This is a line my dad always used to use when we were younger. He was a true pragmatist, never swayed by fad or fashion. So whenever we'd ask him for money for the latest and greatest
thing, he would feign utter surprise and ask us this question in reply.
Today, I have the same question. This time for educators. What are special education services made of? The way they are coveted and rationed, you'd think they were made from the same precious material my dad spoke of long ago.
Seems Twin Sister's school is a little hesitant to put her on an IEP. The problem? She's doing OK. It doesn't matter that her anxiety is through the roof, or that it's taking all she's got to just maintain. As long as she is not failing, they can't justify giving her any help. But as soon as she takes a nose dive, they may reconsider. How very big of them.
We were told that being bipolar and ADHD alone is not enough to receive services. Alone? How many other diagnoses do they need?
It used to be that if a parent requested testing, a school had to comply. Then came a wonderful concept called Response to Intervention (RTI). Great in theory, it was originally meant to identify those kids who didn't necessarily have a diagnosis, but were struggling. Now, its being used as yet another gateway to help.
Before they'll even consider a child for special education services, they need to go through the RTI process , basically collecting enough data to justify the need. Now, I don't know about you, but if past experience is any indication of their data collection abilities, we'll be waiting a long, long time. In the meantime, doctors reports, old work samples, former teachers' reports -- none of this seems to matter. They have to see it with their own eyes, I guess.
We were also told that new changes in ADA regulations now dictates this new process. When asked, they couldn't produce any documentation backing this up, but still insisted it will take least nine weeks (at the earliest) to come to any sort of conclusion.
Its not like we're asking them for an aide or private placement. We're just asking for things like help with organization, shorter assignments and a little extra help going over classwork. Maybe these are made of something special too, because no, no and another no is all we've heard on these too.
So here I sit, watching my daughter slowly slide. The signs at first are not very obvious. A missed assignment here. A bad grade there. I hope and pray that this time I'm wrong, but I know the drill. After awhile my hardworking daughter will become exhausted trying to keep up. Then the cracks in the surface will begin to show. And then, like an avalanche, once these build momentum things get dangerous, fast.
In the meantime, I will document, document, document. Hopefully then that body of evidence will present itself sooner than they think. Or maybe they'll get so sick of my emails and meetings, they'll give her an IEP just to get rid of me. After all time is money, and at the rate they're going, they will have spent enough of both to amass more gold than Fort Knox.
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