Lee's Summit R-7 School District

Schools Accused Of Forcing Out Special Education Students - Disability Scoop Advocates are accusing schools across one of the nation’s largest states of using truancy laws to funnel kids with disabilities off their rolls. Thirteen school districts in Texas — including those in Austin, Houston, Fort Worth and San Antonio — are allegedly using truancy laws to absolve themselves of responsibilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, according to a complaint filed this week by the advocacy groups Disability Rights Texas, the National Center for Youth Law and Texas Appleseed. “Rather than providing these students with the special education and related services to which they are entitled — services which would allow them to stay in school and access their education — their school districts have referred them to court for the Class C misdemeanor of Failure to Attend School,” according to the complaint filed with the Texas Education Agency. “Once in court

Do I Have to Pick Up My Child with Special Needs Every Time the School Calls? When your house telephone or cell phone rings between the hours of 8:00am-4:00pm on school days, does a feeling of panic or dread overcome you, believing that your child’s school is calling?  If you answered yes, then you are not alone. That time, when our special needs children are in school, and out of our sight, makes our imaginations run rampant. Seeing the name of the school on the Caller ID, makes our heart stop, and sets our imaginations into overdrive. Many times the reason for the call is to come collect our child with special needs because he/she is requesting to leave, the school doesn’t feel like dealing with them, or he/she doesn’t want to do the assignments. Working and non-working parents alike are forced to scurry to school in the middle of the day to pick up children for issues that the school could have typically handled internally. These repeated pick-up calls b

Tony Attwood - Author of The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome Should children with Autistic Spectrum disorders be exempted from doing Homework? A major cause of anguish for children with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, their families and teachers is the satisfactory completion of homework. Why should this group of children have such an emotional reaction to the mere thought of having to start their homework and such difficulty completing assigned tasks? There may be two explanations. The first is based on their degree of stress and mental exhaustion during their day at school and the second is due to their profile of cognitive skills. The stress of being at school As with their classroom peers, a child with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder has to learn the traditional educational curriculum but they encounter additional learning experiences and sources of stress than do other children in their class. They have an additional curriculum, namely the social curr

Autism Advocates in Action-Open Letter to Gov. Nixon | Council for Autism and Neurodiversity Autism Advocates in Action-Open Letter to Gov. Nixon Posted on January 9, 2012 by The Council for Autism and Neurodiversity   Office of Governor Jay Nixon P.O. Box 720 Jefferson City, MO 65102 Phone: (573) 751-3222 Governor, I am the mother of an 18 year old autistic child.  He is kind, honest, caring, and intelligent.  He was forced to drop out of high school at the age of 16.  He was being emotionally and psychologically abused by the system.  He was forced to take medication just to walk through the doors of school.  The medication damaged his liver and we had to discontinue its use.  His psychiatrist said that he was no longer learning and he was not receiving the services that he so desperately needed so he might as well just drop out.  He will never leave home. My son has been abused by the Lee’s Summit R7 School District, the Missouri Department of E

Understanding Child’s Trouble With Organization and Time Management - Understood What Can Cause Issues With Organization and Time Management Problems keeping organized and managing time aren’t signs of laziness. But they are signs of certain learning and attention issues. The most common one is executive functioning issues . But there are other conditions that can make kids scattered and disorganized. Here are some reasons why kids struggle with organization and time management. Executive functioning issues: These are weaknesses in a key set of mental skills that help kids plan, organize, prioritize, memorize, pay attention, and get started on tasks. Having a weakness in one or more of these skills makes it hard to do certain tasks. Executive functioning issues aren’t a disability or a formal disorder. But they often occur in kids with learning and attention issues. That’s especially true of kids with ADHD . Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder : This is t

Ten Things to Ask of Those Working with Your Special Child | The Visible Parent As parents we respectfully request that members of our child’s support team follow these tenets: 1. Understand that developmental or neurological differences make our child different, not deficient.  We do not want our child to experience unspoken messages that he or she needs to be cured or fixed. 2. Presume competency in our child, and understand that it may take a while for him to show you all he knows.   Please have patience and assume that he understands everything you are saying. 3. Do not confuse our child’s inability to speak or use proper language as an inability to think.  Our child’s ability to communicate her inside thoughts is not always easy or possible, but she has thoughts, emotions and desires just as any other child does. 4. Prioritize our child’s feelings of safety in relationships as a necessary condition for learning.  It is more difficult for our child to feel s

Vote NO On April 7 April 4, 2015 I note with amazement the campaign for another “no tax increase” tax increase is again being offered to the taxpayers of Lee’s Summit by the R-7 School district.  If there isn’t going to be a tax increase, who is going to pay the $40 million?  The good tooth fairy?   These scamsters have no ethics or truth in their campaign. Do you think your property taxes are too low and need to be raised?  Our $300,000 a year R-7 Superintendent thinks the more cash he can raise for the District, the more salary he has earned. I urge you to vote NO on the “no tax increase” tax increase on April 7. Bob Gough Lee’s Summit locomotivebreath1901 says: April 6th, 2015 at 13:58 VOTE NO on the "No-Tax-Reduction" bond proposal on April 7. Let's shrink this government monopoly with its power to tax, instead of growing it.  Proponents