Homeschooling

Archive for October, 2006

Question: Please help! Question about Homeschooling.?

My son is 12 and has several mental conditions, he is in special ed in the public school system right now, has an IEP and all that, even an advocate. He's at the top of his class and was on the "B" honor roll. Well about 2 months ago his grades started falling behind and he started to show signs of extreme stress and anxiety. I have been trying for a month to get whats wrong out of him when finally last night he broke down and just spilled it all out. I found out that he is being severely bullied and harrassed. To me that constitutes as NOT the least restrictive enviroment. This is the 3rd time this year. My question, Can I pull him out of the public system and force them to pay to hire a personal teacher in my home. I would love to do it myself but I am afraid that I wont be able to teach him well enough to pass my states requirements. I live in Illinois. Does anyone out there know the answer to this? or even advice would be great. Thanks

Answer: Do you know what your states requirements are for homeschool? You can check your state dept of education website and see waht the requirements are. If you feel you can't, there is lots of help out there for you.

The only way you can have a teacher come to your house is -

1. you will have to PROVE that the child is not suceeding in the current placement. Which you CAN prove.

The way to prove it is to start writing down everything. How he feels, what he says, the names and dates of bullying and what the bully says and does, what happens when the bullying is reported to the school, keeping ALL school work and report cards that you can to prove his grades are slipping, keeping all notes and/or write down EVERYTHING that teachers say about this situation. This way, they can't come back and deny this later on when they fight to NOT help your child.

2. The WHOLE IEP team, and NOT just ONE school person, HAS to AGREE in WRITING for this to be done at home. This will be very hard to do, but CAN be done.

3. If you do this, it will not be consided 'homeschool' legally, because with homeschool you do NOT have a PUBLIC school teacher teaching the child. This will still be considered PUBLIC school IF the whole IEP team agrees for this to be done.

Or else, they will have to agree for him to do homeschool WITHOUT any help from the school, because a child who is legally homeschool does NOT have to have ANY help from a public school, even special ed help. They can if they want to, but it's not legally required.

If you just pull him out 'unilaterally' and the whole IEP team does NOT agree for him to be at home, they do NOT have to provide a teacher at home and will be in their legal rights to do so.

His current placement is NOT considered the least restrictive environment because LRE constitutes that the child HAS to be SUCCEDING in this environment, and he clearly IS NOT.

SO, before moving to ANOTHER environment, (such as home) the IEP team has to decide and implement things to do to help him in his CURRENT placement to see if he can succeed.

This will mean they will have to keep him in school and stop the bullying, which is about impossible to do because even though all public schools have 'anti bully' policies they MUST follow by LAW,
they VIOLATE this law and do NOT stop bullying because if they DID, they would NOT get money from NCLB.

Have you or your child reported the bullying and harassment to anyone at the school, either verbally or in writing? If so, write down everything that was said, and the result. If you have written letters, keep copies of them.

If not, DO IT NOW, in WRITING to give to the principal in a MEETING (NOT an IEP meeting). and NOT deal with the teacher.

HEre's other things that need to be done -

1. Write to district sped director and request an official IEP meeting. By law, they have to hold a meeting ANYTIME you request one within 10 or 15 days. (this is mandated by your state law on how many days)

In the request staet the reason for this meeting.

2. Before the meeting, gather everything I wrote all thru this message for you do do. Take all this with you to the meeting.

In the meeting state WHY you are holding this meeting, WHAT is being done to your child, HOW he feels, everything that is happnening, etc.

State he is NOT succeding in his current placement because ____________.

State according to federal special ed law IDEA, the school HAS to do things to help the child suceed, and this is NOT being done, so the IEP has to be CHANGED to reflect that the school IS doing something to help him suceed, and what they are doing has to be IN WRITING IN THE IEP PLAN.

Then state your resolution to make him succeed in his current placement is to ____________ (whatever you feel will make him succeed.)

If they refuse, the next step is to write to district sped director requesting 'prior written notice' on their refusal. Lots of times, requesting this will make them change their minds and do what you request. (THis is too hard to explain here)

IF they agree to what you want and it DOES succeed, then he should be ok. Tell them you want to see if he suceeds within a certain amount of time (2 weeks for example, or they will NEVER let you know if he's doing ok)

Make sure you put it in writing to them about the 2 weeks or the amount of time you choose, and keep a copy of this for yourself, so they wont' come back and say you never requested this.

If he does NOT suceed within 2 weeks, find out why. The reason should be that the school is not following the IEP plan and helping him according to what it says.

If this is the reason he's not suceeding, gather all proof that you can to prove they are NOT following the IEP plan and not helping him, and request another IEP meeting .

In this meeting state that they have not followed the IEP plan (here , show the proof above) and state that you have no choice but to

a) file a formal state complaint for not following his IEP plan which is a violation of IDEA law
b) you are formally requesting a teacher to teach him at home ( put this in writing and give to them at THIS meeting)
because the school is NOT doing what they are suppose to do to help him suceed in his current placement
c) will be requesting prior written notice for the school to refuse to follow teh IEP plan.

If they refuse, there is more you can do.

If the school IS doing all they are suppose to do according to his IEP plan to help him and he is NOT suceeding, then there should be no problem for them to agree to having a teacher at home, UNLESS the WHOLE IEP team agrees to another thing that can be tried.

You can, however, SKIP this WHOLE thing about trying to get him more help IN school and go straight to requesting the teacher at home. BUT, this will be much harder to do.

What is the advocate saying and doing about all this? they should be telling you everything I just did.

If you need help please email me [email protected]

I'll be glad to help!!

NEEDED: Homeschool Teacher