So, I took Flunkie's advise and emailed the man he told me to. I didn't expect a reply so fast because at the time I sent it we were on Winter Break from school. I was shocked that I didn't get an automated response and I was just shocked that he got back to me so fast. I won't repost the email I sent because it's the same as the one in the previous post. I will just post his response:
"When I return to the office on Monday, I will have my staff get to the bottom of this issue and we will be in touch with you as soon as possible, hopefully that day or the next. We will need to work with Psychological Services regarding the evaluation questions and issues.
I'm very sorry for your experience. We have strict guidelines about referrals and evaluations so we need to find out what actually caused this situation to escalate and what we need to do about it.
An IEP is written only after special education eligibility is determined which appears not to have happened yet. A 504 will yield a plan similar to an IEP. Homebound services are available upon completion of physician and parent forms available from my office. My office assigns the homebound teacher if that service is indicated."
Soon after this email I realized that I needed to provide my son's last name so they could look him up...LOL!! My bad! Anyway, he did investiate the issue and I got a response from him. No, he didn't answer all my questions and I believe that he found the school did NOT do as they were suppose to do and he wasn't about to admit it to me. Keep in mind that I already stated that I formally requested an IEP evaluation a year prior to all of this. Paperwork filled out, letter's were written, and believe me when I say that I kept ALL of this proof in case I ever needed it. So anyway, this is what he found out:
"First, thank you for providing your son’s last name. That did help us.
I have had my staff investigating this matter today and yesterday.
It appears that the Education Intervention Team (EIT) first formally recommended interventions for Daniel to begin this past October. There is an indication that the team met last April but tabled the matter until this fall for some reason. I’m not clear on why that was recommended. On November 19, the EIT recommended formal testing which I understand began last month.
You came to school yesterday, I understand, and requested homebound form. I believe that you were going to bring him into Psych. Services here in my building to complete the testing. I believe that the doctor has spoken with our Supervisor of Psychological Services, Sylvia Groves, and that someone was going to call you to arrange a time to bring Daniel in to complete the testing.
There may be some misunderstanding about our ‘terms’. The EIT is the intervention team that meets and recommends strategies to implement with children to try and resolve the problems they’re having without having to put the child through formal testing and possibly even eventually special education. The IEP stands for the Individualized Education Program that is written for the child after his testing has been completed and a meeting has been held to recommend him for special education.
Once the testing is completed and the meeting is held, a decision can be made to provide special education if he is eligible. At that time, the IEP would be written which details specifically what services will be provided, how often they will be provided, and a host of other decisions."
Funny how after I contacted him the IEP evaluation was up and rolling and my son was found to need Special Education Services..... Again, tell me something I didn't know!! It took him a few hours to accomplish what I had been trying to for a year. With the help of my advocate we had an IEP written and I found out some interesting things about my son. One of the things I learned was that they do an intelligence evaluation to test for learning disabilities and such. I learned that his long term memory score was a 140 out of 160. The psychologist doing the testing said he was highly intelligent, but emotionally disabled. My son would get straight "A's" in academics, but would fail in classroom behavior. When the IEP was written I was hoping that we were headed in the right direction. New therapist, new meds, and a brand new IEP. What could go wrong??
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