School Refusal for Student Reevaluation
Are you a parent that has been told the school can’t do an evaluation or reevaluation because your child was learning remotely at home due to COVID-19?
Did the school tell you since they didn’t observe your child that they can’t do an evaluation or revaluation because they don’t have data?
Let’s get the facts correct, shall we?
Yes, the school needs data in order to do any evaluation or reevaluation.
Yes, you can provide the data that the school needs based on your own observations of your child’s learning at home.
Here is how to report your observations and share those with the school so that they have the information they need and would have observed had your child attended school in-person.
You need to collect the following before you begin writing a request for a full educational evaluation or reevaluation. A single occurrence, unless extremely severe, is not sufficient. You want to have an area of concern repeat itself, so the school knows it occurs often and under the same or similar circumstances.
When the problem was first observed, describing exactly what that problem looked like and what was done to address the problem and any changes observed, if any.
The schedule followed for all classes.
Work samples for each class collected during the time of home learning.
List those skills that were readily learned.
Ability to stay on task and the work.
Note anything(s) that interfered with his completing his work, e.g., time of day, mealtime, delivery of items to the door, siblings, etc.
If any requests for extra time to complete assignments, were made
Any difficulties with the directions given over the internet, in writing or when read to, etc.—if often
Repeated requests for directions—if often.
From this list of observations, you will write a bulleted letter to the school administration. An example may look like the following.
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear XX,
I/We have observed a number of problems with my son’s learning during math and reading assignments. Below is an example of where this was found. Please note that although the problem was found in math, it was also found whenever he was required to read or even have text read to him. The following observations were noted.
Jose R. grade 3
Math 9 -10 a.m. Reading 10:20-11:00
Instructor: Mr. Smith
Tasks of multiplication facts 2-10, April 1-May 5
Jose was fine learning his multiplication tables and simple math assignments up to the 5 tables. But when word problems were introduced, he had great difficulty. We think it was because he could not always understand what was expected of him.
He could get the tables up to 8’s learned with 95% accuracy. But he never got more than 3 of any 10 word problems correct, regardless of the multiplication tables needed to complete the problem.
It did not matter what time of the day we would try the word problems; the results were similar. I think he has a real difficulty understanding word problems. (Now, he really balks when he is given word problems, finding any excuse to not do the work.)
I shared this with (TEACHER) Mr. Smith but neither he, nor we, could find a solution to this problem during the time we were working on word problems.
Extra time was suggested by Mr. Smith, but that only frustrated Jose even more, as he said he just “did not get it” meaning he did not understand what he was supposed to do.
It was somewhat easier when we read to him, but often it was like what we said had no meaning. I say this because if we read to him, he could tell us only some of what we read to him, but it was out of order and rarely could he tell us the main idea of what was read.
I am concerned that there is a learning problem with word problems and would like him assessed for a possible learning disability in math, language and reading.
I am asking for this assessment because we observed him struggling to remember facts in the right order. He rarely was able to understand the main idea—even when read to him.
I think these observations plus your school evaluation/testing can help determine if he has a disability and how best to meet his needs. I am, therefore, requesting the school conduct a full educational evaluation, using our observations to support that assessment. Please note that we can provide work samples to you, as well.
Please send any permission forms necessary and any other information such as parental rights and permission to test forms, so that we can begin this process as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Mom and Dad