Hello AE Community! I need some advice. My 9th grade AuDHD, SPD, GAD daughter has struggled with school avoidance. It’s been a long road. We were rejected for an IEP eval in elementary school. So had 504 in place for anxiety. Middle school was a disaster. She’d for IEP again. They did eval. Rejected again. Said that her anxiety was a choice, that she was a behavior problem and that as parents we reinforced her anxiety and school avoidance. (Yep, they really said that!) we did outside eval and got the AuDHD / twice exceptional diagnosis. So now in IEP process again. I got the initial paperwork back and have meeting in two weeks. They are now acknowledging that she needs support and are recommending an out of district placement (as they are incompetent with ND). So my question is do I need an advocate or an attorney? I’ve spoken to both. And they can both help find the right placement which likely won’t be on the “approved” list. Advocate thinks that they will likely offer us a settlement for Ood because they bungled things so badly. The advocate is a 2e specialist. The lawyer is not a 2e specialist, but has lots of experience w ND. I just don’t know if I should go to the meeting to get more info and then decide if I need an advocate or lawyer. I do not have unlimited funding for this, unfortunately. And I’m also afraid of what happens if we find what might be the right placement, but are still dealing with burnout. If you’ve read this far, thank you!!

Posted by jenrein73 at 2024-02-17 18:08:26 UTC