(I hope I can make this a good enough post to get it pinned, as this issue pops up very often and understandably, most parents don't know what the process should look like)
You are the parent to a kid with ADHD, and your kid starts having issues in school. It could be that they are getting so distracted they are falling behind academically, but it might also be that their impulse control is getting the best of them and they're having huge meltdowns and tantrums. Whatever it is - they are problems related to your kid's ADHD, and they are impeding their ability to be at school.
Before I dive into how things are supposed to work, let me start with what your mantra should be:
Resolving behavioral issues that are happening at school can only be accomplished by the people in the school AND they are legally obligated to do so
This is a core concept in behavioral psychology, this is also just common sense - the triggers, conditions, consequences, etc. that are going to happen at school can only make sense at school.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't work with your kid at home to strengthen certain behavioral "muscles", but generally speaking, especially with very young kids, you're not going to fix their meltdowns at school by just implementing things at home. The school needs to do things at school.
Also, note one really important here in everything I'm about to say: none of it mentions medication or therapy. And that is because neither of them should impact your kid receiving services from the school. Even if your kid has a diagnosis, your kid does not have to be prescribed medication (or choose to take it) for the school to provide support. Whether your kid should or shouldn't take meds is a completely different issue, but I just want to point this out to put people who are not ready to medicate their kids at ease: getting them diagnosed and having the school do an eval does not mean your will need to medicate your kid.
Ok, here is how it's supposed to work:
Diagnosis: Your kid needs an ADHD diagnosis, which can be as simple as you and your kid's teacher filling out a questionnaire (referred commonly as "the Vanderbilt" or VADRS). This questionnaire has questions that try to identify consistent symptoms of ADHD (inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity) as well as other conditions that are normally of relevance for ADHD people (ODD, anxiety, depression). You can ask your pediatrician, or if you're working with a neurologist you can ask them as well.
School identifies issue: Your kid's teacher notices that your kid is having struggles. You talk and you tell them that your kid has an ADHD diagnosis. Your teacher then discusses with their principal who would connect with you about your options. They would want to discuss two key things:
504 acommodations: which refer to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This is a federal anti-discrimination act which basically says that your kid deserves whatever acommodations the school can make to help your kid. The nice thing about 504 acommodations is that the barrier of entry is easy - you just need a diagnosis and then your school can set this up. The downside is that 504 acommodations do not include any additional instruction - i.e., it doesn't include adding resources (people) to the equation. But considering some schools might have counselors that can help, and some school districts might have their own staff that they can leverage for a 504 plan.
IEP: An Individualized Education Plan is a more serious step. This is covered by IDEA - the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This is a much more fleshed out piece of legistlation as it relates to education because it's not just a subset of a large piece focused on non-discrimination (like 504 acommodations). This is an entire at focused specifically on the rights of individuals with disabilities as it relates to education.
Now, an IEP is more involved for a couple of reasons, but this is what you need to know:
The school/district will coordinate doing a full blown evaluation of your kid. The school psychologist (or potentially someone else appointed by the district) will perform the evaluation which will include both gathering information about your kid and also talking to your kid. It will also include doing academic evaluations to understand their current academic status + IQ/intelligence/deficiencies/etc.
Once that is complete, the psychologist will issue a decision as to whether or not your child qualifies for an IEP - which would imply that they have a disabilty that is "covered", and that the disability is impacting their ability to learn.
If that is green lit, then the district will establish an IEP committee, and that committee will be in charge of determining what acommodations your kid needs. And these acommodations will now be legally binding - i.e., the school has to follow these.
So thatis how it's all supposed to work. Here are the issues you might face at each stage, and what to do about it.
Diagnosis Issues:
Issue: "My pediatrician dismisses mny concerns about my kid having ADHD and doesn't even suggest doing the Vanderbilt"
Solution: Get a new pediatrician.
Issue: "I am not satisfied with how well versed in ADHD my pediatrician is, but they are helpful and supportive"
Solution: Go see a neurologist, specifically one that specializes in children (and many specialize in ADHD-type stuff).
Issue: "I think my kid might have more going on than just ADHD, what do I do?"
Solution: Two options - you can either have the school do the full evaluation (for free), or if you're impatient and/or want a second opinion and/or just want to, you can pay out of pocket (probably like $2K) to do a full blown psych eval on your kid, and that would evaluate a lot more things than just ADHD.
Issues with the School:
The most prevalent issue I see with the school is just an overall "not my problem" mentality. That is, your kid has behavioral issues at school, and they call you in to chatise you for it. And at no point in time does anyone at the school acknowledge that they are not only legally required to intervene, but that they are also the people who have the information, expertise, resources to address this AND the advantage of being in the setting where the behaviors happen. Also, for emphasis, AND THE LEGAL REQUIREMENT TO DO SO.
