Angela Tyszka

Thanks, I already gave them the COPAA directory but will look at the FB group. If there was someone in here, I wanted to support them. I like to give names whenever possible.

I'm trying to help a parent in SC find an advocate. If you are one or know of someone, please let me know.

I attended a webinar today where we talked about how you dress for an IEP meeting, specifically if you're an advocate. I'm old school and have always worn a suit to client's school meetings. However based on conversations we had, I'm beginning to rethink my perceived opinion of professionalism. More teachers are wearing tees and jeans at schools now. So maybe wearing a suit is putting the teams I'm trying to collaborate with on the defense. I'm wondering what everyone else thinks. What would you think if your advocate dressed more casually (I'm thinking business casual. I don't think I would ever wear jeans)?

If you can't get them to put it in a PWN for you, you can always put it in writing yourself and send it to the special ed director. The important thing is creating a paper trail. As far as your son not getting an IEP, does he have behavioral or life skills issues that interfere with his learning? Students do not need to be receiving failing grades to qualify for an IEP. They need to have skill deficits that are impacting their learning and/or their ability to access the curriculum. If you disagree with the school's evaluations you can always request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at district expense.

Honestly, having been through something similar myself, I'm of the mindset to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. I'd send in her personal iPad and ask them to use it until they can go through the proper channels to get her a school device and app. My son's school gave him AT that was inappropriate for years before I finally went out and had an independent evaluation done for a speech device. I sent it to school and told them I'd support them in anyway I could for them to use it but that I wasn't going another year without my son being able to access the curriculum and quite frankly, his voice. If they disagree or give you push back I'd ask what they are doing right now to give your daughter access to the curriculum. Are they scribing her work? Allowing her to type? Does she know how to type? If not, are they teaching her? While these could could all be appropriate short term accommodations, it's better to find a way that she can do things herself independently if she has the ability.

An IEE would only be appropriate if the school already evaluated her and found no deficits in the areas that you are concerned about. Then you would "disagree" with their evaluations and request an outside professional to do the testing. While this is a little different than the question you asked, when it comes to reading, phonics, fluency, etc. I've found that the curriculum and the actual assessments the school uses can be the problem. Many schools use a balanced literacy or cuing approach that focuses on learning whole words, trying to "guess" words by the first sound or use pictures in the story for the context. While these strategies work for some students, the vast majority do not learn to read this way and need a structured literacy program that focuses on phonics and decoding words. I heard a great quote on this today. It was "if you teach a child 10 words, you teach a child 10 words. If you teach a child 10 sounds, you teach them how to make over 26,000 words." I've been able to successfully advocate for reading goals and interventions in students that weren't making grade level standards by using data that school already had, i.e. standardized test scores, grades in reading, etc. Your child is already eligible for an IEP so now the school has to address all areas of need, not just the areas related to the disability category. Show the need. If you want to learn more about literacy and the different curriculums I mentioned, I would highly suggest you start by listening to the podcast "Sold a Story." It was extremely eye opening for me and I saw it first hand in my youngest son.

Hello and welcome to the Michigan Parents Club. I'm so glad you found your way here. I started this club so we could talk about issues local to us. My name is Angela and I live in the Metro Detroit area with my husband and two sons, who both have IEPs. I've been a Stay at Home Mom for the past 7 years but prior to that I worked in student services at a law school and was a disability services coordinator. While staying at home, I continued to attend trainings and conferences, both as an attendee and as a speaker. I also volunteered to be a school district representative for our county Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) and I helped to start a parent resource and support group for parents in my local school district. I have helped friends and family with IEPs and have participated in groups like this for years to share information and resources that I've gained. When both of my kids were finally in school full time, I found that I really wanted to do something I was passionate about. I felt I could make a difference in families' lives so I decided to start a special education advocacy business. https://mistudentadvocacy.com I'd love to hear more about all of you.

Hi, Whitney. I just saw your reply. Please feel free to give me a call sometime this week and let's chat. If I'm unable to help, I have a lot of resources around the state. My number is (517) 204-2775.

