[blindkid] Gifted testing

[Carol Castellano]

If you look at this issue from an ADA point of view, the statement, 
"The test is not allowed to be altered in any way" would be a 
problem.  ADA does indeed guarantee equal access.  Ideally, in ADA 
situations, there would be a good faith discussion of possible 
remedies, with each party putting forth their questions and ideas 
until a feasible accommodation solution is reached.  The antidote to 
an ADA violation is a civil rights complaint.

In my experience, schools are not used to thinking in terms of ADA, 
but I have found it effective for someone (an advocate, perhaps) to 
educate the school on this and come from the position of "of course 
you wouldn't want to be out of compliance with the Americans with 
Disabilities Act" and "gee, the parent would really hate to have to 
file a civil rights complaint."  The fact is they really WON'T want 
to be out of compliance.  They simply may not have had experience in 
thinking--and finding solutions--in this way.

That all said, the next issue for us parents is to make sure that 
when our kids ARE included in testing that the version given does not 
unfairly penalize our kids for not being able to see.  Unfortunately 
this happens all the time.  In my experience, this is inadvertent and 
not purposeful, and so is another area where we need to educate those 
in the school system.  Examples--they leave all questions in and fail 
the child for not answering the ones he/she can't see.  Or they 
eliminate certain questions, and change the point scaling of the 
answers.  So if the test originally had 10 questions and each 
question was worth 10 points, and they eliminate 2 questions, then 
the remaining questions are worth 12.5 points each.  This means that 
if our kids get one wrong on the test, they get a lower score than 
other kids who got the same one question wrong.

We sure need to educate those in the school and remain alert.

Carol

Carol Castellano
President, Parents of Blind Children-NJ
Director of Programs
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
973-377-0976
carol_castellano at verizon.net
www.blindchildren.org
www.nopbc.org





At 12:51 PM 2/1/2012, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>So my 5 year old is in a regular kindergarten class.  The SCOPE 
>program (gifted) has been coming into the classroom and working with 
>the students and hannah's VI teacher and aide have adapted all 
>materials for her.  Well, now they will be testing ALL kindergarten 
>students for the program.  The test is not allowed to be altered in 
>any way and they have no version for blind students/low vision.  I 
>was told it is a very visual test.  The principal has stated that 
>Hannah is not to take this test at all and they want me to sign an 
>addendum to exempt her from this test.  This is not necessarily an 
>issue I really want to fight right now, because I don't think Hannah 
>will qualify at this time for gifted services.  BUT I feel that it 
>is completely unfair that they just want to exempt her from the test 
>when all the other students are taking it.  I also don't want to say 
>okay and exempt maybe this year and next year while she is still 
>learning all her
>  braille, but what if in the future I feel like she should take it 
> and they say "well you always exempted her before..."  Any 
> thoughts?  Thank you!  Laurie Wages (Hannah's mom)
>_______________________________________________
>blindkid mailing list
>blindkid at nfbnet.org
>http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
>To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info 
>for blindkid:
>http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/blindchildren%40verizon.net