Pulling my daughter out of public school for a 5 week Reading intervention
My middle school daughter attends a public school in Marin and has an IEP for reading. I want her put her in Linda-Mood Bell for a 5 week intensive intervention. The school won't allow her to go during the school day so I plan on disenrolling her for the 5 weeks, and then re-enrolling her after she completes the program. I have 3 questions: does anyone have experience with this? Specifically, do you know of an online school whose credits will be accepted when she re-enrolls? Also, will her IEP be automatically reinstated or will she have to requalify? Thank you so much for your help, advice and suggestions!
Feb 27, 2017
Parent Replies
I do not have experience with pulling out of school, but our friends did leave in the middle of school year for about a month to visit family in their home country. They timed it around winter break, and took two weeks off school (one before one after). Their kid was in elementary at the time and they got an assignment packet from the teacher. It is designed for leave of 5 school days or more and if it is completed after return, the school does not loose money from the state for the student's absence. Winter break is over, but may be your school has Spring break coming up? I do understand the need for Lindamood-Bell intervention. My youngest is dyslexic and spent 7 weeks past summer at the Berkeley center. It made a huge difference for him.
Please do not do this. I am sure that you are at your wits end to consider such an idea. I understand your frustration and probable panic at the issues facing your daughter and family in school. Please do not take her out of school for 5 weeks to do a program like this. 1. This will be very harmful to her academically. She will miss math and other content that will always present a 'hole' in her learning. Wait until summer. 2. This will present a terrible challenge to her socially -- it will disrupt friendships in ways that you cannot necessarily predict or control Friendships are the life of many middle schoolers. 3. LMB has limited success -- some kids respond, others don't. It's not worth taking her out of school for this. Please, please don't do this.
This doesn't sound like the best approach to me. You're risking a lot by disenrolling her and why should you have to? She clearly needs more help than the school can give, to the point where you're willing to spend a small fortune to get her the help that she needs. I'd probably talk to a lawyer about this and I'd ask for the school district to not only allow her the time off but pay for it as well. If they can't provide your daughter with the resources that she needs, they need to pay for her to get it somewhere else.
Even if you don't get a lawyer, I'd escalate this farther up the food chain than you have. Let them know that you'll be getting an attorney if they won't play ball and you'll be asking them to pay for the program if you're forced to do this. I'd go to the superintendent if you haven't already.
Join Parents Education Network (PEN), $40 per year They are based in Sf yet have incredibly strong support networks all over the Bay Area for families with LD kids. Many of the parents have been through similar issues. You may want to consult with DREDF or a special ed attorney.
good luck,
Parent whose LD teen ended up in boarding schools to get the targeted learning attention he needed.
Thank you so much for all of your replies! I had spoken with the school administrators and the school superintendent about intervention but trying to get them onboard with LMB - even missing 1 hour a day - was not going to happen with them. I did pull my daughter out, she is doing 4 hours a day of LMB and being privately tutored by a credentialed teacher in math and science.
This seems to be working really well and she is still seeing her girlfriends from school. Socially, my daughter is happy and adept so although I worried about that piece, it seems fine.
I'm not sure this works for many families but it seems to be working for ours. I really appreciate your responses.