It took three years but I finally got them their diagnosis and now I don’t know what to do next. Their school always gave us issues when we held them to the expectation that my kids would get the help they needed from their school. They refused to let my youngest stay a full day last year for his first year of school, and now CMH (community mental health of Northern michigan) is trying to say he no longer needs their services and should stay in his normal classroom, like they’re trying to get rid of him. And with my daughter, they refused to get her onto an IEP before we forced them to. Now that I have the diagnosis, what are my options to ensure my children get the help they need?
Oh, I should clarify. My son and daughter were classified as “developmental delay” and officially diagnosed with ADHD. When my youngest started school, it was preschool, but they had full days like other grades. 8 to 2:30. They refused to let him stay past 11:00, and refused to put our wishes for him to get full days on it. We pushed for a school diagnosis because we always suspected he had autism but all the school said was “development delay”. That’s likely why we got his IEP. I appreciate the really detailed info you provided, thank you. Looks like 504 is the way to go…
Do you have a medical diagnosis for autism or ADHD or just school diagnosis?
A “developmental delay” is only eligible for special ed under that category until a kid’s 10th birthday.
If you can, getting a medical diagnosis for autism makes other services available even outside school (see kidswaivers.org). Doing so can be difficult both in cost and in the backlog of neurobehavioral health clinics that do autism diagnosis. You would probably need a referral from the kid’s GP/pediatrician.
You can get more services on an IEP than a 504. If your kid needs individualized instruction they need an IEP. Either way your kid will have special protections when it comes to disciplinary action. A school can not academically disciple (suspend, expell, ot remove from the classroom, or e.g. not allow to attend full day vs half day) a disabled student for more than 10 school days in total over the course of a school year without holding a “manifestation to termination meeting” to determine if the behavior is a manifestation of the disability. If it is the school has to implement behavior intervention programs instead of disciplinary action.
If they ask you to come pick up your kid early that constitutes “suspension or removal from the classroom”. If that happens keep track of the number of days, and use those words talking to administrators.
I don’t know if those rules apply to preschool and kindergarten, but they should if kindergarten is mandatory in your state.
School district are also required to attempt to identify children with disabilities living in their district prior to enrollment in a process called “child find”. This is to provide early intervention programs, like developmental preschool.
It’s extremely distribing that your son was excluded from preschool due to a disability. I would be considering talking to a lawyer if I were in your place, at least seeking out the advice of a Michigan specific advocacy group.
Yes, both my children have finally received their medical diagnosis for both autism and adhd. Unfortunately, his exclusion was last year; before I knew how any of this worked. He’s in kindergarten now, and so far, he’s not being forced to go home early. However, they are really trying to push him out of his CMH class. We’ve had issues with the school many times. The most egregious being the forced half day and the time one of his preschool teachers called in a false report to cps about us. Legally, the caseworker can’t tell you who called the complaint. However, the cps agent left her paperwork in full view long enough for me to read it. It gave the name of his teacher and her “complaints.” They were quickly proven wrong. They actually called cps on us 3 times. The last time, the cps agent straight up said the complaint was rejected due to lack of evidence. They knew what was going on based on their last report, and it’s like she let me see it on purpose without actually telling me. I am very thankful for that, but I’m also still irritated it happened in the first place. Now that we finally have a medical, I hope it’ll force them to work with us.
I actually know none of that. I was eating dinner with my spouse.