Here are some state specific resources with the links that you may find helpful. Any others to add? Michigan Department of Education Office of Special Education (MDE-OSE) Michigan Alliance for Families Autism Alliance of Michigan Disability Rights Michigan Special Education Mediation Services (SEMS) Michigan Medicaid Social Security Family Support Subsidy (Michigan)

Where are you located? What kinds of change are you proposing? Is it change that is under the control of the district or is there a higher agency that sets the parameters? I'm in Michigan and many of our special ed policies and procedures that govern how individual districts handle special ed come from our Intermediate School Districts (ISD). Each ISD is required to have a plan that is developed from different constituency groups (Parent Advisory Committee, Special Ed Directors, Superintendents, ISD Board, etc) and then approved by the State Board of Education. So if you wanted to change something like teacher qualifications in a particular program or number of students in an elementary ASD classroom, that is done at the ISD level and not the district here.

I've been advocating for people with disabilities for almost 20 years. Before my kids were born I worked in student services at a law school and part of my responsibilities was as a disability services coordinator. I found that I genuinely had a passion for it and attended all the conferences and read as many books as I could to try to help my students. Then my oldest son was born with a genetic syndrome that came with many challenges (Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Epilepsy, and more) so I started learning about IDEA , IEPs and everything else that goes along with having a child with disabilities. Over the years I would share my knowledge through online platforms, through the parent support and resource group I helped start in my school district and through my county Parent Advisory Committee. l found that there are a lot of families out there that really need help so with a little convincing from some friends and family, I decided to start my own special ed advocacy and consulting company. I mainly work with clients in my own state of Michigan, but have given presentations to local and national audiences (which is another interest of mine). It's been a very rewarding career helping families navigate the process and become better advocates themselves. I'm also happy to have this forum to be able to provide my insight and knowledge to help others and look forward to learning from all of you as well.

That’s possible. When I view in Safari on my MacBook I have more options than viewing on my iPhone.

I would put a request for an IEP evaluation in writing to your school. Many students with ADHD have executive functioning (EF) deficits. These don't always become apparent until kids have multiple classes, assignments, etc. to organize and prepare for. IEPs aren't only for academics. They can also be for things like further education, employment and independent living. If your child is even considering college, you will want to discuss how they will accomplish that with the EF deficits they have. Rather than just accommodating those, it's much better to give the child the tools and skills to be able to manage EF on their own. For example, I had a client whose high school aged son is very intelligent, gets almost all A's but has a terrible time focusing in class, turning in his homework, remembering due dates, etc. He has an IEP and we were able to schedule in a life skills class with goals specifically related to improving his EF skills. So, again, my advice would be to put the request in writing. The school must either evaluate or give you a Prior Written Notice (PWN) with reasons why they refuse to evaluate. I would also put all your concerns and your son's needs in writing. Here's a great template. https://adayinourshoes.com/parent-concerns-on-the-iep-parent-letter-of-attachment/.

I don't know if this answers your question, but when I type a response there is a toolbar within the topic window. Within that toolbar you can change text color, size, font, etc. Have you tried playing around with that to see if it fixes your issue?

I like to do most of my communicating outside of the meeting. What I mean by that is that I always write a Parent Concerns letter prior to the meeting and give it to the team a week or two beforehand. Here's a great template to get you started https://adayinourshoes.com/parent-concerns-on-the-iep-parent-letter-of-attachment/. I also regularly communicate with all of the team members, usually by email, throughout the school year, not just at IEP time. I share with them goals and progress that my child makes in outside therapies and ask what he's working on and doing in school services. The last thing I do is ask for a draft IEP and any reports, evaluations, etc. that the team will be using in the meeting. (In my state there is no requirement that they provide these beforehand but I find that they usually comply if I ask). Typically, the more I prepare and participate in and out of meetings, the less anxious I am about the whole process. If that doesn't help though, I would reach out to my state's parent training and support center and/or consider hiring an advocate to help me through the process. Sometimes just having someone that "speaks the language" can change the entire tone of the meeting.

