Should I go for a fair hearing to get my son more services?

amother

Coral

Thu, Feb 18 2016, 1:18 pm

Does anyone have experience going for a fair hearing after the boe denied or reduced services?
My 8 yr old was receiving 2 x OT and 2 x speech for related delays. No diagnosis just small delays. Then we had an evaluation done privately by an audiologist and he was diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder. So we brought the report to the next meeting (we moved so it was a different district) and instead of increasing services they decided to give him the speech therapy in a group. We said no way. They said ok we will do more evals. So they did a speech eval and we did one. We came to the next meeting and just to be powerful the administrator decided to cut down the speech therapy to 1 x in a group. Ofcourse we did not agree. So we tried to do a remediation with them but they denied it and said if we want we can go to a fair hearing
We are ready and willing, our only concern is that we will lose even more services. Does anyone have experience with this that can advise?

ra_mom

Thu, Feb 18 2016, 5:51 pm

I have found that if they approved the therapy, even if they didn't give adequate sessions / length of sessions, we were already better off.
The therapist working with the child can send in a report a few months in and request more of the same services based on facts she found and they usually oblige even if they refused at the meeting.
This is district 20 that I have had this experience with in two different instances.

morahmommy

Fri, Feb 19 2016, 12:42 pm

Call Leah Steinberg from Project LEARN, she can guide you in this area- if services are not sufficient, you need to fight it so your child can get what he/she needs.
212-797-9000, ext. 326 or 325 or email lsteinberg@agudathyisrael.org