I read your post and replies from your question of a couple of days ago, and I assume this topic is an extention of that discussion.  While I agree with learning to study before college, etc., we have to keep in mind that the ADHD brain, gifted or not, can’t ‘make deals’ about grades, or follow a school’s rigorous class pace and loaded homework without some help and support from parents, teachers, AND school administrators!  It is from within this ‘community’ of mentors for your child and their collected efforts that will enable him to get the best learning opportunities that will fit his individual needs, until he graduates high school.

With that being said Camhy, my 13 year old ADHD son is now in 8th grade, and had the advanced math class last year.  Middle school in our district is 7th and 8th grade, so he dealt with the pressures of a new school, advanced math, bullying and peer pressure.  This 7th grade advanced math class was 2 years rolled into one, and the pace was horrible.  BUT, we looked for the light at the end of the tunnel, and KNEW it would come.  This year, his math class is 1/2 the pace (regular pace), and he’s getting high school credit for it.  He will be in an advanced math track through high school, but his brain craves it.  It’s not his favorite subject, but I can tell it satisfies his need for brain stimulation and challenge.  His math teacher last year told us he NEEDED to be in that class, and it’s his deficits (executive functions, etc…)  in other areas that were keeping him from getting a better grade than he did.

OK, sorry about rambling… The 504 is a MUST, in my opinion, for any parent tired of battling this back and forth with the schools or teachers, test failures, low teacher morale, low district resources, and all around excuses for shuffling your learning disabled child into the fold with no accountability or accommodations for him, which are an integral part of his learning experience.  Go to your district social worker or other district administrator that is responsible for administering and writing up the actual 504’s.  Ask LOTS of questions.  Do your research.  Be diligent and make people respond to your inquiries and stay on them if they don’t.  It’s a tough job, and you shouldn’t have to work this hard at it, but schools are so overloaded and worried about funding cuts, teacher layoffs, and other important matters, that quick responses aren’t the norm.  Be a champion, but be reasonable.  Work with counselors and teachers (communication is KEY!), and be willing to do anything you need to do in order to make your child’s accommodations easier for everyone involved.  They really want to help, and with a 504, they are REQUIRED to.  This was key as well, as the IEP’s for our son did nothing.  I’ll keep tabs on this discussion with you, Good Luck!

I will be following this discussion closely. My daughter (5th grade) is in her last year of elementary school, but 5th grade at her school is like an “intro” to middle school - they have 6 different teachers each day (they change classes as a group & 5 of the classrooms are right together, so it’s still somewhat structured in that respect). She does not have a 504, but I am in the process of attempting to get one for her. I’ve had two meetings with the assistant principal & the 5th grade team in the past month about it…they are not on board.

As long as the teachers & I check on her homework progress, etc. regularly (daily), her grades stay VERY high. (Report cards just came home Wednesday & the classes she got a grade in were 99, 99, 98, & 96. That is on top of the one-day per week gifted class she attends at another school in the district.) I had a problem with the teachers not keeping me updated on her homework & project progress early in the year, and she initially got a “0” on two assignments & came home crying (about that and another thing - she also has some emotional regulation issues). When I got in touch with her teacher about it later that afternoon the teacher said she’d noticed my daughter hadn’t been working on the assignments over the past couple of weeks like the other kids in the class. That blew me away because before school started I had a meeting with all the 5th grade teacher and asked them to please let me know if there were any issues as soon as they saw them so I could address them. When I reminded her of that, she said my daughter could complete the assignments at home the next evening and turn them in the day after.

So, at the first meeting with the assistant principal & 5th grade team I brought that up as well as the fact that there were supposed to be things in my daughter’s agenda that were NOT (and had not been since the first of school) but the teacher’s were signing off on the agenda each day anyway.

After the first meeting, things seem to have gotten better, but my fear is that now the “new” of the school year is wearing off quickly & things are going to slip through the cracks again unless something is officially in writing. The staff doesn’t believe they can “justify” a 504 at this point. We are supposed to meet to reevaluate the situation at the beginning of the 2nd semester.

Someone told me that because she is on medication (Adderall) that we were required to put her on a 504, but I can’t find any documentation to back up that here-say.

