<< TABLE OF CONTENTS >>

1. *ANOTHER* WORD FROM YOUR EDITOR
2. CONFESSIONS OF A SPECIAL ED MOM (PART 4)
3. SUMMING UP

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

<< *ANOTHER* WORD FROM YOUR EDITOR >>

This is the last in a series of newsletters dealing with lessons learned
from the K-12 system -- and how those lessons impact on what we see, and what
we can expect, with new postsecondary students coming to us from the K-12
setting. Before I begin (and, thus, end!) my final comments, I need to offer two
reminders:

First -- If you have not already visited the DAIS Academy site to check
out the online courses for Fall, 2002, I encourage you to do so now. NOW!
What are you waiting for? GRIN The first of the classes begin as early as next
week (the week of September 16th), and there are some HUGELY important
classes being offered this fall. Go. Look. Sign up! http://www.daisacademy.com

Second -- in the July newsletter I referenced an excellent new resource
entitled "Students with Disabilities Preparing for Postsecondary Education:
Know Your Rights and Responsibilities." I said it came from the US DOE. I
SHOULD have noted that is came from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the US
DOE. Let's give credit where credit is due! Remember, it is available FREE,
online.

This pamphlet can be downloaded from the Internet at:

http://www.ed.gov/ocr/transition.html.

Copies can be ordered by calling them at: 1-877-4-EDPUBS or on-line ordering
at:
http://www.ed.gov/about/ordering.jsp

Now, back to my hard-won new understanding...

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

<< CONFESSIONS OF A SPECIAL ED MOM - Part 4 >>

Discovery #6

Not only do they use different documentation in K-12 than we do at the
postsecondary level, but TESTING is different, for different reasons.

We have discussed the fact that IEP's are often less prescriptive than
we would have them be for our purposes at the postsecondary level, but we
haven't talked about the fact that those sometimes useless (in our opinion) IEP's are often exactly -- and only -- what is necessary at the K-12 level. DSS
providers moan and complain because the testing done at the K-12 level is
inadequate to the purpose, but the fact remains that the testing done is right on target -- for THEIR purpose. Just in the last few days, I have picked up the
following comments from postsecondary service providers on two different listservs:

<< An IEP with a full psychoeducational evaluation is entirely another
matter. What I and many others object to is just the plan with a statement of the
label and accommodations list if we are lucky. >>

and
<< Regarding IEPs from high school, I would like to add that I have never
seen one with suggestions for college accommodations at all; they have
all had plans for high school class accommodations like "will use the
resource room for math class", or something totally useless. I've never
had one that included psych. evaluations. >>

Both of these comments were made in response to the suggestion that
IEP's might have some value in helping postsecondary service providers be
prescriptive in assigning accommodations. In neither case were they discussing
whether the IEP should be accepted *in lieu of* other documentation, only whether the IEP had anything to offer in support of other documentation.

My question would be WHY any postsecondary provider would presume that
an IEP SHOULD have suggestions for college accommodations. The IEP is not
created to be a verification of disability (thus including testing info), nor is
it created to provide recommendations for postsecondary accommodations. It is
created solely for the purpose of setting down on paper what aspects of
Special Education programming will be harnessed in support of this particular
student. Maybe they *should* care more about what will happen to the student later, and give recommendations just as the diagnosticians do, except that (a) most postsecondary service providers would likely reject those recommendations
anyhow, as K-12 adjustments are focused on success, not access; and (b) we, in
higher education, are quick to dismiss as inappropriate the kinds of things done
for students at the K-12 level, so why should we think that they are any LESS
dismissive of what we do at the postsecondary level? How many times have you
heard Special Ed teachers and/or parents complain that we (higher ed) don't
understand that the "child" needs this or that, and they don't understand why we
won't give them what they got in high school? The bottom line is that what
they are in a position to provide, and the reasons they provide it, are very
different from ours. It is not their responsibility to serve US, only the
student. And they can serve the student in the manner appropriate to their setting and focus, with the information included within those IEP's.