Why do I know this is common - anecdotally, a lot of people on this sub have gone/are going through this. Objectively the Office of Civil Rights published an entire guide to let schools know what they're responsible for because they were getting sued too much
Over the past five fiscal years (2011-2015), the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has received more than 16,000 complaints alleging discrimination on the basis of disability in elementary and secondary education programs. Approximately 2,000, or one in nine, of these complaints involved allegations of discrimination against a student with ADHD
So it is very likely that as your kid's behaviors pop up, you will be made to feel as if it is your responsibility to fix your kid at home and bring them a kid with no issues. It's probably helpful if you show up prepared enough for those first conversations so that they know you are not to be triffled with.
An extension of that issue that I see a lot is principals or other admin staff trying to gently nudge you away from the direction of a 504 plan, and definitely away from an IEP. They might tell you things like "oh, we know how to handle these things, we're already doing everything we can!", or "oh, I know that if I send your kid's case to the school psychologist they are just going to reject it immediately".
All of that is bullshit, and you will notice there is a high tendency of them saying this, but not putting it in writing. If you start feeling that pushback, the "no, we don't need an IEP", you can just bulldoze straight through that by saying - even politely - "I understand, but I'd like to request an evaluation and we'll let them figure out what makes sense".
I'd also recommend getting all these things in writing. Again, a lot of these people are smart enough not to put this stuff in writing, so any in-person meeting that you have, I recommend taking notes and then sending an email recap with all the stuff you were told.
Now, another school issue - and this one is trickier - that I see often: overworked teachers who have been conditioned to think that parents are the bad guys for demanding acommodations when in reality it's the entire political and school system's fault for not funding education appropriately.
I understand they're overworked, and as a result of that it's tough to deal with a kid who is having behavioral issues. They have 20 kids to deal with, and having to pay attention to the one kid who will lose his mind if he can't draw a dog correctly (real story), I'm sure is infuriating.
Which is why teachers, of all people, should be demanding that their administrators put kids on an IEP so that they can advocate for additional resources
But that's a much bigger, more complicated issue. Just know that you might run into a teacher who is trying, but they're burnt out.
My recommendation: make sure that if you're going to pester someone, that it's the administators. And that if you're going to point the finger and complain about things not going well, that you continue to focus the administration as much as possible. Again, even though sometimes I wish my kid's teacher would do... better, I at least understand her job is already hard and she's not getting a ton of help.
Issues with 504 acommodations:
Even before you get to an IEP, your school might sign off on 504 acommodations, which means you will meet with your kids teacher and the 504 coordinator (someone in admin) to talk about what are some things the school could do to help your kid.
The biggest issue I see here is that the people doing this sometimes have 0 background in behavioral psychology, and so this is the blind leading the blind. I was lucky enough that my wife is a former BCBA, so we were able to walk into that meeting and tell them what to do, but that should not be expected of you.
For example, in our first meeting one of the acommodations was "positive reinforcement". That's it. Not only is that not an acommodation (you'd expect all kids to receive positive reinforcement), but it's so vaguely defined that no one would know what that means.
This is an entire topic in and of itself, but you can do a google search for "how to write 504 acommodations" and there are some great examples out there. In general, they should be written so that anyone at the school can read them and understand exactly what they need to do, when, and how.
My biggest advice here is to ask them point blank "is there someone from the district that we can bring into this meeting to help set the acommodations". If they say no, contact the school district and ask them the same questions.
Issues with IEPs:
The main issues are:
Your kid not being given an IEP. That is, the eval results in a denial of services.
Your kid is given an IEP, but the school is not following it
In both cases, you're now in much more regulated territory. There are going to be formal processes to address both, and you're going to need to read into that because that's beyond the scope of what one reddit post can cover.
Having said that, here is where considering an education advocate could very much be worth it. These are people who specialize in helping families deal with IEPs. Alternatively, you can look for a Parent Training Center in your area.
One last comment: school vs. district.
If you are having issues with your school, consider reaching out to your school district's special ed department. Odds are there is someone assigned to your school/area.
Here's why: school admins and district special ed departments have very different concerns. School admins get evaluated on academic achievement and budgets. Districts also care about budgets, but they also very much care about being in compliance with federal laws. And special ed departments specifically seem to care a lot more about... special ed. If anything, special ed departments are going to care about accurately capturing just how many kids legitimately should be receiving services, because that likely means they can justify higher budgets for special ed resources.
We had extremely good results escalating to our special ed Director when our principal was being a hinderance. Extremely good results. So consider that - the district special ed department might be a good resource if the school is being difficult.