[Future Special Ed Teacher]

I have two children with IEPs and have done this kind of interview for other prospective teachers. I'd be happy to answer some questions to help you out. I've attached my contact information below. 

[How long can a student not be attending school while family looks for best placement?]

Truancy would likely be set by state and/or district laws or policies. In some states you can also homeschool relatively easily, which may be an acceptable alternative while you find placement. If your child has an IEP, the entire team will typically need to be involved in a placement decision. 

 

[Outside documentation]

I think this would be case by case and district specific. Just as there is nothing in federal law that says that they have to do anything other than "consider" outside evaluations, I don't think you're going to find any guidance about using a neuropsychologist to add to the IEP. If you have recommendations from a neuropsych, I'd include them in your parent concerns letter prior to the IEP just as you would any other data from outside providers. This can help you establish the child's "needs" for adding services, goals and placement.

[Do I put this in my after meeting notes?]

This wouldn't be the hill I would die on, but if it bothers you that much (and it sounds like it does), I would have a private conversation with the person who said it. I've done this with doctors, teachers, etc. that have made insensitive comments to me before and just as I would want someone to come directly to me if I ever said or did something that was offensive, I try to give that same courtesy to others.

[School District Advocacy]

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.

[Neuropsych at state rate]

IDEA says that "(2) Each public agency must provide to parents, upon request for an independent educational evaluation, information about where an independent educational evaluation may be obtained, and the agency criteria applicable for independent educational evaluations as set forth in paragraph (e) of this section." 

So yes, they are supposed to provide a list if you request it. 

[What permissions are required when your child turns 18 and is still in school?]

My answer to you depends on a couple of things. One, are you planning to apply for guardianship? Two, what state are you in? Typically, when a student turns 18, educational rights transfer to the student. So they are the ones that will be invited to IEP meetings, give consent for evaluations/reevaluations, etc. However, not all states transfer all rights to the student. I would recommend looking up the rules in your state and/or posting where you are and seeing if someone in the group knows.If you are appointed the guardian for your child, you would typically retain educational legal rights. However there are pros and cons to obtaining guardianship as well. 

[PT Question]

My son has Cerebral Palsy and he lost his PT eligibility in school when he was about 5 (he's almost 12 now). However, our school PT agreed to provide consultation because he wears orthotics and was transitioning from AFOs to SMOs and he also needed more individualized accommodations in his adaptive PE class. I'll share with you the language she used in his Present Levels. Maybe you can adapt it to fit your daughter's situation.  (Full disclosure, before our school PT came to our district, she was at a private therapy clinic and my son was her patient for several years. She has a soft spot for helping us, I believe but the IEP team has approved it for two years now). Hope this helps you get a little creative.

Gross Motor

Impact: [Child] utilizes bilateral AFOs. He is in a transition period in which his physician would like to try increasing the available movement at [Child's] ankle; however, [child] has show instability with this in the past. 

Resulting Need: [child] and staff would benefit from physical therapy consultative service to educate in orthotic use and management, as well as to assess best fit and function of orthoses in the school setting.

Impact: [child] is unable to fully participate in same-aged, general education PE. He is limited in his ability to fully participate in his reduced-size PE class with adult support and generalized accommodations of activities. 

Resulting Need: [Child] would benefit from physical therapy consultative service to provide more individualized accommodations to activities in PE for increased participation in daily lesson plans and increased growth in PE curriculum.

[FBA as a last resort]

Who is suggesting it as a last resort? The parent or the school? If the child is exhibiting behaviors that are interrupting their ability to learn, then an FBA and a Behavior Plan could give you data as to why the behaviors are occurring and strategies to reduce or mitigate those behaviors. I'm not sure what advantages there would be to waiting.

[Michigan Non-Attorney Advocate]

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. 

[IEP for college?]

I worked as a disability services coordinator in higher ed for over a decade. It is true that neither an IEP nor a 504 plan go with you to college. However, students can get accommodations if they have a disability. (Keep an eye on the RISE Act that's moving through Congress right now. If it passes, one of the benefits will be that students will have the ability to use their IEP or 504 paperwork from high school to prove that they have a disability). 

Before getting rid of your child's IEP, I would ask yourself if your child is doing well now because of his accommodations or would he do just as well without them? What types of accommodations does he have? What kind of major might he go into? What did he struggle with when he didn't have accommodations? Will he have to take a standardized test to get into college or to be licensed? How does he do on standardized tests?  Also, I wouldn't count on the professors giving their own accommodations. Most colleges and universities would require the student to go to the disability services office and register as a student with a disability to get accommodations. 

At the law school I worked at, I had a lot of students that had never been diagnosed with a disability as a child, were able to be relatively successful in K-12 and undergraduate. Many times they struggled with standardized tests but were able to do well in majors and classes that didn't have a lot of reading and writing or standardized tests but were classes that had projects and used other methods that played to their strengths. It's quite possible your son could find that type of major too and never need accommodations in college. However, if they are a student that wants to take a course of study that is in an area that is challenging for them, accommodations might put them on a level playing field with their peers.

 

 

[Changing text & background colors]

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

[Help- not sure what to do]

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/. 

[Changing text & background colors]

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?

[IEP meeting]

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.

[School trouble for non verbal child]

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. 

[Speech Therapy during recess?]

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

[Excusing members from CCC]

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.

[In School Suspension - Manifestation Determination Hearing?]

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/

 

[Anyone else in this boat?]

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. 

[Can I be my son's Para?]

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. 

[Book Recommendations for Parenting Disabled Children]

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.