Michigan Laws For Special Ed??

[mama2myangels07]

I'm looking for links or any information for the laws for Michigan for special education. I don't think my son is being given all the services he should be getting and I want to go into his next IEP meeting prepared.

He was given a speech and language impairment diagnosis and I was told he was right on the border for cognitive so they didn't want to add that in. At the time I didn't know any better. But things have been getting a lot worse with him and I think it is partially the delays, and I also think he is ADD and or ADHD and is on the spectrum to some degree. I asked for the school to evaluate him last year and they said they would, it's almost the end of another school year and it hasn't been done.

[Aridel]

Did you request the assessment verbally or in writing? If it was in writing, they are supposed to complete the assessment within 30 school days, and meet following that. That is a federal law so it definitely applies in Michigan. If it was verbal, they have a lot more leeway. The Wrightslaw has a lot of useful info about special education law.

In a situation like yours, the best two resources I've seen for IEP meetings are bringing an advocate to the meeting or getting an outside assessment. Request assessments from the school in writing, but if you have insurance coverage I would also look into a private developmental assessment - you will probably need a referral from your ped. If you have an outside report, the school is not bound by law to follow it, but they are to discuss it and take it into account. It can really help!

Good luck!

[Fay]

Actually, most of the laws governing special ed are federal, not state-mandated. But Michigan is in a difficult position this year because school funding has been cut so drastically, and special ed costs big bucks, especially in AI (autistic impairment) classrooms and CI (cognitive impairment) classrooms. We are very nervous about our DS1's services for next year.

The trick to getting services & evals in some Michigan districts is to type up a formal request (with the date at the top, that's key) and send copies to the teacher, the teacher consultant and the director of special ed (with a cc: list of all the recipients at the bottom of the letter). It is not enough to make a verbal request. What you want is called a Multidisciplinary Evalution Team (MET) eval, which is usually done once every 3 years for a special needs student, but if you have new needs, then you can request a new IEP and a new MET. BTW, you have the legal right to call a new IEP anytime you feel the old IEP is not doing its job.

We had difficulty getting appropriate services for our DS1 in our old school district, but we paid the $$$ for a private eval and brought that to our new school district. That opened a lot of doors for DS1.

I'm going to send you a pm to discuss specific districts.

[mama2myangels07]

Originally Posted by Aridel

Did you request the assessment verbally or in writing? If it was in writing, they are supposed to complete the assessment within 30 school days, and meet following that. That is a federal law so it definitely applies in Michigan. If it was verbal, they have a lot more leeway. The Wrightslaw has a lot of useful info about special education law.

In a situation like yours, the best two resources I've seen for IEP meetings are bringing an advocate to the meeting or getting an outside assessment. Request assessments from the school in writing, but if you have insurance coverage I would also look into a private developmental assessment - you will probably need a referral from your ped. If you have an outside report, the school is not bound by law to follow it, but they are to discuss it and take it into account. It can really help!

Good luck!

It was said at his last IEP meeting last may and they wrote it on the papers for his IEP. Nothing was ever said to me about if anything was ever done or anything.

I'll have to bug his dr about a referral. Thanks!

[mama2myangels07]

Originally Posted by Fay

Actually, most of the laws governing special ed are federal, not state-mandated. But Michigan is in a difficult position this year because school funding has been cut so drastically, and special ed costs big bucks, especially in AI (autistic impairment) classrooms and CI (cognitive impairment) classrooms. We are very nervous about our DS1's services for next year.

The trick to getting services & evals in some Michigan districts is to type up a formal request (with the date at the top, that's key) and send copies to the teacher, the teacher consultant and the director of special ed (with a cc: list of all the recipients at the bottom of the letter). It is not enough to make a verbal request. What you want is called a Multidisciplinary Evalution Team (MET) eval, which is usually done once every 3 years for a special needs student, but if you have new needs, then you can request a new IEP and a new MET. BTW, you have the legal right to call a new IEP anytime you feel the old IEP is not doing its job.

We had difficulty getting appropriate services for our DS1 in our old school district, but we paid the $$$ for a private eval and brought that to our new school district. That opened a lot of doors for DS1.

I'm going to send you a pm to discuss specific districts.

I was told last year that they would only do the evaluation for anything I was asking about every 3 years. That, that was the only time they could do it. And we are in the same school district.

[Aridel]

They have to test every three years at minimum to see if he is still eligible. If you request the assessment in writing before then, they have to do it within 30 days of that request, unless you withdraw the request. What is the exact wording in his IEP? If they did do this testing they should have met with you about it, I would really doubt it happened at all if you haven't seen any results. You also, as the PP said, have the right to ask for a new IEP meeting at any time - again, put it in writing! List days and times you are available, what you want to meet about, and keep records. If you ever talk to someone about any of this one the phone, write it down - email or letter summarizing the discussion, with a request for reply if anything is incorrect or not what they intended. And yes, get that referral to outside testing! That can work miracles in getting services in place!

How old is he? What do his current goals look like?

[mama2myangels07]

Originally Posted by Aridel

They have to test every three years at minimum to see if he is still eligible. If you request the assessment in writing before then, they have to do it within 30 days of that request, unless you withdraw the request. What is the exact wording in his IEP? If they did do this testing they should have met with you about it, I would really doubt it happened at all if you haven't seen any results. You also, as the PP said, have the right to ask for a new IEP meeting at any time - again, put it in writing! List days and times you are available, what you want to meet about, and keep records. If you ever talk to someone about any of this one the phone, write it down - email or letter summarizing the discussion, with a request for reply if anything is incorrect or not what they intended. And yes, get that referral to outside testing! That can work miracles in getting services in place!

How old is he? What do his current goals look like?

They just said he has a speech and language impairment. They did put that he has issues paying attention and sitting still. These are still issues for him. It just seems like while the speech stuff is getting better, his behavior is crazy now and I've thought for a while that some form of autism could be part of the issue also.

He's 6 almost 7 years old and the main thing they seem to be worried about is getting him to be able to sit still for more then 10 minutes at a time.