504 meeting within 30 days?

[MomTo3]

Asking for a friend.  I always heard schools have 30 days to have an eligibility meeting but I was over on Wrights Law and it says there are no timeframes for the eligibility or implementation of the 504. It also said parents aren't required to be involved!   

Anyway, which is right?

[twinturbo]

I don't know about the 30 days but generally 504 does have much less in terms of procedural safeguards when compared to safeguards of the IDEA. Being in possession of and reading the materials authored by Wrightslaw my impression now is that they are heavily geared towards IEPs and the IDEA. I wouldn't go so far to say that 504 is an afterthought but it's about a 80/20 split with 20% covering 504. However that may merely reflect the functions of special education law and how it interrelates or has been greatly affected by NCLB.

What I'm saying, in short, is for 504 the more sure coverage is procedural safeguards listed on .gov sites and that OCR/DOE is a better resource for the most part. I did look quickly on federal, and I apologize for the abbreviated look but I couldn't find it easily. If there's a state .gov page that would be the best resource I think. At least try that because what I've also come to realize is that some procedures don't look exactly the same like initiation for eligibility. I'll keep looking in the meantime until someone can answer it. Bear with if you would.

[CMdeux]

Basically, the school is obliged to do what is in THEIR procedure under section 504.

They have to follow their own written guidelines.

MANY schools find it simpler to simply write up "we'll follow items 1 through 10 on our IDEA compliance safeguards" rather than have two separate standards-- but legally, they CAN make the ADA compliance (under 504) different.  If they want to.

What that means is that you should be asking for procedural safeguards in writing, and for any procedural protocol that they follow-- you know, so that you "understand the process better."

(If you're looking for a way to know without coming off as highly adversarial, I mean-- and I strongly encourage you to be polite at the outset on this score.)

As for not needing parents involved, well...  that depends.  Technically, no, they don't HAVE to do so... but in the case of children with medical reasons for possible eligibility, it opens the school up to a world of hurt if they haven't "considered" a wide variety of sources of expert input.  If they've EXCLUDED one expert input stream (and really, it's pretty hard to argue that the primary manager of a child's FA day to day for many years is not "expert" in that sense) then they just opened themselves up during due process if you wound up there.

[daisy madness]

I've been struggling with my son's district and his 504 since September.  It seems that the school believes I am not necessary to the process.  I wasn't notified of the meeting.  The 504 came home in his backpack.  When I refused to sign it, I was told that my signature was not necessary and it was binding whether I chose to sign it or not. 

Things are quite adversarial and have been for several months.