Oh Sherra, so much to tell.  Been there, done that.  But, my comments are from my perspective and experiences with my ADHD son, so please bear that in mind.  The teachers not doing some things but doing others will vanish with a ‘VERY DETAILED’ 504.  This is a line-item specific document, with exact details required of teachers/administrators/counselors/parents/the student for accommodations (assistance) on a variety of daily classroom needs as they relate to academics, organization, and general day to day matters.  My daily communication with y son’s teachers begins and ends with his DAILY agenda/planner book.  Go to a good office supply store and peruse the planner aisle.  In my experience, this makes all the difference in the world.  This is your ‘fly on the wall’ for your child’s day at school, and YOU can specify your needs for teacher feedback in this planner as part of your 504.  I have highly customized my son’s, using daily stickers in it for each day, which contains a line(s) for teacher’s initials and the class name.  The stickers just helps save time, but you have a ‘file’ of them saved, and can be edited from semester to semester as classes change.  At the end of each day, after homework is done, I check mark in ink the completion of each homework item by my son to acknowledge to the teachers that I saw the completed work.  Past problems included the not turning in of completed homework once he returned to school the next day.  Not a problem now.  We use the trapper/keeper method, and I have to physically see him put his completed homework into the correct color coded expando-file.  We pack his trapper, agenda book, and anything else in to his backpack the night before, a must, so the morning will be just breakfast and getting ready for school.  This is a lot of ‘hand holding’, and at 13 years old, my son is starting to show signs of maturing, or at least taking responsibility and remembering what should have happened in the first place to avoid a problem that was encountered.  He is academically is ahead of his peers, but socially is behind by a year or two.  An imbalance of these two things, I believe, will always be a problem for the children and parents of this discussion room, given the gifted nature of our kids, until time allows us/them to mature or realize when to let them be ready to fail and learn from their mistakes.  His ADHD doesn’t often let me do that.  I notice that some parents in this room are also ADHD, I am not.

In my state, they only required a signed doctor’s letterhead diagnosis note stating the nature of my son’s learning disability, in order to be able to have the 504.  Teachers and staff have NOTHING to do with it, and they will be sure to let you know they don’t want you to get it, because it causes them to be accountable by the state as well as the district you’re in.  They are reported on as part of your child’s 504 team, and yearly group meetings are required as his 504 plan follows him up through the grades and gets modified to fit his growing and changing needs.  I never have known about IEP’s, 504’s or any of this if it weren’t for my son’s first pediatrician.  The school doesn’t advertise any of these FREE services in my district, you just have to know to ASK for them, and there are a lot of them.  Many different kinds of testing is available, including social services, speech therapy, cognitive development assessments, occupational therapies, Asperger’s and autism awareness, and that’s all that come to mind at the moment.  Our public school tax dollars helps pay for all this, you just have to ask the right person or ask the right questions to get started within your school.  Not sure how these apply to private schools, keep that in mind. 

Being on medication does not ‘require’, to my knowledge, that your child be on a 504, but the other way around.  Being on Adderall because he has a diagnosis that requires him to be on it may qualify him to be on a 504.  I’m not a doctor, and again, this is all just my many years of experience in my own town as to what is required and what they will say to get you to not get a 504.  You will be met with heavy resistance, and you have to stay on the teachers daily, but once all the 504 line items are being practiced and show signs of ‘working’, it does get better.  I get calls sometimes, or notes written in his agenda book about certain things my son didn’t do or get done, and I have to cite a 504 line item that states they were to have ‘verbally reminded him’ of an upcoming quiz or write it on a line item as homework the day before.  It’s interesting that teachers sign agenda books without even looking at the line items.  Again, been there, done that.  I don’t get upset, I just stick up for my son and strongly ask them to allow an extra day to make up work.  Micro-managing at it’s best, day to day, teacher to teacher.  I’m so used to it now, and my son is, too.  It took a long time, but please persevere… the routines of checking homework and calling teachers gets less and less as time goes by.  You may not even ever have to do that.

I believe that ADHD children thrive on routine, and going to a middle school where the kids change classes and teachers every hour is a blessing!  The counselors assured me that EVERY child in their first weeks of middle school is in the same boat, and a lot of behaviors that ADHD kids show are never noticed, because all pre-teen kids are confused, scared, loud, rebellious, and just can’t function.  They told me give him 2 full weeks, and they were right.  A routine or regimented schedule, at home and at school, makes my son feel better about doing things on his own and can accept responsibility for them, because he knows what to expect.  I deal with the ‘unexpected’ as they pop up.  I don’t get my son mad or riled up, we just try to go over the routine or how it needs to be modified for that one thing, then we get back on track.

