Persistently Persistent

I reached out to the state because I’m trying to understand how this is supposed to work. I don’t want to create conflict so I did not identify the school district, I just asked a few clarifying questions. The person at the state asked me to tell her the name of the district so she cd call to talk w them. I replied that we’d like to advocate for ourselves, but we need to inform ourselves to be effective; we need some information from her. Plus we don’t want to have the state call the district unless it becomes absolutely necessary. I asked our questions a second time. So far she hasn’t answered our questions.

I got a copy of their draft IEP before the first meeting. I reviewed it very carefully and came to the meeting with a detailed response, I brought a copy for each of the participants. It identified several things that we are important to us that are not mentioned in their draft. In the meeting the district representative simply said they’re not going to do them. Also, there are a couple of things in her IEP, which have meaningless methods for determining if their effort is successful, we asked them to identify more robust metrics. They dismissed us. after the abbreviated first meeting, they scheduled a second meeting. I replied, asking that the second meeting be two hours long, and also if there was going to be a second draft of the IEP following the first meeting, if we could get it at least 48 hours ahead of time. They sent the second draft 22 hours before the scheduled second meeting so we asked them to reschedule the meeting so we would have time to Review it. (I hadn’t had a chance to see it when I asked them to postpone the meeting. I Thought we would need more time because I assumed it would incorporate feedback that we had given them.) They agreed to “accommodate our request” for the second meeting to be two hours, but they said it’s going to take the many weeks to find a time that everyone can be in the same place for two whole hours. I also sent them written item by item feedback on the first meeting, reiterating the requests we made after we reviewed the first draft.. The second draft does not acknowledge that they received written feedback on the first draft, and more written feedback on the in person meeting. It literally reads is as if we never had a meeting or communicated with them in anyway.

So we just had our very first IEP meeting. the district allocated one hour! I thought the IEP committee together would develop our student’s IEP, but what happened was someone from the district we never met before came in with a premade IEP. She clearly expected to present it and then have us sign off at the end of the meeting. The meeting started late and people had to go so we have another meeting planned. The district rep was there to present her plan, she wasn’t interested in hearing what we have to say. she’s the person who knows our child least/she doesn’t know him at all. Plus the other people, the school people, on the committee, didn’t say a word while she presented her plan.We had to schedule second meeting. The district representative sent us the “second draft” following the first meeting. there’s some wordsmithing, but Not a single thing that we raised is addressed in the second draft. It’s like we never had the first meeting at all. Her title was an IEP facilitator but I think in our case that means she facilitated a meeting of school administrators, our students counselor, and the person who did the testing, and together they developed an IEP, which we’re supposed to sign. one thing I did notice on the second draft is that she is bringing in reinforcements from the school district to the second meeting. She’s added an unfamiliar name to the IEP committee. I looked him up, he’s the deputy Director of the special Ed department. As a complete newcomer to this, I feel confused. is all of this talk just lipservice to the idea of collaboratively developing an IEP? in our state, the district is free to implement the plan even if the parents don’t agree. So far my impression is that they’re telling us what their plan is. End of discussion. any advice?

She’s been tested, (ADHD) found eligible for special Ed, we are in the middle of the first IEP process. I agree the reading problem is related to attentional issues. The district is saying because she reads at grade level they have no obligation to help. They don’t want to put anything about reading in her IEP.

The school psychologist is the one who did all the testing on our student. in the IEP She says that she will spend a half hour twice a month helping her. In the first IEP meeting the district representative made a point of saying that school psychologist time is an extremely valuable asset that the District is committing to the student. (the school psychologist really likes the student who is bright, articulate, self-aware, psychologically minded, cooperative. The school psychologist wants to spend time with her.) the student already is meeting with a private education psychologist weekly. The student will be pulled out of class to meet with the school psychologist. My problem is that the purpose, goals and outcomes for these meetings are very vague, plus once they are not things that should need to continue for a whole year. I tried to push back a little bit about how this time would be used and what the activities and goals are, but the school psychologist shut me down. I asked what they would be working on and she said “I have lots of different curriculum.” Her main goal for the student is to identify the triggers that cause her to feel that she needs to take a break from class. The student is very articulate about what her triggers are but the psychologist is insisting on keeping this as a year-long goal. (there’s no talk about how to help ner keep from leaving class.) Our student had words with an administrator, (one time she talked back in her nine years of schooling,) and somehow that has now been included in her behavior plan. Because it was such an unusual situation that never happened before or since I don’t think it belongs in her behavior plan, but they won’t take it out. what can we do to make this time with the school psychologist productive? what are our options when someone at the school is insistent about something in the IEP that parents don’t agree with?

I have the same question. The MS student I’m advocating for is at grade level in every area, but is very school avoidant and failing every class. My specific concern is that she is a reluctant reader, guessing she has read fewer than 10 books in her entire life. the testing shows that she is fine with the mechanics of reading, but for her, reading is like asking a severely obese person to run a marathon. It’s really really hard work for her because of her attentional challenges. she has several older siblings who dropped out of high school sophomore year because they could not read efficiently enough to keep up with the work. At every opportunity in her IEP, the tester wrote (paraphrasing) “this plan will not include attention to reading because she’s a good reader.” I talked to a special ed advocate, who told me that the school has no obligation to help a student who is testing at grade level. She’s testing a grade level pretty much on osmosis alone. It’s not enough to allow her to be successful in high school let alone to go on to college. Do we have any options here?

Our MS student has been diagnosed with ADHD, major depression, and generalized anxiety. She became increasingly school avoidant over the course of this year. School staff counseled us to take a hands off approach, allowing her to miss her first three classes of the morning. (Electives and PE) Here we are seven months into the school year and she has attended only 40% of her classes. She was not in special Ed in the fall term. finally finally finally, after five months off delays and 10 days of last minute testing, they determined that she was special ed and we have started the IEP process. We had our first meeting which started late and was interrupted so we have another one planned. The district representative has said that the school avoidance is the family’s problem and the district has no obligation to help this child until she can get herself to school on time. I said that she has three diagnoses which contribute to her school avoidance and therefore it should be included in the IEP. They should not make her solving this problem a prerequisite to getting help. We don’t believe it’s appropriate for the district to be involved in how she gets to school but we feel that her school avoidance is at least 50% about what happens once she gets there and that the school has some responsibility to help address this. we talked to a special Ed advocate, but she agrees that it is the family’s responsibility to solve the school avoidance. I’m wondering what other peoples experience is with this, does it seem reasonable for us to expect the school to help address this problem especially when they have enabled it for seven months? What ideas/strategies can you suggest a school cd try, to help a middle school student who is school avoidant? Also, Is it acceptable for the school district to expect families to sign a very rough/incomplete draft IEP they’ve never seen before, at the conclusion of a one hour meeting where they mostly talked in special ed speak? What are our options if we need more time? Thank you!