IEP - :P
14 Aug 2010, 8:32 am
Do not sign off. If you did sign off immediately write a letter stating that after careful consideration you disagree and would like to call another meeting.
The crazy games these schools play makes me FURIOUS.
In the next meeting take any documentation that you have regarding what he needs. Stay your ground. They are bullies. I know exactly how you feel.
BTW if you are in the US IDEA states they must give you written notice. It states "Written notice of the meeting must be given to you at least 5 days before the meeting, unless you agree otherwise". What they did is a Procedural Violation and you should let them know that. The notice must include a list of who will attend the meeting.
I am struggling with this right now. It's really upsetting me.
I am from the North East in a state where people don't play procedural games. They know and understand the law and they adhere to it. Where I am living now, not so much. This is something that I see over and over and it's very difficult to deal with. I try to explain this to my family and they act like I am just being ridiculous.
The base of qualifying him for services was his speech - he has a very marked speech/language delay and this has always been his biggest issue. Yet, they only gave him 15 hours per year (this is not a typo) of dedicated speech therapy. It was written out in minutes so I really had no idea what they'd done until I thought about it and used a calculator. Of course, moron that I am I did sign off on it. My sister in law had told me we didn't have to if we weren't happy. I wish I hadn't.
The part of me that is who I am wants to start writing letters detailing all of the different ways that laws were bent and broken over the course of that meeting. The part of me that has developed from living here is afraid to, because I don't want my son treated poorly. I know several other parents who have decided to send their kids to private schools because the school districts are so totally uncooperative. We can't afford to do that - we're saving our money to get OUT of this state....
14 Aug 2010, 9:40 am
Countess,
At this point, there is nothing to be gained by "beating yourself up" for past mistakes. We have all made mistakes, and we need to move on, but learn from them. Before writing anything to the school district about all the things they've done that have violated the law, figure out what the purpose would be. If there is no purpose for you at this time, make sure you journal it for yourself, in case you need the information in the future.
Do you know whether there is a group for parents of children with special needs in your area? If there is, you should make contact, because they will be the best source of information on dealing with the particular issues dealing with your locality. This could be a school district special needs PTA, a yahoo group online, an ARC group, or any group that is specific to various learning differences.
If you are unhappy with the IEP, you can call a new IEP meeting at any time. The annual IEP meeting is the minimum. IEP meetings can be held as often as needed, and as a member of the IEP team, you can ask for a meeting because there are issues that are not being adequately addressed by his current program.
Do you know when your son's next evaluation is due? IEP evaluations are done every three years (at minimum - which generally means at maximum). The IEP is really based on the evaluation (ideally), so the evaluations are critical. If a new evaluation is going to be done soon, that may be what you want to focus on most. When the school does their evaluation, if you are not satisfied with it - whether it's because they didn't fully evaluate all areas of concern, or because they "missed" issues, or because their recommendations were inadequate - you can request an independent educational evaluation (IEE). The school district is required to pay for you to have an evaluation done by an expert of your choice unless they go to due process and prove that their evaluation was adequate. Some school districts pretend that you have to select an evaluator from their list - this is not true, nor is it a good idea. You should choose an evaluator that is truly independent from the school district, has the proper credentials and certifications, and the experience to provide you with the evaluation and report you need to present to the school district. This is true, whether it is a psycho-educational evaluation, a speech and language evaluation, an OT evaluation, etc. It is possible that the school district could do a good job on one of these evaluations, but that you need an IEE on one of the others. Request it. Remember - everything you do must be in writing! If it wasn't done in writing, it didn't happen. It doesn't matter how charming the person you spoke to was; if you can't prove the conversation happened, it didn't happen. You can be polite about it, but document everything from now on.
15 Aug 2010, 5:38 pm
At this point, there is nothing to be gained by "beating yourself up" for past mistakes. We have all made mistakes, and we need to move on, but learn from them. Before writing anything to the school district about all the things they've done that have violated the law, figure out what the purpose would be. If there is no purpose for you at this time, make sure you journal it for yourself, in case you need the information in the future.
Do you know whether there is a group for parents of children with special needs in your area? If there is, you should make contact, because they will be the best source of information on dealing with the particular issues dealing with your locality. This could be a school district special needs PTA, a yahoo group online, an ARC group, or any group that is specific to various learning differences.
If you are unhappy with the IEP, you can call a new IEP meeting at any time. The annual IEP meeting is the minimum. IEP meetings can be held as often as needed, and as a member of the IEP team, you can ask for a meeting because there are issues that are not being adequately addressed by his current program.
