Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Part 2

Have you kept up with the article and comments in LTM on the former LCPS Deaf and Hard of Hearing teacher? I mentioned this topic in a blog after I attended the last Special Ed Town Hall Mtg in May of 2009.

I find the whole story disturbing, but many of the comments really made me wonder about language and communication. Are deaf/hoh students eligible to receive services through the preschool program to learn ASL/ESL? How do hearing parents communicate with non-hearing children if they don't all learn to sign? Who helps parents decide if their child's first language is ASL or not? With all of the charts that are available for middle and high school students and their families to choose a diploma track, is there a similar chart available for deaf and hard of hearing students and their families to help them choose an academic future?

And aren't all students required to take the writing SOL? With all of the technology we use, the poor written communication skills of some of the posters was very surprising to me.

Do the music, art & PE teachers at this elementary school include these students? What is the least restrictive environment if none of the general education students in the school can communicate the most basic information to their peers?

It will be interesting to see if there are more comments at the next Special Ed Town Hall Mtg this coming April.

IDEA Fairness Restoration Act

Today, Thursday, July 9, 2009 , please call your Congressional Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor H.R. 2740, the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act. Ask friends, colleagues, clients, and family members to call too. It will only take a few minutes.

The IDEA Fairness Restoration Act will allow parents to recover the cost of expert witness fees if they prevail in a due process hearing. This bipartisan bill will help to level the playing field and make the right to due process affordable for parents.

If you do not know who your Congressional Representative is, go to http://www.house.gov/ and put your zip code into the box in the upper left corner. Dial 202-224-3121 (TTY 202-225-1904). This is the main switchboard. Ask for your Congressperson's office.

It is helpful to ask for the Education Aide, but you can also talk to the person who answers the phone. If you get voicemail, please leave a message. Tell them you are a constituent and would like the Congressperson to co-sponsor H.R. 2740, the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act.

Over 200 organizations support the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act, including the Council of Parent Attorneys & Advocates, Inc. (COPAA), Easter Seals, National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS), National Down Syndrome Congress (NDSC), National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), LDA, DREDF, TASH, CHADD, Center for Law and Education, Epilepsy Foundation, Autism Society of America, United Cerebral Palsy, Our Children Left Behind, and many others.

A few minutes of your time CAN make a difference. Thank you for your support.

Warm regards,

Nanci Schiman, MSW
CABF Program Manager

This Is Disturbing

Copied from page 65 of School Board Goals Status Reports 2008-09

(available on Board Docs under Superintendent's Evaluation)

G. Programs and practices will be in place to eliminate the disparity in achievement among identified racial, ethnic, and socio-economic groups.

• The overrepresentation of African Americans identified with mental retardation (MR) requiring special education was further reduced. Among MR students, the percentage of African-American students decreased from 16.67% in 2007-2008 to 15.42% in 2008-2009.
  

• The Virginia Department of Education certified in the 2008-2009 school year that LCPS no longer has significant disproportionality in special education and in specific disability categories.
  

• According to the most recently published Virginia Special Education Performance Report, LCPS was not identified as having disproportionate representation of African-American students in special education or in specific disability categories that was the result of inappropriate identification.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Epiphany! A possible solution to the coloring dilemma: use Power Point! The purpose of the map coloring should (a tricky word, I know) be to enable the students to learn the content, as we are not training our children to be illustrators. And fourth graders learned how to do power point presentations this year, so why not do a power point presentation instead of tracing and coloring a map? I don't anticipate this accommodation for Little Dude being a problem with our team, but it seems to me that this is a change that needs to be made for all students. Can you imagine Dr Adamo and his staff not doing the boundary maps electronically and literally coloring maps instead? I sure can't. So, I just need to figure out how to advocate for all of the students, not just Little Dude and not just other special needs students who need this modification.

Meanwhile, Little Dude's resource teacher is already working with the tech resource person to see about scanning forms into his neo-alpha smart and she's talked with the OT about working on the specific fine motor tasks we identified he'll need for MS. I'm going to meet with the OT and Little Dude during one of her final sessions with him this year to go over his summer program. Still need to find out about using a flash drive/memory stick on the neo to hold all of the data.

So, those are the two steps forward. Now for the one step back.
Went to the Volunteer Breakfast at school and chatted with the President of the PTA, especially about the Special Ed Advisory Committee PTA rep position. I like our PTA president; she has set a very nice tone for the school this year. I haven't noticed the gossip that has been present in previous years. We talked about the educational aspect and providing a safe, quiet space during PTA activities for students and families to use at their discretion. And then she mentioned that she thought it was nice that the special ed teachers worked with all of the students in the classroom as a way to ensure the privacy of the students getting special ed services. I. Wanted. To. Scream! This is exactly how Little Dude was denied his 30 minutes of special ed support for writing in first grade. HE needed 30 minutes of intervention; he got a walk by with a "how's it going" instead. And every single minute that the resource teacher was performing at the level of a parent volunteer, some child was not getting the services that they not only needed, but that the district was legally bound to provide. (insert scream here) This is NOT good. And this is why I'll never know if he would require the level of services that he currently receives if he had had the opportunity to benefit from the intervention that he DID NOT RECEIVE. And citing privacy as a reason to not do your job is inexcusable; any decent parent volunteer can pick out 80% of the special ed students in the first month of school.

