Karen

Tomorrow, I am going to try and set up a meeting with the other parents. Then if we all go in front of the board and raise hell, maybe we will get somewhere. If I feel after next Thursday that we aren't goign to get anywhere, I am going to proceed to the news media.

You're going to picket? You rock! You're one of the most proactive people I've ever met!

You are awesome, Tammy! Make some noise!

Do you live in a state where they have a legal rights organization that advocates for disabled citizens? We have one, and then you can also write the ACLU, they're pretty good. I don't know what your daughter's disabilities are but some cities/counties have organizations we have one ARC (association for retarded citizens) Good Luck

Amy445,

My daughter is 12 with the thinking of a 5 year old. She is just now doing 3rd grade work. She has a speech impairment that we have been told that will never improve. She is a very bright and energenic girl with the world in her hands.

You guys are awesome and have givin me several ideas. I will keep everyone posted.

My oldest is autistic/MR, he's 14 but functions on the level of a 4 yr old, also has tourettes among other issues. My younges is 12, he's profoundly deaf (just had surgery for implants) and has seizure like my oldest (but they're well controlled) I used to have problem with our district but not anymore, the special ed. teachers love it when I get fired up because they can't say anything it has to come from me and they know when I get mad things happen. I totally can sympathize with you and I feel your anger.

My daughter also has a seizure disorder. But she has been seizure free for 3 years and on no medication. The doctor stated that sometimes kids grow out of them. She started having seizures when she was 2 years old. When she was 6, she was having up to 30 seizures a day and when we took her to a different doctor, we found out that the previous doctor had her on adult doses of Tegretol and Depakote. She was at the lethal dose and she was close to a comatose state. Once they started decreasing her meds, the seizures started slowing down and now she is seizure free, but we were told that she would have long term effects from the seizures.

My oldest, and I'm not exaggerating used to have hundreds a day, he has a multiple seizure disorder. They used to keep him at toxic levels on his Depakote because that was the only way to get some control. And one day his body just started metabolizing it out faster than I was giving it so we switched to Lamictal. At one point he was on 13 different meds, 4 were for seizures. Both of my kids have something called mitochondrial encephlopathy. It's a maternally inherited disorder which I never knew I had. My oldest has had seizures since day one and my youngest started when he was 2 and stopped when he was 8.He was off meds for 4 yrs and had to go back on them last year (Topamax) when they started again,but now their under control again with the meds.

She could have an underlying disorder and that's why she functions at the level she is at. But it is hard to know even drs probably couldn't tell you for sure.

The doctors have done every test available and even done a genetics test and they still to this day don't know why the seizures started. I just found who my father was and he won't talk to me at all regarding any medical because he doesn't want his wife to know about me. I feel this is wrong, because it could be something from his side. But we will never know.

Sometimes a person just has seizures with no underlying disorder, it just happens because they are predisposed to it. I know I've been told that, even though they are the worst seizure to witness, that grand mals are better because with Myoclonic, atonic-drop seizures usually mean something else is occuring. That is wrong. My mom's dad never wanted anything to do with her all of her life, and when he found out he was dying he decided he wanted to meet all of us, we refused. It would be nice to know what medical issues that side of the family has, he could be helping to better understand what is wrong with your daughter. It took 8 years before we found out what was wrong with my oldest, we had to go through 1 1/2 yrs of lab work (ins. makes you do that in order to get the muscle biopsy done and paid for).

My daughter had grand mal seizures and each time it scared the sh*t out of me. I felt completely helpless and she was so helpless during it. There were times when she came out of one that she wouldn't recognize me. Another thing that has the doctors baffled is that none of my other 3 kids have had seizures.

I hated seeing my kids have the grand mals. They both have myoclonics. My oldest isn't satisfied with just two he has to have atonic and complex partials as well. My youngest hasn't had a myoclonice since he was 8. My heart broke last year when he started having grand mals again. It's hard to watch your child go through something like that. But I think we were chosen to have kids with special needs. There's a poem by Erma Bombeck, I can't think of the name of hand it's about mothers of childrne with special needs. It's really a good one, a friend e-mailed it to me one day.

Tammy,
I used to work for a Health Care agency that provided nursing and Home Health Aides to kids in schools all of the time. In California, we have Regional Centers in different counties that will evaluate children and based on their different needs and situations, certify them for various amounts of hours per quarter at no cost. The hours are in a bank and you pull them out as needed.
Depending on where you are located, that might be an option for you. If not, remember that it is the school's duty to educate your child--and if the district can't do it, it must send you to a school that will, with the district picking up the cost.
As with everything, the only way you will get anywhere is by making noise! Hang in there, you are awesome!