I hope this has given some insight to start your own investigation into the available resources in your area.  Start a journal if you have to, so you can keep track of who you talk to or phone numbers and email contacts that you use.  Good luck!

Yes, WhoAreYou4, this is an extension of the previous conversation. And, yes, Sherra, to everything about the 504 plan.  We wrote one for my daughter a few years ago and it was very difficult to get follow-through with it.  There was no one actually checking with teachers other than me.  What a 504 does is give you legal back-up for your conversations with teachers.  My daughter eventually got an IEP, and then we had a case manager in charge of the communication with teachers.  Not that I didn¡Çt talk with teachers anymore, but it really helped having one person in charge of getting messages to all of the teachers at once ? 5-7 teachers at the middle school level. 
When I first started trying to push for accommodations for my daughter, her team of teachers told me that I didn¡Çt really need a written plan, because these were things that should be happening anyway.  Therefore they (the teachers) would just do it without a legal document having to be written.  Nice thought, but it wasn¡Çt happening.  My daughter was forgetting to turn in assignments or forgetting that she had one in the first place, and simply getting her grade docked. 

Now, with my 7th grade son, I went in yesterday to talk with the math teacher since that¡Çs where the problem is.  Why only the math class?  Since it¡Çs a higher-level math class, more work is expected (meaning a usually overwhelming number of problems), students are expected to copy examples of problems off the board and ask questions.  The class is also at the end of the day, when my son has a harder time concentrating since he¡Çs been at it all day.  Other classes, for the most part, are more interactive, and there isn¡Çt much note taking.  The math teachers say they will not offer accommodations unless there is a written plan, especially since they want him to be prepared for the succeeding math classes and the high school teachers may or may not accommodate him without a written plan.  So my next step was to write to the dean of students requesting a meeting to consider a 504 plan. 

Our state parent advocacy group advised me on writing a letter requesting a meeting to consider an education plan.  I wrote the letter stating my request, the reasons for the request, and the exact needs that would be met.  Before that I had been told that they didn¡Çt have to assess my daughter just because I asked for it.  Once I put it in writing, I got a prompt response almost bending over backwards to comply with my request, because they now had a paper trail and a legal obligation to respond to me.

Sherra, the part about medication and 504 confuses me.  Do you mean that if she¡Çs on medication it has to be a 504 instead of an IEP?  That¡Çs not true.  IEPs are written based on identified need.  My daughter qualified for an IEP under OHI (Other Health Impaired) because of ADHD.  She was taking medication and had an identified need (through evaluation) for direct intervention from a special ed teacher as well as accommodations.  A 504 plan would be more appropriate for my son, because he doesn¡Çt need direct intervention from anyone ? just accommodations that other students do not need.  Either way there has to be a documented disability.  And, as I said, ADHD counts as a disability under the OHI umbrella.

One problem with the 504 plan for my daughter was that there was no evaluation connected with it.  And that¡Çs when they told me that they didn¡Çt have to evaluate.  Put it in writing with the detail that I specified earlier.  Evaluation will help determine whether a 504 or IEP is needed.  If you¡Çre sure that accommodations are all that is needed, you may still want an evaluation just so the identified needs are specified by someone other than yourself.  In that case, you will need to ask for a meeting to consider either 504 or IEP and write an evaluation plan.  That gets the special ed people involved in helping make those determinations.

The part about the teachers initialing a blank agenda.  Yes, that happened with us too.  What!? So the requirement was to sign the agenda, not to actually make sure something is written there!?

Also, a real big one for me is the fact that parents have to think to ask the right questions!  Parents have many rights but they do have to ask.  Talking to a teacher about problems their child is having does not mean that they will be given the information they need. Parents still have to ask!