(cool down period entered here)

I've finally learned one other lesson: least restrictive environment and most appropriate environment are not the same. It is not always beneficial to provide a child's intervention in the classroom. Writing support when the class is actually writing is the most advantageous and is not disruptive to the teacher or the other students. The OT services that should have been provided when Little Dude was in 1st and 2nd grade were not appropriately given in the classroom and I am sure that the same walk by took place resulting in no improvement. Amazing how long it takes to learn the correct questions to ask.

Middle School Visit

Well, I've been busy living my life and haven't had time to report on it! But I have to relay my experience at the middle school last Friday.

I met Little Dude's case manager/special ed teacher at the middle school Friday afternoon. I think she had been there for a meeting or two, but hadn't had the whole tour. With the two older kids, I've been to Farmwell Station, Harper Park, Eagle Ridge and Belmont Ridge, so the layout of the building was familiar. We met with the 6th grade special ed teacher/department chair to get an idea of what to expect in sixth grade so we could make any changes in fifth grade that would allow for a smooth transition to middle school. Personally, I wasn't interested in eliminating the stress that all students have when they first go to middle school and have lockers and change classes, I wanted to see what could be done to eliminate the stress of having accommodations or modifications that might not be effective in a totally different environment. I think the MS special ed teacher was probably initially wary about our visit a year in advance, but by the end of our visit I know she was our convert to our way of thinking!

There are, of course, some fine motor tasks that we have to attend to in the coming year: using a combination lock, tying shoes, and I finally admitted that he can't actually snap his slacks - he's skinny enough to slide them on and off. With the necessity of changing clothes for gym, we will have to work on these. But we had some other opportunities present themselves. One of the easiest to add to our "let's see if he can do this" list was the use of the middle school agenda. It's smaller and not particularly easy to use for a student who writes about the same size as a second grader. We're going to get an extra one from the middle school at the beginning of the year and see if, after a few months of use, he should write in it or type out his assignments and glue them into it.

The MS has some alpha smart machines in the language arts rooms, but Little Dude has his own Neo-alpha smart that will stay with him through his schooling, so we are trying to figure out how to best use this keyboarding/notebook device. If we can scan forms into it (like science experiment forms) then he can just fill them out electronically and print them off (it's wireless to the printer in his classroom now).

As we were ending our time together, we made out way back to the MS special ed teacher's office to review our list of action items. Somehow we made our way to the topic of map coloring and the MS teacher showed us a project that is typical for MS: a poster sized, colored map of North & South America with an attached report of just more than one page. This is precisely why I have required the accommodation of no grades for coloring to continue to be included on his IEP. The MS teacher expressed some frustration regarding getting teachers to modify these type of assignments for the many students that the resource teachers work with that are unable to appropriately complete the tasks required to finish these projects. I was reminded of Ms Giggles coloring maps in high school and the necessity of finding a way to modify these projects for years to come.

But we finished with all three of us realizing that our time had been well spent; we can spend fifth grade trying different strategies that will give us good information to relay at our joint elementary/middle school IEP meeting next year.

Waiting...

Since I'm sitting here waiting for a car, I can take the time to do an update.

I've been working on the vanity stool the last couple of days. My fingers hurt from pulling out about 100 staples; clearly this was machine upholstered. But I can finally see the end of this particular project. If there's enough fabric, I'll make a reversible bottom cushion instead of the attached one that came with it. Waiting for a car to be available to go get interfacing at the fabric store so I can finish this up.

Watched the school board meeting on TV the other night. ALM thinks I'm out of mind to watch these meetings, but there really is a lot that takes place. Missed the beginning where the new principals for the new high schools were announced, so had to look up the info on board docs. Unfortunately, saw Little Dude's OT listed as one of the employees who is resigning at the end of the school year. We had two OT's last year and then a different one this year, so I'm not anxious to change once again, especially since the last two have been providing both services and information beneficial to the team and our plan. Just learned this year from our current OT why he rights down the middle of the page; wish someone had educated me about this at an earlier date as this has been driving me crazy for years. Now I can let it go and concentrate on the content.

Anyway, back to the school board meeting. There didn't seem to be any announcements on elementary level leadership positions so will have to wait to find out who our next principal will be. I also missed the public comments from Dominion HS parents about the suspensions of students after drinking wine during a recent field trip to France. In other words, all of the fun viewing was over by the time I tuned in! Heard the discussion on grandfathering fifth graders, but didn't hear a single word about special exceptions for special ed students. If Little Dude was affected by a boundary change in fifth grade and I didn't know what options I had, I'd be ticked. We've been planning for his transition to middle school for the last two annual IEP meetings. And his caseworker and I are trying to plan a joint visit to the middle school before finals start to continue this planning.