That brings us back to the issue of testing. Recently, someone
commented on the DSSHE that it was VERY difficult for service providers to get any useful information from the K-12 system since they were no longer required under IDEA to re-evaluate the student and thus they are serving the students from documentation that had long since expired. (Jo Anne Simon pointed out that
testing information, unlike milk, does not spoil with age! It may not provide what we perceive to be a *current* picture of the student's functioning, but that doesn't mean that it was not an accurate reflection of the student's
functioning at the time it was done.) The fact is that the K-12 system is still
required to re-evaluate the student at a minimum of every 3-years. But they are
re-evaluating the student to determine their eligibility for special education
services, NOT their eligibility as a person with a disability under 504/ADA. At
the postsecondary level, we want to know if the disability has a significant
impact on major life activities, in order to decide if they are entitled to
protection under the law, including services/support focused on access. By
contrast, the K-12 system needs to know whether the student still has need for
special education services which (as we have established) are largely focused on
success. If the OBVIOUS answer to that is "yes," then they don't need
additional formal testing to verify that answer.

My daughter went through her 3-year re-evaluation this past school
year. She uses a motorized wheelchair, cannot speak clearly enough to be
understood most of the time, we have all this information that suggests that her CP impacts on her visual tracking in such a way that she will never be a fluid
reader, and her printing is labored and difficult to read (forget about cursive
writing). Is she a child in need of special considerations in the classroom?
You betcha! Do they need to do further formal testing to reconfirm that?
Nope, they don't. So they didn't. None of the things mentioned above were
established in the re-evaluation through anything beyond anecdotal and observational report from the folks who work with her at school. And I didn't mind at all.

Granted, Cottie's disability jumps out at you in an obvious way not
necessarily in evidence for the typical student with a learning disability. But
if the student is clearly still struggling in school (as judged by his/her
difficulties in keeping up with grade level work and the reports of the special ed staff who work with the student), that information, coupled with the
still-valid assessment of the student's potential from earlier years, may be more than enough to suggest that "this student still needs special education services to be successful." But how, you ask, can they be prescriptive in assigning accommodations if they don't have formal testing of the student's current functioning? H-e-l-l-l-l-o-o-o!?! Go back and read the last newsletter. They DON'T assign accommodations (not like ours, anyhow). Special education services tend to jump off from where the student is in the curriculum, not where they could/should be with equal access. Their level of academic achievement can be judged by less regimented measures than the formal assessment of potential v. performance we want.

To put it simply, postsecondary providers want and need to know how the
student compares against others, in order judge whether the disability poses a
substantial limitation to the student. The K-12 folks only want and need to
know how THIS student is functioning. No comparison is necessary... and no
comparison likely to be done!

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Discovery #7

In order to make accommodations, you have to analyze the GOAL of the
assignment/task/test; most elementary teachers can't/don't know how to do that.

I believe the statement above to be absolutely true. I have seen it
over and over again over the last year in working with school personnel who were
pleased and amazed when I recommended an accommodation that could be used that
was effective in providing access and -- after the fact -- they could see
brought Cottie to the same point in terms of the learning accomplished. For
example, in working through a science unit over the course of a six-week period,
nightly homework assignments involved answering a series of questions that were
taken DIRECTLY from the text that was read from the unit. The answers
identified were to be written on a separate sheet of paper, numbered 1-5. Cottie was receiving a large print copy of the pages in question to work from (they simply ran the book through the copy machine, set for 140% enlargement). She could have laboriously copied out those sentences onto a separate sheet of paper.

On the average, it would have taken 20-25 minutes for her to do so. But the
GOAL was to find the correct answer within the text to the questions being
asked. After the second week, when it was time for Science homework, we would
whip out her trusty Highlighter, and Cottie would read the question, go back
and find the right answer in the (enlarged) text, highlight it, and put the
number of the question it answered in a circle in the margin. It took roughly the same 5 minutes that the other kids were spending on the assignment. Ta, da!

