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New here - Help with my sons schooling
Thu, 03/30/2017 - 01:18Topic: Parents & Caregivers
My son is 15, he began having seizure at the age of 14 and has only had clonic tonic aka grand Mal seizures since the beginning. My sons neurologist has not given my son any limitations since we do not know his triggers. He has an IEP in place however his school has made him feel alienated.
He was taken out of computer class because he had had two seizures in that class ... he was told that because of his condition he could no longer take that class. I was later email of the decision. My sons school is not at all big there are at most less than a 100 kids per grade. He now is force to wait it out in the office. His state of mind changed and he has become very withdrawn.
I have communicated with his school that I should have had a saying since his neurologist of two years keeps on insisting that we do not treat him different.
Over the last two years almost* my son has not had a very positive mentality of his condition so I know this did not help at all. He is very upset and feels like schooling isn't necessary anymore since all he is being told is no on anything he wants to do. The school staff has been train but I feel they are just scare to deal with sons condition and don't want to bother.. do i have any legal right to make sure my son is not alienated?! How can I help my son?!
Comments
Following assumes you are in
Submitted by Amy Jo on Thu, 2017-03-30 - 12:54
Following assumes you are in the US - This sounds fairly involved. You may need to hire an advocate who knows the ins and outs of the law and working with school districts to really get something that works for your son. E.g. it sounds like he has an IEP due to his epilepsy but that isn't quite right - he might have an IEP due to some need for services but he would be otherwise covered by a 504 plan if he just has epilepsy. If your son was photosensitive I could see a problem with some computer classes if there were no possible accommodations (because there could be special screens or other ways to mitigate that) but otherwise they can't just kick him out of that class - and that should be backed up by a note from the neurologist that your son has no known photosensitivities. But now it seems like they just dictate to you and it doesn't appear they are doing that from a proper legal standing. Our school district is considered fairly good but for a long time staff has been handing out modified grades to IEP students which essentially makes sure they don't get a proper diploma which messes up any potential college applications. It takes a number of parents working together to catch all the potential problems. A number of parents I know have sued our district (not over epilepsy issues) and others learned info to late to positively impact their child's education before they age out of the system which is why an advocate might spare you the time to effect any real change.Here is a location of an epilepsy foundation document covering schooling issues - it is very helpful, also not on this site!, but the site it is on is extremely helpful and might aid you in finding an advocate which may help you avoid suing your school district and resolving things in time for it to make a difference. Highlight and right click OR copy and paste to your browser address bar the following http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/epilepsy.manual.pdf
re: modified grade situation
Submitted by Amy Jo on Thu, 2017-03-30 - 12:54
re: modified grade situation - those students should not have gotten a modified grade.
Following assumes you are in
Submitted by Amy Jo on Thu, 2017-03-30 - 12:53
Following assumes you are in the US - This sounds fairly involved. You may need to hire an advocate who knows the ins and outs of the law and working with school districts to really get something that works for your son. E.g. it sounds like he has an IEP due to his epilepsy but that isn't quite right - he might have an IEP due to some need for services but he would be otherwise covered by a 504 plan if he just has epilepsy. If your son was photosensitive I could see a problem with some computer classes if there were no possible accommodations (because there could be special screens or other ways to mitigate that) but otherwise they can't just kick him out of that class - and that should be backed up by a note from the neurologist that your son has no known photosensitivities. But now it seems like they just dictate to you and it doesn't appear they are doing that from a proper legal standing. Our school district is considered fairly good but for a long time staff has been handing out modified grades to IEP students which essentially makes sure they don't get a proper diploma which messes up any potential college applications. It takes a number of parents working together to catch all the potential problems. A number of parents I know have sued our district (not over epilepsy issues) and others learned info to late to positively impact their child's education before they age out of the system which is why an advocate might spare you the time to effect any real change.Here is a location of an epilepsy foundation document covering schooling issues - it is very helpful, also not on this site!, but the site it is on is extremely helpful and might aid you in finding an advocate which may help you avoid suing your school district and resolving things in time for it to make a difference. Highlight and right click OR copy and paste to your browser address bar the following http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/epilepsy.manual.pdf