Errika: I have been saying since early kindergarten that something was wrong with my daughter’s learning abilities. They pull her with other “slower” learners and placed her as ESL (since we speak Italian at home as well and had moved from overseas). Fast forward to the 1st grade, despite my continued voicing something is wrong, the school didn’t do anything til it was too late. I had a tutor for her. She told her tutor she didn’t love herself because she could read nor write like the other kids and knew she was pulled aside because she was “stupid”. She would hit herself and shake her fist and moan because she “just can’t get my brain right”. So I immediately pulled her out of school! Crisis intervention time! Immediately took her for private testing and she has a diagnosis “Learning Processing Disorder”. The SLP therapist also suggested OT. Now I have to fight to see if I can get an IEP to have her placed in a special private school as recommended by the neuropsychologist that cost over $14k a yr! Can this be done? Can I get her an IEP with the private testing I had performed as the public system failed her? She was enrolled all last yr (and VPK) and for the first 2.5 months of first grade. I wish to get her an IEP place her in the private school via the McCay scholarship to help offset the cost.
I would suggest hiring an attorney well versed in IDEA law to help. This will be a fight. The school does not have to put any child in private placement unless they cannot provide the exact services that are needed at the school & usually they say they can provide the services at the school. It would be a fight to get what you want since you would have to prove that the school does NOT have the ability to provide the services as stated in the IEP.
Your state parent training & information center will be aware of options & the rules in your state. http://www.parentcenterhub.org/find-your-center