(As an aside, this task of helping the teachers analyze what was
happening and what was needed was made even more difficult and stressful for me
because I spent at least as much time and energy presenting suggestions in such a way that they thought it was THEIR idea as I did in coming up with the plan
and facilitating the accommodation. I worked incredibly hard to make them
believe that they were responsible for Cottie's success, because I needed to
cultivate their cooperation. I can't afford, for Cottie's sake, to get into a
pattern in which they see me walk in the door and roll their eyes, dig in their
heels, and say, "here she comes again!" I understand that, and so I tread VERY
lightly. I was drained by the effort. I also understand why some parents can
be perceived as abrasive and demanding. It would have been easy to slip into
that mode. And if you have spent years FIGHTING the K-12 system to get what
is needed and appropriate for your kid, it is going to be difficult not to show
up in the postsecondary DSS provider's office feeling equally as embattled --
and being equally as obnoxious! GRIN)

The problem is, I think postsecondary DSS folks are sometimes guilty of
the same shortsightedness, although perhaps for different reasons. Too often,
we have either forgotten how, or failed to make/take the time, to analyze the
GOAL of the assignment/task /test when making accommodations. Readers of this
newsletter have read my rants on the subject of assigning accommodations on
the basis of label, and of providing the same menu of accommodations in all
classes throughout the student's academic career, absent a case-by-case
consideration as to whether (for example) the student with the math problem really needs extended time in the Poli Sci class ("Hey... he has a learning disability. LD students get extended time, right?").

The K-12 system can't be creative in determining accommodations until
they learn to do such task analysis -- and we can't be EFFECTIVE in determining
accommodations until we remember to do the same. We are quick to criticize the
K-12 system for assigning a label and then sticking a kid in a Resource Room
to receive the same modified curriculum as every other student with that
label. But how many times have you seen postsecondary providers who have developed lists of accommodations provided to various disability groups ("... the blue sheet is for LD students, the pink page is for students with psych disabilities, and the canary yellow page is for students with mobility impairments"). To streamline the process of providing accommodations and verification for the ever-increasing numbers of students with disabilities, service providers will spend hours pouring over documentation to assure that it is complete and establishes eligibility for services, then blithely send out the same accommodations form for this student as for the last six students with the same disability that the faculty member has seen. Of course, we insist that we provide accommodations on a case-by-case basis... and then everything the faculty member sees come from our office belies that fact. Sooner or later, such a pattern will come back to haunt us. Stop it! (grin)

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

<< Summing Up >>

So... what do these discoveries add up to? Let's review:

• Discovery # 1
  
  IEP's AREN'T!!!
• Discovery #2
  
  Test scores can be useful, but are not necessarily meaningful!
• Discovery #3
  
  Sometimes, parental frustration levels are justified.
• Discovery #4
  
  Their 504 *ISN'T* Our 504!!!
• Discovery #5
  
  THEIR "Accommodations" Are Not OUR "Accommodations"
• Discovery #6
  
  Not only do they use different documentation in K-12 than we do at the
  postsecondary level, but TESTING is different, for different reasons.
• Discovery #7
  
  In order to make accommodations, you have to analyze the GOAL of the
  assignment/task/test; most elementary teachers can't/don't know how to do that.

I HOPE what these discoveries add up to is a reminder that while we serve
(at the postsecondary level) the same students that the K-12 folks shepherded
through their system, our two worlds are not contiguous, and our services/su
pport/policies/practices do not represent a seamless delivery system. They
were never meant to! K-12 will continue to do things their way, making
incremental changes along the way -- and we will continue to do things OUR way, driven by our OWN focus and goals. Recognizing, acknowledging, and ACCEPTING the fact that there are legitimate differences may be an important step in helping students with disabilities to make a successful transition. And THAT's what it's all about!!!

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

(End of newsletter)