This week, February 2021, we asked parents for districts where they had trouble getting help for their struggling readers AND for districts doing it right. Within 8 hours, we had over 65 accounts of schools, STATEWIDE, who were NOT helping. We had ONE positive school story. ONE. And our state lawmakers think 3rd-grade retention will fix this issue?
Here are some direct quotes from parents from counties ALL OVER our state (identifying content removed):
“I have been fighting with our district to have him tested. Last year my requests went ignored. This year I was finally able to get him tested but since we privately paid a tutor his scores weren’t “low enough” (16%) to qualify him for an IEP. I am awaiting calls from UT to have him tested. He is failing for the 2nd year. Benchmarks were completed and he now is scoring in the 3rd and 10th percentiles. I am furious!”
“I requested text to speech technology to be used for my daughter as well as possible use of a C pen if I purchased and was told that she would not be allowed to use it.”
“The school system told me my oldest just needs to learn to read to survive now. I am defeated.”
“Support has been nonexistent. I finally paid for a private diagnosis, am paying for private language therapy, and ultimately pulled her out this year to homeschool her.”
“They refused assistive technology and said dyslexia isn’t a qualifying diagnosis for IEP.”
“Going into an initial IEP meeting today–one that I requested last summer. The SPED teacher said they couldn’t assess for an IEP until our child had been in RTI and not made sufficient progress. When I pointed out that she has an IEE on file with a dyslexia diagnosis, the SPED teacher said TN does not recognize dyslexia.”
Tennessee, this is unacceptable!
Signed,
Parents of Struggling Readers