? That read like you mean the parents?
Parents AND kids too. No discipline allowed in schools. The word "consequences" has been banned as it is considered "threatening". Kids do whatever they want and tell teachers that they can't do anything to them. Principal and dean puts blame on teachers when teachers want to send students to office. Teachers are blamed for students' lack of progress or bad test scores even when teachers can back up grades with student's lack of work. Teachers are required to remain in classrooms during lunch to provide tutoring to students that don't show up. Students don't have to go to office since no one will back up discipline with punishment. If kid is failing from not doing work, parents complain and principal changes grade to pass. No work deadlines are allowed - kid has until last day of school to make up any work and teacher can't lower grade for not turning in on time. DS1 is just counting the remaining years to retirement - 7 years. Hope she make it without having a nervous breakdown. Actually told her to start setting up a Worker's Comp claim for emotional stress. Didn't give up your weapons whatever the government says because the way these kids behave "Lord of the Flies" scenario is beginning to happen in our schools now.
School district has broken several state regulations and maybe federal regulations regarding disabilities. They did NOT inform me they started a home room accomidation then decided to yank accomidation at end of 1st semester. She was getting 80-90% on English comprehension stuff with accomidation which made her overall grade a 72%. Now she has a 54%. They did not provide required RTI progress reports or suggest evaluation as required under Child Find rules.
When we had a parent teacher conference a week ago there only suggestion was for us to "voluntarily" hold her back a year. They said she flagged high on dyslexia screen but wouldn't even try dyslexia aid in Response To Intervention to see if it helped. Cassandra is an A & B student in all her other classes.
Learning Disabled children usually have a high IQ, which can make identification difficult because they are able to adapt their behavior to hide the problem. Many LD kids become class clowns since when everyone is laughing at your antics, they are not laughing at you for being stupid. Some retreat into themselves to avoid the other children noticing that they can't keep up. LD children don;t understand why they study and listen but cannot earn the way their friends do. It leads to bad self-esteem without intervention. LD children are
not mentally retarded or stupid. They simply learn in different ways from other children. Current teaching ways are not designed for them. LD children also may be very good at math but cannot learn to read or vice versa. Because LD children are very smart, their problems are not identified in early childhood. They learn normally until they go to elementary school and have to learn in a regular classroom. Many teachers do not have any experience or knowledge about Learning Disabilities and don't recognize them.
If you see "hills and valleys" in your child's report cards or testing results it can be a result of learning disabilities. Your child scores in the 90th percentile in one subject but in the 20th percentile in another subject, that is a "hills and valleys" identifier. With those test scores you can demand testing. There are other things that will flag LDs in comment or notes the teacher sends home.
California LAUSD has classes and screening for Learning Disabilities. You have to request screening for the child. By the time the school does the testing (held only at certain times of the year), then does the physical evaluation, psychiatric evaluations, learning evaluation, parental conferencing, and final Independent Learning Plan approval it can take up to a year to get the child into their proper developmental classes. There are so many different types of Learning Disabilities that identification of what is wrong can be difficult. You, as the parent, need to keep a list of problems that the child has. Some of these identifying characteristics include sequencing problems, over affectionate behavior with friends, inability to tell time, language problems, memory problems, letter identification, inability to draw, inability to separate (in very young children) etc. There are books written about this and they will give you lists of things to look for to identify what LD your child has. Children can have multiple LDs as well which makes identification harder.
According to law, if you cannot get any results from your child's school, you can pay for private LD testing. Those results can get you actio from the school. Sometimes it may be transferring the child to a school that has special help classes, other times you will have to get more proactive. My neighbor's son has extreme Tourette Syndrome along with other LDs. The high school did not do anything for him for a year even though he had been identified and had an ILP since grade school. She got an attorney and within several months the school had arranged for a private tutor and the boy was picked up in a taxi every morning and returned home after school. This boy will never be able to live alone and this was an unusual case, but
THE SCHOOL MUST PROVIDE THE EDUCATIONAL PLAN THE CHILD NEEDS AND PAY FOR IT.
Hope you can get the help you need for your little girl. With the proper intervention LD children can do great things. I am so glad that she is showing her sheep and doing those activities she can excel at. 4-H was where my LD boys were able to do as well and better than other children and gain the self-esteem they needed. All my children were County All Stars, Cunt Record Book winners, gold medal winners, Summer Camp counselors, while DS2 (who went to special ed school for 3 years) became a California Diamond Star and State Record Book winner. Learning disabled children are smart and just need the appropriate teaching methods to succeed.