I also have a 12 year that is non-speaking so I've definitely had concerns about his daily activities at school. I think there are a couple of ways you can go about this. One, is to just talk to the teacher and tell him/her which areas you are especially interested in. Maybe start with a couple of areas and ask to have those reported to you daily. Perhaps they can come up with a daily sheet that has a checklist with things they do on a regular basis and then they can write comments about specific areas of interest. For example, my son has some special medical needs so in addition to academics, it's important that we know what/how much he eats and about his bathroom habits at school. If you meet resistance, then ask for an IEP meeting with the team and have some kind of communication system written into the plan. I've not had to go this route with any of our teachers yet. I find just explaining that you don't want to tell them how to run their classroom but that you really would like to be consistent with the content, rewards/discipline, etc. that happens at school so you can implement it at home usually works.

My 7 year old also has ADHD and an IEP with Speech services. Prior to his last IEP meeting I asked him about his SLP and what he was doing in speech. He told me, "Mom, I don't like speech." When I probed further I found out the reason he didn't like it was that he was being pulled from recess and he missed playing with his friends. Since he is a child that really needs to decompress and have breaks from learning during the day, I just told the team what he had told me and asked if there was another time he could be pulled. The SLP consulted with the teacher and found a time when he would not miss recess and would impact the rest of the curriculum the least. Sometimes it's just a matter of asking

I remember my oldest son's very first IEP meeting. We were transitioning from early intervention services to Early Childhood Special Education. We got to the meeting and the OT was absent. She hadn't informed us she wasn't going to be there. My husband and I had both taken off of work for this meeting and there were quite a few team members in the room with us. We were told our only options were to excuse her or reschedule the meeting. I had been working in higher education disability services for years, but didn't know much about K-12 laws or procedures at that time so we chose to proceed without her. I may have made the same choice today, rather than having to reschedule the entire meeting, but I have a lot more information at my disposal to make that decision today. Ask yourself, what is the value of having that person there? Do they know your child or are they only attending because they are legally obligated to be there? Are you able to talk to that person before the meeting and get their input and/or ask questions? Will that person be responsible for implementing any part of the IEP? In your particular case, what are your thoughts on "the student is not and will not be participating in the general education environment?" Obviously, if you are seeking general education inclusion of your child in any capacity then it might be prudent for the general education teacher to be there. If you believe your child's needs will be completely supported by special education teachers and staff then the general education teacher may not be as important. However, remember that the school can send any general education teacher. In my son's case, he's in a self contained special education classroom but he still has general education teachers for classes like music, art and gym class. Often, the general ed teacher in our meetings has been one of those specials teachers that know him and can make suggestions to accommodations, services, etc. that he has needed for support.

You can absolutely ask for a Manifestation Determination hearing after any suspension and there's many benefits to doing so. However, the school will likely try to put you off until the child has a number of suspensions. Here are some great resources that can better answer your questions. https://adayinourshoes.com/manifestation-determination-hearing/

Preschool services are covered under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Which means that the child must be found eligible for services under one of the 13 eligibility categories. (In Arizona, there are 14 categories). Once they are found eligible, services, goals, programs and placement should be determined by the IEP team, of which the parent is a member, and should be based on the needs of the child. I would ask what they mean by "preschool services are limited." I would also look at what evaluations were done and if there are others that should be requested. Lisa has a really great resource on her site that I use often to determine which evaluations to ask for. It's called "IEP Evaluation Components" and is down toward the bottom of this page https://adayinourshoes.com/sample-letter-requesting-iep-evaluation/. (It's 3 pages long so make sure you arrow over to see all of it). Remember, you get data to determine needs. Needs determine services and placement. To respond to your other statement about feeling alone in your decision to stop preschool services, this is really very common among friends I have with autistic children. I know many, many that decided to do ABA until the mandatory school age. My son was 6 when he received his Autism diagnosis and had already been in a full time school program at that point. We chose to do half days of ABA and school though for three years (K-2) and it was amazing the amount of progress my son made with the combination of both. You do what you think is best with the information you have.

It's not unheard of for a parent to be their child's para, I actually have a client right now that was her child's para for awhile. However, in my experience, sometimes just having the parents come into the child's classroom environment disrupts his/her routine and causes dysregulation. If you're really interested in helping in the school, maybe a creative solution would be applying for a para position within the district and they could then move someone else in to work with your son.

I would love to put together a list of recommended books for parents and caregivers of disabled children. There have been so many that have helped me over the years. Hit me with your favorites and I'll compile them for the group.