Re: Is Colorado in another country?

["L. Cirincione" <lindac15@MINDSPRING.COM>]

Karen- You wrote:
"> Has anyone explained to you why in Colorado there is such a
full-ionclusion
> policy?  We certainly don't have any kind of policy like that in Ca -"

The Colo. state Federal Compliance Officer  -- & all of the state dept. of
ed. employees & subsidiaries (ie. supposed psarent assistance groups funded
by the state), as well as "The Legal Center" (the only Protection & Advocacy
group in this area) -- ALL of these interpret the LRE provision of the IDEA
as meaning that children MUST be in full-inclusion classes. The only
exception is made for kids with very severe emotional/behavioral problems or
really low PAL's (severe cognitive disorders).
Because they make those few exceptions, OCR ruled-  re: my complaint that no
alternative placements exist for kids with LD's, ADHD, etc.-  that the
school district DID have alternative placements. It did not matter that none
existed for the vast majority of kids.

The same thing happened with my complaint re: services "by consult". This
means that it looks on paper like they are doing services, but the reality
is that they are not. My son supposedly received OT services for 3 months
"by consult" from a speech therapist - who knew nothing about OT. No benefit
whatsoever! They wanted to change my son's IEP: instead of Adaptive PE they
would have their Physical Therapist "consult" with the regular PE teacher;
they would have the OT & Speech/Language therapists "consult" with the
regular ed teacher (who had a class of 25 3rd graders at that time). OCR
ruled that because "some" services (for the very severe) were done directly
& because the school district & the state dept. of ed. "say" that the kids
receive benefit from services "by consult", therefore they do have
"benefit". BTW - the OT therapist covered 13 schools with a caseload of 50
students.)

Then there is the fact that the state of Colo. does not use the term
Learning Disabled. They use "Perceptual Communicative Disorder" - PCD. This
way they can have their own rules & ignore most aspects of  LD.

 ie 1 -  The state of Colo. does NOT recognize "Sensory Integration
Dysfunction" as a factor requiring remediation in the classroom. (I have a
state employee saying this on my answering machine that I copied to a
cassette. She also mentioned that they routinely take this out of the IEP's
of kids moving here from California.) This means that, to them, auditory,
visual, spatial, etc. processing problems don't "exist" in Colo.
ie.2 - My son has had PAL's averaging between 103-107 since he was 3 years
old. In 2000,  the school diagnostician & the nationally recognized
neuro-behavioral psychologist who did an Independent Educational Evaluation
both stated that there were subtests that were probably better indicators of
my son's true level which should really be 112-120. That same state employee
from before analyzed my son's testing, pulled a score of 90 from one of the
subtests & said that he had to be 2 standard deviations below THAT - and my
son still qualified! (This was in reading - they did not have the writing
subtest they wanted - probably because he couldn't write at the time & he
just missed it in math, I think. They only use reading, writing or math for
qualification as PCD; Memory & other problems don't count. Most of the
country uses 1-1/2 std. dev. from the avg PAL, while a few use 1-1/2 from
the true potential; Colo. uses 2 std. dev. from the LOWEST possible.)
Is Colo. actually in another country? Possibly. But more likely, they may be
the forerunner of what is to come for special ed kids after Bush rewrites
the IDEA.

BTW- As background: My son was identified as special ed when he was 3 years
old (3 states ago) - he is now 10-1/2. Except for 3 months in the summer of
2000, my son has received NO special ed services for the last 5-3/4 years. I
have spent most of the last 4 years in one form of due process or another
(first in New Mexico & the last 1-3/4 years in Colo.) & have had to keep my
son at home for the last 2-3/4 years - with NO educational services from the
school districts. (My son had several major head injuries at school, had
some of his health problems ignored by the school nurse who claimed that, in
her opinion, they did not exist - despite letters from doctors, & was
actually harassed by the reg. teacher because I was fighting them & not
allowed to do certain activities, etc. And this was in 1st & 2nd grade!)
I am disabled (now)& cannot afford a lawyer (you would not want to have had
my medical expenses!), so I have had to do this myself. Most of what I write
is ignored, though, because I am not considered an educational or legal
"professional". My background, which includes teaching at a university for a
few years,  managing large scale corporate projects (which included many
forms of analysis, project management, presentations & training),
owning/managing a small business, etc. - all of these are totally
meaningless to hearing officers, magistrates & judges who know NOTHING about
special ed or the federal laws.

The current form of harassment has been being reported for child abuse, then
neglect. But the Dept. of Human Services reported that there was NO evidence
of any "neglect", so now the school district wants to have me investigated
because I am a disabled single parent & they are oh so "concerned" that I
might not be able to "properly" care for my child. I have also been
threatened with contempt "and possible jail" for refusing to put my son in
school as ordered by a local magistrate they found who is willing to ignore
the existence of the federal law & the "stay put" provisions.

What the federal law says is TOTALLY MEANINGLESS IF THERE IS NO MEANS OF
ENFORCEMENT.
You have no idea how badly I want to work on a rewrite of the Federal laws -
the IDEA. I doubt, though, that Mr. Bush would care for the enforcement &
funding provisions that I would build into it.
Linda
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karen Canty" <kscanty@PACBELL.NET>
To: <ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: Kindergarten Reading Exit Exams


> Linda,
>
> Has anyone explained to you why in Colorado there is such a
full-ionclusion
> policy?  We certainly don't have any kind of policy like that in Ca -
> although the number of parents who are requesting full inclusion has
> increased, we still have students in a variety of special ed programs -
from
> resource to special day in the district, to county special day classes to
> private placements.  I would just be interested if there is a formal state
> policy or are districts interpreting a state policy - in error perhaps?
>
> Karen
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assessment Reform Network Mailing List
> [mailto:ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU]On Behalf Of L. Cirincione
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 10:22 PM
> To: ARN-L@LISTS.CUA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Kindergarten Reading Exit Exams
>
>
> Roxie-
> The law (IDEA) was last changed in 1997. The problem is that most schools
do
> not pay attention to the law & just tell parents (whom they seem to think
> can't read laws for themselves....OK, they're right, most don't) that LRE
=
> full-inclusion one size fits all regular classes. This is a lie, but the
> state dept.'s of ed help them by lying also. That was why I stated it that
> way. We need to qualify so that we know whether the person is talking
about
> full-inclusion or the premise of LRE as the desitable goal within the
> "continuum of alternative placements" required by the federal law. ie.
State
> policy in ALL of Colorado is full-inclusion regular classes only, except
for
> a few severe cases.
> Linda
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <CMWUNCHEEL@aol.com>
> To: <ARN-L@listsrva.cua.edu>; <lindac15@mindspring.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 8:59 AM
> Subject: Re: Kindergarten Reading Exit Exams
>
>
> >
> > In a message dated 2/13/02 1:10:46 AM, lindac15@MINDSPRING.COM writes:
> >
> > << And the least
> >
> > restrictive environment should read the least restrictive environment
> >
> > APPROPRIATE FOR THAT CHILD. Most people do not realize that LRE does NOT
> >
> > always equal a regular full-inclusion class. >>
> >
> > The language of IDEA, nee PL 94-142, does require LRE in which the kid's
> > needs can be met, not the "LRE" w/out qualification. (If that part's
been
> > amended since 1982, the last time I worked in this area, someone please
> > correct me!)
> > Roxie
>
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