Hopefully, this is not the first encounter you have had with the school. Hopefully, you have had conferences where they have shared that your child is struggling. To be honest, the school wanting to test your child is not a bad thing. Teachers will have already gone the extra mile to make your child successful. They will be seeing struggles in various areas, will have tried different ways of teaching, different ways of relaying information, different ways of reaching your child. These steps will have been minimally successful. If they are asking to test your child then she is struggling and they want to know and understand why.
The school will do cognitive testing and academic testing, looking at language, problem solving and reasoning. They want to know what type of learner she is visual, auditory, kinesthetic.
How she learns
How she stores information (long term and short term memory)
How she processes information (processing speed)
Is she able to pull information back out
Where she struggles (reading but more specifically…….)
Where the holes in her education are; skills she is missing
Once they have a better understanding of how she learns, they can begin to aid her in learning in ways that she can be successful.
There is no downside to allowing the school to evaluate your child. As the parent you must give consent. So allow them to test, get the results, they will go over the test results and explain exactly what they are seeing. Listen to their recommendations. Then, if you do not want to move forward, you can withdraw consent. Parents can withdraw consent at any step of the evaluation process.
If I give consent for special education placement, what does that mean?
Special Education is a service that is provided. It involves teachers trained in varied learning styles, abilities to break down assignments, trained in direct teaching programs, with many varied tools in their proverbial tool belt to make your child successful.
Some parents are under the impression that if their child receives special education services they will be put in a room with other children with very significant needs and never interact with their grade level, typical peers again. This is not accurate. Special education provides a continuum of services. The school is bound by the child’s IEP (Individualized Education Plan) you are an integral part of this decision making team. You can call a meeting to discuss your child and her needs at any time. The school MUST have a meeting annually. The IEP is based on the needs of your child and at all times LRE (least restrictive environment) must be considered. So for high incidence learning disabilities (dyslexia, math calculations, basic reading, reading comprehension, etc.) your child stays in the regular education class and the special education teacher comes to her. This is called inclusion. Within the parameters of inclusion, you will see a teacher and a paraprofessional, or a teacher and a special education teacher. Best case, you will see a Co-teach setting where the general education teacher and the special education teacher remain in the room together for the entire class with both of them working with the students. This model allows for your child to receive the assistance she needs while she continues to be taught and exposed to the grade level content. Co-teach is not new, however, it is considered best practice, but lots of schools do not necessarily do it with fidelity. It is expensive, two teachers in the same class, all day long or during that specific content time. That takes two salaries for the same number of students. If you are lucky enough to live where co-teach is offered, be thankful.
More common is inclusion. This service is comprised of a general education teacher and a special education teacher or paraprofessional that is in the room working with students for a finite amount of time. Say the reading block is 90 minutes, the special ed teacher may be in the room for 30 of those 90 minutes. Generally, these teachers do not plan together and the special education teacher’s role is more of support and impromptu assistance.
Another option is a more restrictive class known as resource. In this setting the special education teacher is in her room, the student comes to the class and works with the teacher and a smaller group of students. This is much more intense instruction, specially designed with years of research backing up what the teacher is doing. Students in resource are usually multiple years behind their grade level peers and face significant struggles in the general education classroom. They are placed in this more intensive setting with the hope that intense instruction and remediation will close gaps and enable the student to return to the less restrictive setting in the general education classroom.
The most restrictive placement (self contained) is for students with low incidence disabilities, significantly higher needs, behaviors, significant communication deficits, mobility issues, limited verbal or nonverbal abilities. This placement is used for the smallest population of students receiving special education services. Lots of opinions and articles have been written centered around this type of placement for a student. For the purpose of this blog, we are intentionally barely scratching the surface of what services are provided, and not addressing the appropriateness of removing children from the classrooms where their peers are being taught.
These varied placements, accommodations, and individualized education plans are all contingent on your child having an educational need for placement. If the school has requested testing, then they are seeing and suspect they will identify a need for your child. If you requested testing, the need may not be as obvious or may require more discussion. As a parent, you have the right to request testing, it must be done in writing.
Accommodations
If you have allowed your child to be placed in special education, she will receive accommodations. These are alterations to the daily interactions between teacher and student intentionally designed to meet the identified needs of the child. Accommodations are student specific and are not suggestions. If an accommodation is included, it is the law for that child.
In short, if the school wants to test, let them. Gather all of the information they provide, ask questions, then make your decision on whether you wish for your child to receive the services.