Case Study: Fighting The System For Funding – To Change Caleb’s Life

Premature Birth With Complications

Caleb and his brother, Jaden, were born prematurely with significant medical complications. The pediatrician advised their mom that premature children often face lifelong learning challenges. They can exhibit deficiencies with general cognitive abilities, certain aspects of executive functioning and language skills, and deficits in attention and spatial skills.

Caleb’s mother was on the lookout for signs of developmental problems. While his brother seemed to progress as expected, Caleb had difficulty reaching certain milestones. She believed she had an advantage by being able to compare the boys’ development, and so she grew concerned when Caleb began falling behind his brother.

Mom Notices a Problem

In K and 1st grade, teachers reported that Caleb was a charismatic and upbeat child. His mother, however, noticed that Caleb could not keep up with his peers. He struggled with basic language skills such as rhyming and letter-sound correspondence.

Eventually, Caleb was diagnosed with executive function deficits, dysgraphia, and attention challenges. And he was falling behind in reading.

At the end of first grade, Caleb’s mother requested an evaluation by a reading specialist. She also requested an IEP to outline a specialized education plan. Every IEP is expensive for a school. Not surprisingly, the school was slow to intervene.

She felt that she needed a strategy and effective communication tools to make her case for Caleb to the district. She enrolled in a virtual course to learn the “ABCs” of the IEP and the law as it applied to Maryland state and district.

She is now a trained parent advocate who has helped other parents navigate the special education system.

Mom’s Journey to Funding for Caleb

After a prolonged letter-writing campaign requesting help from Caleb’s school Principal, teachers, the Department of Education, the County Executive, the Director of Special Education, the State Compliance Officer, and even the Governor’s office, Caleb went on an IEP and began to receive services.

A speech and language therapist began working with Caleb, and a literacy specialist administered a reading assessment. The results showed that Caleb was several reading levels below grade level.

The school offered limited remedial interventions, but none that Shandra believed addressed Caleb’s specific needs. Specifically, Caleb had working memory, phonemic awareness, and attention deficit delays. The arrival of COVID-19 complicated matters, as PT/OT services were not available virtually.

While advocating for Caleb, his mother was educating herself about the “learning to read” process. She learned how important the mastery of pre-reading skills is, such as recognizing letters and the sounds they make – phonological awareness. Delays in these cognitive skills were holding Caleb back.

This is a typical diagnosis of a Gemm Learning student. It’s what our program, Fast ForWord, addresses.

Enter Gemm Learning

His mother’s goal was to improve Caleb’s reading ability, reading comprehension, and his confidence and processing skills.

Fast ForWord and Gemm Learning were exactly what she was looking for. Targeting the causes of difficulty that the school was not.

Caleb began working with Gemm Learning midway through first grade.

Results: The District Paid for Gemm Learning

Several noticed early on that exercises like Sky Gym helped. 

She noticed improvement in his word recognition, analysis, and attention. His reading also was improving.

Caleb’s mother took the reading assessment results from Gemm Learning – we do pre- and post-testing – to the school district and said, why wasn’t the school able to do this for him? 

His mother requested compensatory hours in accordance with his IEP. She made that claim because she needed to take remedial action and the school was not acting.

The school had no case, and so she received reimbursement for Gemm Learning.

According to the district’s formal language, the Gemm Learning program demonstrated progress in accordance with the stated goals of his IEP.

Case made, check written.

Moral of the Story: Advocate

Parents often know children best, but often schools just don’t have the resources or specializations to handle every case. In those cases, parents need to advocate for their child, and when they do, funding and other help is often available.

And, as we know with Caleb, if a child gets the right intervention, a life can be changed.

Resources

Many states now have funding for home interventions like Gemm Learning. More on state plans here.

If you don’t live in one of those states, and if the district won’t help, there are often local community organizations to call on. Here is a list of private funding ideas, and ideas for homeschool funding here.

(Name changed to protect privacy.)