My role at Forman School, a private school for bright college bound learning disabled students centers on bringing two different playing fields together. A percentage of our students are funded by their local school districts. I have to deal with the districts, attorneys, advocates and parents. One issue that surfaced with regard to public schools deals with classification. I was involved in a PPT with a district who stated that the students testing, as good as it was, could not be used to classify the student, and thus allow him to be eligible for services. The student’s testing had been done at the All Kinds of Minds clinic. The language used in the All Kinds of Minds testing really is phenomenal, yet we were told that standardized testing needed to be done in order that classification could be determined. Districts are looking for numbers, especially the difference between the Verbal and Performance on the WISC IV. At Forman we speak a language that follows the AKOM language, but I have to speak the Public School language when running PPT meetings. How do we change the mind set?
