Special Needs

[mazzer]

Thanks Robert. Any advice would be great!

[taw1955]

If you come to Minnesota you will come to the right place for special services for your kids. Both my kids are special needs. Ya cant beat Minnesota for services. My kids are in Bloomington school district.

[mazzer]

Well we've been here 2 months now and I have to say I'm not too happy with the school services my eldest son has been getting. We had a bear of a time in the IEP session, the first one my wife attended by herself and she had 14 people from the school in the meeting. Intimidating to say the least. Admittedly it can also be regarded as a show of support. But then we found ourselves getting railroaded into a fed3 class without any other option. All of which is actually illegal under federal law. There are about 3 laws in violation with not giving you viable alternatives to explore.

We of course have an agenda, that being we want our eldest and more high functioning autistic child to be in a normal class with an aid full time. That wasn't happening so we negotiated a 50% environment with a shared aide. The school board went on to say that their experience with autism was such that the children in that program were actually above the attainment level of their academic peer group!!!! Think about that statement, autistic children achieving higher academically than peers? One percent are savant and then only in a specific area like music, art, math etc. Autism by the nature of the condition is a processing disorder. So how are they higher academically??

My son is now assessed and on the basis that he should be keeping up with or outstripping his normal peer group. Now we wanted a least restrictive environment, and I have to say we muscled our way into that program for the evaluation. That has been ongoing for 4 weeks now and today we received the assessment and it is completely one sided. It lists out all my sons faults, and essentially reports that he isn't up to the academic standards. He's naughty in class etc etc. Not one positive is mentioned on the report. To me that is a biased evaluation that is trying to force us to move him from a least restrictive environment into a fed3 class for the convenience of the school program.

We recognize our child isn't perfect but has the chance at least to be with other more normal role models in classes like music, phyed etc. Academics he's pulled into another class. BUT he's autistic, so to expect him to be on a level with peers to me is ridiculous.

One question he was asked in his assessment was "How would you recognize a child has an allergic reaction to peanuts"? This is an 8 year old with autism. Am I missing something here?

For everyone's information there is nothing wrong with fed3 and my youngest is attending that class and is doing quite well. However, fed3 by the nature of that program is placing a lot of different levels of autistic kids in a class. There is no best practice or role modeling as all the kids have issues. My eldest was in this style of class and would come home exhibiting social behaviors that were inappropriate that he had picked up from another child. This simply isn't what we want for him. As you all know I lived in CA for some time, the schools there were deplorable, so much so, we took out our kids and home schooled them all. We noticed with our eldest son a decided increase in good social behavior when working alongside his sibling who has no issues. We came to Minnesota with high hopes only to have them slightly dented at this point.

I haven't fully given up and anyone else facing this issue has options. We are going to either request an IEE (Independent Evaluation) and get an unbiased report drafted at a significant cost - $5000, or hire an attorney to attend our IEP and request a hearing and take the school board to court as other families have done who are not getting their needs met under federal law.

We have to admit to being very disappointed by having to do this and really would prefer the school being more open with their program. If they creatively built an alternative class that catered for autism rather than forcing us to follow their program for convenience sake we would go along with it. We are also a little cynical at this point also and believe we are being forced along this path as the school doubles its funding by getting our son into the fed3 class.

[oconnorcm3]

Mazzer,
I am so sorry to hear of your negative experience. We will move to Minnesota with our severely disabled son in about 2 or 3 years (he'll be 18 or 19). I have heard that hiring an advocate is the best way to go about it. That you will normally get what you want from the get-go, rather than fight the battel. I appreciate your explanations of exactly what is going wrong with your son's placement and hope that you will continue to share. We all can learn something new.
Many years ago, I was a school music teacher. This was back when the special classes came to music on their own. I asked if some of the special kids could join their age-peers to give them more music time. It was a great experience! Some of the children were able to 'rise to the occasion' and did well with their normal peers. Good luck with trying to get that for your son. It's a worthwhile battle.
Mari

[gatorinmn]

Mazzer, what district are you in? I have a 3-year-old with ASD and I am in the 196 school district. My wife is also on the Special Education Advisory Committee here in ISD 196. The services here are fantastic, among the best (if not the best) in the state.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by gatorinmn

Mazzer, what district are you in? I have a 3-year-old with ASD and I am in the 196 school district. My wife is also on the Special Education Advisory Committee here in ISD 196. The services here are fantastic, among the best (if not the best) in the state.

He is in the 196 district.

[mazzer]

We suffered a harsh assessment describing none of my sons positives. The IEP was loaded with school representatives in my opinion to intimidate. The parent is dictated to in what their child should have, there are no other choices in my opinion. Which I think goes against federal law. Other people on this board have applauded this program, I am trying not to be too harsh in my appraisal and coming from Britain where there is no help for autism, Minnesota is definitely providing some help. They just need to be a little less prescriptive and more flexible in their offerings. I would like to see ABA as an offering, where the school board first addresses some of the more irregular behaviors autistic children exhibit which in the long term would help achieve some academic areas.

We have decided to allow our son to attend the fed3 class that we were originally fighting against. Fed3 is a something we have seen fail in the past with him. He would come home and exhibit the strangest behaviors like banging the table repetitively. Upon investigation we found this behavior was being learned from a more severe autistic peer in class. Which is the last thing we wanted. We've spent years trying to improve his cognition, social skills, he's on a DAN protocol, which is strict GFCF, yeast free, sugar free diet. So you can appreciate getting back into this sort of class is the last thing we wanted after hearing so many positives about 196.

[icequeen2008]

Originally Posted by mazzer

We suffered a harsh assessment describing none of my sons positives. The IEP was loaded with school representatives in my opinion to intimidate. The parent is dictated to in what their child should have, there are no other choices in my opinion. Which I think goes against federal law. Other people on this board have applauded this program, I am trying not to be too harsh in my appraisal and coming from Britain where there is no help for autism, Minnesota is definitely providing some help. They just need to be a little less prescriptive and more flexible in their offerings. I would like to see ABA as an offering, where the school board first addresses some of the more irregular behaviors autistic children exhibit which in the long term would help achieve some academic areas.

We have decided to allow our son to attend the fed3 class that we were originally fighting against. Fed3 is a something we have seen fail in the past with him. He would come home and exhibit the strangest behaviors like banging the table repetitively. Upon investigation we found this behavior was being learned from a more severe autistic peer in class. Which is the last thing we wanted. We've spent years trying to improve his cognition, social skills, he's on a DAN protocol, which is strict GFCF, yeast free, sugar free diet. So you can appreciate getting back into this sort of class is the last thing we wanted after hearing so many positives about 196.

So sorry about your son. I know I wouldnt go to an Iep meeting without a representative from Pacer center. Last time their was and only has been one representative from the school district. Very small meetings. My autistic son mainstreamed all his classes with aide support plus he was on the special needs work program. He went daily what they call a cip class which is like a social skills class and various things. But he graduated 2 weeks ago and has been in Bloomington school disctrict for 5 years and they halped him trmendously and I hope things get better for your son as well. Good luck!!