Camhy, I believe that improved grades over time and/or no missing/late assignments to me constitutes an ‘evaluation’.  It shouldn’t matter, nor be required, that the teachers don’t want or have to do one.  The 504 is the 504, and they still have to be held accountable to it.  It’s a shame that they don’t WANT to do their own evaluation, or OFFER to do one, but I ended up having to talk to the ‘right’ person.  I ended up confiding to my son’s 6th grade teacher 2 years ago, and she said that SHE would ask our school district to ‘observe’ him and test for ADD, ADHD, Asperger’s, Autism, etc… to see if they could help the TEACHER with accommodations for my son in class.  I could’ve gotten upset that they were not helping my son, but the teacher, but that backdoor approach worked.  That teacher was a godsend.  She was the one at the time that could tell and recommended that my son take the advanced math class for that next year in 7th grade, since being challenged actually made him focus better.

I totally agree that in the world of IEP’s and 504’s, it’s a journey for the parents to stay vigilant with teacher’s adherence and for the child’s routines.  It is a full time job it seems, but there should be no surprises.  Teachers will forget, your child will miss assignments,  and you as parents will forget or not have time to check your child’s agenda book ‘just this once.’  It is in this acceptance that 504 ‘failures’ will occur, and should be dealt with day by day.

My son functions best at school with his harder classes loaded up front at the beginning of the day, as his medication may or may not be wearing off by 2 or 3pm.  The middle school guidance counselor changed his class line up after 3 weeks of school starting this year to have History, Science, and advanced math as his first 3 classes of the day.  This was done as I sat with the counselor in front of his computer, during an appointment meeting ‘I’ called, to discuss these class options.  He tried to say it’s too far into the trimester to do that, and I told him “No, it’s not!”  I was firm, adamant, but sincere, so he did it right then and there.  I wasn’t leaving until he did.  Laughing right now as I type this, but the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  That change to his day made a huge difference! 

Just take these things as they come at you, and they will come at you.  A parent’s positive and sincere attitude may make the difference with the school and what they’re willing to go above and beyond for you.  I also show extreme appreciation and tell them often!

Well, I have now contacted a parent advocate but not connected yet in person. I also put in the request for the meeting to discuss 504.  My son had a meltdown before school when I told him that he had Taekwondo after school. He insisted that he had to use that time to get his homework done, even though it was Friday!  When I picked him up after school, however, he was calm and participated in TKD with no problem.  Why?  Because he had been given no additional homework for the weekend.  He was even awarded his gold belt.  This anxiety level spurs me on to make the necessary contacts and the 504 in place.

Ok Camhy, I have to side with your son on this one.  The Friday/karate/homework thing may not have anything to do with having or not having a 504.  It’s structure and timing, it sounds, that is giving your son the anxiety.  Just my opinion, please keep that in mind.  You know your son best, I’m just engaging in our conversation here.  Most everything you speak about I’ve been through already, and it sounds like our sons are about the same age, having (or had) the same difficulties.  My son, too, had karate (Tang Soo Do) and got all the way up to a Red III belt level.  For him, the reason he was in karate had run it’s course, and he learned all he wanted to put the effort in for.  It was his choice.  It just so happened to be during last year when he stopped, because his advanced math class homework load took away from his karate practice time at home.

That being said, we had to ask ourselves whether it was more important for him to maintain his school day routine (including after school homework), or to create more ‘family activity time’, which may have included after school karate or out-to-dinner-with-the-family Fridays.  Your son’s brain may crave that structure, including Fridays, because he just had school that day and may not be able to change the routine of not doing after school homework easily.  But I know what missing karate also means.  The Masters (instructors) don’t like that!  So, it may be just a change in routine of the day or the week that could be causing his anxiety?  Everything I’ve read and heard says that ADD and ADHD kids strive on routines and structure, and they don’t like surprises.  If they can count on a structured plan, they can accommodate their weaknesses by overcoming difficulties that work for them.  But I’m sure you know that already.  You or your son won’t know if there’s Friday homework until after school on Friday.  Having a full-month calendar showing karate on Fridays will let him remember that it’s coming up weekly, and if homework is required, perhaps he could do that right after karate class.  This may help ease into the 2 or 3 day weekend structure for homework/chores/extra activities.

I’ve never heard of a parent advocate, to tell you the truth.  Just my opinion, but I’d rather deal directly with school personnel, and avoid having something lost in translation through a third party.  Maybe your district requires one?  Or maybe you’re talking about the district person that writes up the 504’s and submits them to the state?

