The Dark Underbelly of Your American School District part 8:
Your Trusted School District is Gaslighting Parents
An experienced school psychologist, realizes one of her own kids has dyslexia and requests anassessment. The school dismisses her by saying she’s just an “anxious parent.” Eventually the child is diagnosed with dyslexia, but the district is offering a reading intervention that doesn’t work with dyslexic kids. The educational psychologist parent points out that the kid needs a different program, but the school says, “we’ll try this first.” So the parent, who works for the school district, pays privately for outside instruction that actually works for dyslexic kids. Later, with her second child, she’ll go through the same thing.
A concerned parent talks with teachers, and is told they’re kid is “doing just fine.” This despite the An experienced school psychologist, realizes one of her own kids has dyslexia and requests an fact that the child is way behind peers and expressing frustration and distress.
Parents express concern wanting an evaluation, but don’t put it in writing. The schools say, “Oh we’ll provide in class supports. They’ll be fine.” The parent trusts the school and teachers to do what is right for their child. They don’t know the school is deflecting assessments nor that if they request one in writing that the district is legally obligated to assess within a specific time frame. (that varies by state see: map)
Parents are told the child is making good progress when they are in fact 3 grade levels behind.
Your child gets an educational assessment by the school psychologist and resource teacher. When they report the child’s academic performance scores, they intentionally use the wrong scale. When confronted, they admit it’s the wrong scale, but say it makes it “easier” to compare academic scores to IQ scores. In fact, it invalidates the academic scores and artificially creates less disparity between academic and IQ scores. A wide gap in these scores can define a specific learning disability. The school is specifically asked to assess for executive dysgraphia. They do only one pertinent test, and then conduct the test improperly. This invalidates the test, but they do not mention this. It’s only picked up by an outside reviewer. (This all happened to the author.)
A child moves from a private school, where they were doing well but concerns had developed. After assessment the public school say the child doesn’t have an expected skill because “they were never taught.” In fact the child had extensive coaching previously, but still struggles due to a learning disorder.
Your child has been acting out, becoming very anxious and missing school. The district will deflect assessment saying the problem is missed school not an undiagnosed and unaddressed learning disorder leading to stress and missed school days.
Your child has a 504 with accommodations, but is not getting specific interventions. They are getting further behind. The school promotes them through the grades as an accommodation. They give accommodation instead of an education.
Your child is diagnosed with a learning disability, but they are twice exceptional with a high IQ. They are struggling and need help, but you’re told “their grades are too high.” (2E kids have needs and a right to intervention too.)
Parents go to an IEP or 504 meeting with concerns and are condescended to.
You ask for further assessment of your child due to unmet needs. The school laughs at you like you are clearly over reacting, and sends you a legal “letter of denial.” They are refusing to reassess your child. You submit a letter to the district asking for your legal right to an independent educational evaluation by a non-school psychologist at the school’s expense. The school, after sending you the letter of denial, now “changes their mind” and offers to assess your kid. At this point you no longer trust the school’s ability to find the disability that other outside reviewers can see evidence of in the schools own old assessment. You decline their offer of assessment and tell them they denied the request before so they need to fund your requested independent assessment. They refuse to fund the assessment and instead file due process against the you, the parents. You start getting letters from lawyers and the state Office of Administrative Hearings.
If your child is one of color, they may be dismissed as “emotionally disturbed” when in fact they are acting out because of lack of intervention for their learning disability. As of 2018, black kids were still 4 times more likely to get a label of emotionally disturbed than white kids. They are often under assessed for learning disabilities.
One of the tools used by schools to limit assessment of black students is a rule that was initially meant to protect them from discrimination. Early IQ tests were heavily culturally biased towards white students. As a result, black kids would score lower, not due to lower IQ’s, but due to lack of familiarity with cultural references in the IQ test. This led to many black students being labeled “mentally retarded.” Their learning disabilities would not be assessed because to have a learning disability you must have a normal or higher IQ. When this came to light, a law was passed making it illegal for the schools to give IQ tests to black students. Back in the 1970’s this was a good thing. Fewer black kids were labeled retarded and more got assessed and properly diagnosed with learning disabilities. (see link above) But, now IQ tests go through extensive cross cultural testing to prevent this kind of bias in IQ tests. One of the ways you can diagnose a learning disability is if you have a large difference between a student’s IQ and their academic performance. However, the schools couldn’t give an IQ test to a black child. Recently, it became an “option” for the schools to do one or not. So, unless parents push for the IQ test, the school can skip it, and thus we lose one more way to identify a child with a learning disability. I promise you, schools know this.
Being told you don’t have a right to access your child’s records or actual assessment papers.
You go to an IEP meeting only to discover that, without telling you, they have brought an altered copy of your child’s IEP.
In Texas until 2016, the district might just ignore parental concerns and requests.
A district will have certain curriculums they have purchased. If you child needs intervention they will pick one from what they already have. It may not have any evidence that it works for kids like yours. Rather than research an evidenced based curriculum that works, the school will push the same ineffective one year after year. Parents will assume the teachers “know what they’re doing” and wonder why their kid is still failing.
These are just a few of the ways that parents I’ve interviewed have reported being gaslighted by school districts and their staff. You’re told there’s nothing wrong, told your overly worried, strung along for years as your child fails and becomes anxious, told complete falsehoods about rights to assessment, have your child’s test results manipulated, told the actual tests are non-disclosable or lost, have your child given useless curriculum when evidenced based programs exist, being ignored or deflected repeatedly, being out manuervered by a district throwing phrases into the IEP that are seemingly innocuous (“He was never taught this.”) but actually are legal linchpins. If you don’t refute and document every wrong detail, they will deny services and a judge will side in their favor.
But how are parents supposed to know all this? We thought we could trust our schools!
Next week: The Unspoken Myth Underlying the Denial of Special Education Services.
Coming soon: In Their Own Voice: stories from school professionals, parents, and students.
I’m working on a book about special education and seeking families, teachers, and school professionals with stories to tell. If you’ve been through this struggle, I’d love to hear from you. Everything will, of course, be confidential. You can reach me at: 241kcawley@gmail.com
