Re: Autism Scholarship/Independent Evaluation

[Guest guest]

The school district writes the IEP as if they would be implementing

it. The IEP is always signed first before the application for the

scholarship is even sent in. So if the school would not offer music

therapy, it won't be on the IEP. The reason for that is if you

change your mind half way through the school year and want to come

back to your sd, then the sd must implement the iep and provide all

the services listed. What I have seen is that most school districts

won't write for things they consider fluff....such as music therapy,

adaptive aquatics, art therapy etc. Doesn't matter if you spend

money and get a private eval or not. Most schools especially for

preschool will only give you the basics. School, pt if needed, ot

if needed, speech, and if you are lucy psych services (if you plan

on doing any ABA) Especially at preschool they won't put in for a

para or 1 on 1 aide.

As for the hours, don't fret so much about that, they aren't that

militant in checking things such as the iep states 6 hours a week

and the child goes for 10. The big thing is that the extra services

have to be listed in order to attain them.

So this isn't probably what you want to here...but the sd is only

obligated to write the iep as if they were going to be doing

it...doesn't really matter what we the parents would like

As for MEEC, they are considered the provider of the autism

scholarship, in other words they will implement the IEP and report

back to the school district his progress. So the IEP doesn't have

to specifically list them in name or hours.

>

> Hi everyone! I know I've asked questions about the Scholarship

before, but I just don't get something -- how does the school write

and agree to the IEP when it won't be providing the services? For

example, how would the school agree to ESY if they never see the

child? Moreover, why would the school write that a child needs

music therapy, e.g., which could be offered by one the scholarship

authorized providers, when they have no intention of providing music

therapy for any child in the center-based preschool? What do you do

if you need to rewrite the IEP in order to utilize the scholarship?

(the school previously wrote the IEP to fit our decision that he

would only go 1 hour/4 days a week to the preschool, with the intent

that he'd work up to the full 2.5 hours over time, but if we use the

scholarship now, we'd want the full 2.5 hours written in b/c we'd be

using MEEC).

>

> If the answer is that the services need to be in the IEP

regardless whether the school would ordinarily provide them (if the

child were not using the scholarship), how do you go about proving

to the school what services are needed? (our experience the first

time through was the school -- probably wrongly -- put the cart

before the horse and had his placement in mind first, and tailored

the IEP to meet the services in that placement). Has anyone used an

independent evaluation for these purposes?

>

> Thanks in advance, Eileen

>

>

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