Do you know when your son's next evaluation is due? IEP evaluations are done every three years (at minimum - which generally means at maximum). The IEP is really based on the evaluation (ideally), so the evaluations are critical. If a new evaluation is going to be done soon, that may be what you want to focus on most. When the school does their evaluation, if you are not satisfied with it - whether it's because they didn't fully evaluate all areas of concern, or because they "missed" issues, or because their recommendations were inadequate - you can request an independent educational evaluation (IEE). The school district is required to pay for you to have an evaluation done by an expert of your choice unless they go to due process and prove that their evaluation was adequate. Some school districts pretend that you have to select an evaluator from their list - this is not true, nor is it a good idea. You should choose an evaluator that is truly independent from the school district, has the proper credentials and certifications, and the experience to provide you with the evaluation and report you need to present to the school district. This is true, whether it is a psycho-educational evaluation, a speech and language evaluation, an OT evaluation, etc. It is possible that the school district could do a good job on one of these evaluations, but that you need an IEE on one of the others. Request it. Remember - everything you do must be in writing! If it wasn't done in writing, it didn't happen. It doesn't matter how charming the person you spoke to was; if you can't prove the conversation happened, it didn't happen. You can be polite about it, but document everything from now on.
Thank you. I am going to start documenting. I think that is the best course at this point. I'll see how things go for a little while.
There's not much in this area for kids with AS. That's the primary reason I want out of this state. I also have a lot of trouble fitting in myself which makes it more complicated.
His next eval was written in for next year. By then we should be moving if we haven't moved already. I'm going to try to chalk this up as a learning experience for the time being.
I get so aggravated at all the political crap. I wish it was as simple as saying "my child needs help" and you could get it with out intricate dances or thousands of dollars.
15 Aug 2010, 5:58 pm
At this point, there is nothing to be gained by "beating yourself up" for past mistakes. We have all made mistakes, and we need to move on, but learn from them. Before writing anything to the school district about all the things they've done that have violated the law, figure out what the purpose would be. If there is no purpose for you at this time, make sure you journal it for yourself, in case you need the information in the future.
Do you know whether there is a group for parents of children with special needs in your area? If there is, you should make contact, because they will be the best source of information on dealing with the particular issues dealing with your locality. This could be a school district special needs PTA, a yahoo group online, an ARC group, or any group that is specific to various learning differences.
If you are unhappy with the IEP, you can call a new IEP meeting at any time. The annual IEP meeting is the minimum. IEP meetings can be held as often as needed, and as a member of the IEP team, you can ask for a meeting because there are issues that are not being adequately addressed by his current program.
Do you know when your son's next evaluation is due? IEP evaluations are done every three years (at minimum - which generally means at maximum). The IEP is really based on the evaluation (ideally), so the evaluations are critical. If a new evaluation is going to be done soon, that may be what you want to focus on most. When the school does their evaluation, if you are not satisfied with it - whether it's because they didn't fully evaluate all areas of concern, or because they "missed" issues, or because their recommendations were inadequate - you can request an independent educational evaluation (IEE). The school district is required to pay for you to have an evaluation done by an expert of your choice unless they go to due process and prove that their evaluation was adequate. Some school districts pretend that you have to select an evaluator from their list - this is not true, nor is it a good idea. You should choose an evaluator that is truly independent from the school district, has the proper credentials and certifications, and the experience to provide you with the evaluation and report you need to present to the school district. This is true, whether it is a psycho-educational evaluation, a speech and language evaluation, an OT evaluation, etc. It is possible that the school district could do a good job on one of these evaluations, but that you need an IEE on one of the others. Request it. Remember - everything you do must be in writing! If it wasn't done in writing, it didn't happen. It doesn't matter how charming the person you spoke to was; if you can't prove the conversation happened, it didn't happen. You can be polite about it, but document everything from now on.
Thank you. I am going to start documenting. I think that is the best course at this point. I'll see how things go for a little while.
There's not much in this area for kids with AS. That's the primary reason I want out of this state. I also have a lot of trouble fitting in myself which makes it more complicated.
His next eval was written in for next year. By then we should be moving if we haven't moved already. I'm going to try to chalk this up as a learning experience for the time being.
I get so aggravated at all the political crap. I wish it was as simple as saying "my child needs help" and you could get it with out intricate dances or thousands of dollars.
16 Aug 2010, 8:23 am
I will be having my son's IEP meeting soon.
I am glad you wrote this post so I can be prepared to possibly walk in to the meeting and see that they already have an IEP written. If that happened I would have been totally thrown off guard and not known how to react - thanks to your post I am now prepared for that.
The school already knows me well because of last year. There were several situations where no matter how hard they tried to BS me and the situation, I would not back down. I didn't hesitate to escalate it to the superintenent. So...with that being said, they kind of know what to expect from me. I also know what kind of BS to expect from them. This is very helpful for me (and them probably) going into the IEP.
I agree w/ a lot of the posters. Anyway, YOU are the expert on your child, not any doctor or teacher. You know what he needs. They can absolutely add to it because they are with your child 6 + hrs per day and see issues you cannot see.
Don't let them make you doubt yourself. Some people can be intimidated by them because they are the 'experts'. But they're not.