The discussion on grade weighting was tense, but I was glad to see that all of the advocacy of parents was not ignored. What is the advantage of taking Honors classes if there is no weighting available for the extra work and commitment? And who wouldn't agree that the Science Academy coursework should be weighted? Will have to tune in next time to see what happens. Not going to get involved in the Wheatland issue as it is now a dead deal, and we have our own problems with land and a high school right here in Dulles North.

Yeah, SOL's are finished for another year!

More on Special Ed

This is the best of the local news reports that I have found about the Park View HS special ed teacher, Dawn Marie Hamilton, who was recently referenced during a congressional hearing on restraining schoolchildren. At the time that I'm posting this there are no comments on the article, and I hope it stays that way. The comments that I have read on other sites are not only cruel and petty, but markedly uninformed. I wish more of those who have made comments had been present for the Special Education Town Hall Meeting last night.

The meeting had an interesting format: 5 speakers (3 minutes each) from the audience followed by responses from members of the panel. The moderator was Mary Kearney, Director of Special Education for LCPS. I was third, I think - not enough time to get nervous. The purpose of the meeting was to address systemic issues using personal experiences, without violating privacy. Only a group of special ed parents would agree to or understand these limitations! The main focus of my comments was on the accountability of members of the IEP team to implement the plan that the group develops. I used examples including the lack of services provided by our previous OT and of course the fiasco on Monday.

Other highlights included numerous pleas from parents and grandparents of profoundly deaf students for the improvement of American Sign Language (ASL) that is taught in the schools. Many of these speakers were very knowledgeable and some were also deaf. Most desire to see their student attend Gallaudet University, but question if that will be possible with the level of instruction that is being offered to the students. Many speakers related information about their children with autism or autism spectrum disorder; there was a wide range of satisfaction with the services and evaluation of the services being provided for these students. There were stories where parental rights were clearly disregarded and stories of IEP teams where no staff member had a special ed background, so even minimal accommodations (preferential seating) were disregarded. Parents of middle and high school students indicated that they'd had different case managers nearly every year and spent much time re-inventing the wheel each fall. Some of it was truly heartbreaking; none of it was surprising.

Before I left, I volunteered to be a Special Ed Advisory Committee PTA Representative, a job that I think will be a good fit for me. I left, once again, relieved to have such wonderful dedicated people working with my son.

The Rest of My Life
Haven't had a chance to update on all the other goings on with our family.

Woke up Saturday morning with Ms Giggles asleep in her room, but the car missing! Her purse was stolen at a party Friday night and of course the keys were in it. ALM took her over to the party site where she found the keys lying on the grass outside, but no purse. It was the only set of keys for this car as Floggy had previously lost a set. So we at least got the car home.

Bake sale made over $350 on Saturday and another $100+ on Sunday.

Ms Giggles got TWO jobs and started the first one today. She's also been to the bank to get a new debit card and the DMV to get a new driver's license.

Little Dude's comment about both the Reading & Math SOL's, "I think I aced it!"

Special Education Town Hall Meeting

I want to say that I'm looking forward to attending the Special Ed Town Hall Meeting tonight, but looking forward is too optimistic a phrase to describe how I feel. It seemed that we were at a pretty stable place with Little Dude's services and accommodations - until yesterday! Unfortunately his case manager/resource teacher took one day off, and the sub didn't take the time to find out what our plan is and what interventions were appropriate.

Yesterday the class spent time practicing for today's Reading SOL; his testing accommodations for reading are pretty much limited to being able to write in the test booklet instead of filling in the "bubbles" on the answer sheet. Reading is certainly one of his strengths. But the sub helped him prepare by reading him the story selections and the answer options. Not really helpful as when he got home, he thought he had completed the test after this exercise, and he didn't get the benefit of realistic practice.

I spoke with his resource teacher today around lunch time. Besides being very professional and more than well qualified, she is also a kind person and easy to work with as our team leader. She felt bad for taking a day off (which she has every right to do), but even worse for Little Dude's experience. I just asked for him to stay with his classroom teacher (who is awesome in her right) if there are personnel who don't want to use the plan that we have so carefully prepared. And therein lies the rub. We currently have a conscientious, informed, caring professional team that communicates well and generally agrees by consensus on the needs that we are trying to address. It's the lack of implementation by the weakest link of various teams we have had over the years that has caused me to have doubts about what the future holds. I've nearly given up wondering if we would be at a better place now if previous team members had performed adequately. And I credit the gains he has made with the current group for allowing me to more clearly see the bright future ahead.

So, I'm going to the town hall meeting knowing that many parents and students are struggling with surviving while I am pleased for the most part to be participating in thriving.


Meanwhile, we have added place value and fractions to our list of math concepts that we have reviewed. Need to check the list and make up some practice problems for our last night before the Math SOL.