Good luck, I hope everything goes well!

That makes a lot of sense!  My son doesn’t like to make a lot of decisions, although he will sure protest many of the decisions I make for him.  Structure and routine are important to him. We have a variety of choices of when to go for TKD lessons.  We probably need to stick to certain days and provide that routine. One of his teachers e-mailed today about a project he needs to finish and that she is available after school today and tomorrow.  I hesitated to offer his time today, since I didn’t have the opportunity to talk with him ahead of time and he has been adamant about not staying after school every!  Too much school already by that point in the day!

Hopefully TKD will go better now since he made his goal of being able to spar.  Now that’s on Saturday morning when he likes his routine of staying in his pajamas in front of cartoons or the Wii or DS.  More schedule compromises to make!

The parent advocate mainly will help me with knowing what I can and can’t expect and ask for from the team at school.  They will go to meetings with parents if needed, but consultation is a bigger role.  I need to know which accommodations and modifications we’re entitled to with a 504 as opposed to an IEP (with which I am more familiar).

If my son had been in TKD a long time and now wanted to quit or was in other activities and wanted to drop one to have more time for school work, I would be all for that.  In this case, he balks at all activities that take him away from home and his comfort activities (mainly electronics).

I just realized I hadn’t updated on this thread in a while. While we did not end up with a 504 plan for my daughter, we did have 2 meetings with the teachers & assistant principal this year. After the 1st meeting where it came out that they weren’t actually making sure she had things written in her agenda things got much better. Her agenda is full of homework/projects now & she even highlights the “really” important things (like tests). She’s had straight A’s (and very high A’s at that) on all her interim reports and report cards since the first major incident with the homework that wasn’t turned in.

I’m crossing my fingers, but not holding my breath, that the transition to middle school next year will go well.

So glad to hear!  BUT, I wouldn’t get tooooo comfortable and happy just yet.  I hate to be a Negative Nelly, but after all the hard work of getting the District on my side and agreeing to follow and support my son’s IEP/504, Middle School was 6X the teachers!  So, 6X the headaches!  Not to say that it won’t eventually work out, but it seems teachers reeeeeeallly don’t like to be told what they have to and not have to do.  Without a strong IEP or 504 ‘already’ in place even before middle school starts, you may have your work cut out for you, as I did.  I had to take one teacher at a time it seemed, and do the sales pitch on why they HAD to follow my son’s 504!  And we already had a plan in place!  We had a ‘group’ 504 review meeting 2 months into my son’s first year in middle school, and of course 2 of 6 teachers didn’t show, so there was more work for me.  The guidance counselor said he would take care of those 2 teachers to make sure they got the updated Plan.  He didn’t, and it took me about 2 weeks to figure it out.  More work on my part again.  I guess what I’m trying to say is, always be diligent.  Check that agenda book/planner in the morning, after school, and have each teacher on speed dial!  I’m sure it all depends on the teacher’s attitude, and how your school district ‘enforces’ adherence to IEP’s and 504’s.  You may be in a comfortable routine that works now, but the scheduling, demands, and expectations of middle school teachers at the higher level than elementary WILL have an effect on how you and your child will have to modify your routines for schoolwork and studying, etc…  I always hope that the day will come that I won’t have to watch over that agenda book as being the make or break part of my son’s daily success in school, as the main source of communication between the teachers and me.  I wish you all the success for the rest of this year and into next.  Thanks for the update!  Always interested to hear!

Oh, I’m certainly not naive about her transition to middle school. But, she’s got 6 different teachers every day this year as a step in the transition of the 5th graders to middle school. So, dealing with 6 different teaching personalities every day is not a new concept for her (or me). The difference this year though is that it’s a controlled change where the whole class moves to the next teacher at one time (the whole group goes to the same teacher with each class change) - not all the students scattering in different directions & agenda books have been required since 3rd grade (they all use the same agenda book). The middle school got a new principal this year, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about him, so I’m hopeful that communication won’t be a huge roadblock once we move across the parking lot to the middle school. I do hope that the middle school teachers are much better at keeping up with their online assignment web site though. The whole district uses an online portal that students & parents can log in to for updates about classes, assignments, grades, etc., but the elementary teachers don’t update squat unless they are absolutely required to (like logging the grades).