my son's school district did it again

[d_r]

52. I'm sorry to hear of your struggles

We've been fortunate enough to have had good and supportive experiences with our son's IEP team.

Here's the thing I wanted to ask about the standardized test scores.

Doesn't that hurt the school more than it hurts your child?

Does you state require that standardized test scores are a part of the child's grade?

If not, then why care?

It seems to me, that the school would benefit from your son having supports more than you would. Your son's scores are going in to the school's scores, and we all know that those scores have too much impact on the school. It is more to the school's benefit than yours that children pass standardized tests. Unless they require that the test be a portion of the grade, it really doesn't matter what a kid gets on the test.

Maybe you could somehow nicely suggest that to the administrators.

You should have an IEP meeting at least twice a year - once at the beginning and once at the end. If you don't think the current IEP is working, talk to the school and call another one.

Alternative tests may not be the answer - for example, an alternative test might be a multiple choice test with three answers instead of four. I've heard that the alternative tests may not be very well put together tests. There may be other supports that would work better for your son - for example, he might benefit from taking the test in a quiet place rather than the classroom. Or from having a calculator. Or from not having a time limit. All of those could be specified in the IEP. It isn't the case that special ed students "are supposed to take" an alternative test, but they can if that is part of their IEP. Talk to the people at your school about it. Again, it is in their best interest that all of the children do well.