IEP vs. 504

January 26, 2009

My son, was given a diagnosis of PDD-NOS about 2 years ago at

the age of 4. I still think he has some aspergers tendencies, but

the PDD-NOS was enough to qualify him for services, so I'm o.k. with

this diagnosis. I also know that diagnosis can change over the

years, so as long as he gets services, I'm fine with it. He

presently has an IEP and gets pulled out for speech, OT, PT, and

whatever else he needs. He is in 1/2 day kindergarten and sees the

special ed teacher regularly too. So he is certainly getting all he

needs.

The only other thing I would like for him to have is a

paraprofessional. He did not have one in pre-school - and at that

time, I really didn't want him to have one (silly me, I didn't want

the " stigma " attached to him). I asked about a para at our last

meeting with the team and all heads nodded in agreement - with the

exception of the principal of the school - she simply stated "

didn't have a para in pre-school - if he had come to kindergarten

with one, it would be easier, but since he didn't need one before.... "

Now I know that the principal is only saying that because it is her

job to keep costs down - lets face it - it's all about the mightly

dollar these days.

So my question is - what do I need to do to push the school in to

this? We have another IEP coming up on 2/12 and I want to be fully

prepared and armed with everything I need to get this one last thing

through. It's not just my guy, but the other children in the class -

there are just 17 kids in his class which is a pretty good ratio, but

the teacher does seem to have to spend a lot of time just with -

I want to point out to the school that this would really benefit the

other children in class as well since they would have more of the

teacher's attention if had the one-on-one of a paraprofessional

in the classroom as well.

I also am thinking forward to next year when he will have full day

school and will really need the assistance to stay focused.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Janna

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