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I'm thinking Out Of District?

LOL. Thanks Laurel I really needed that! I don't get to laugh out loud much these days...

Yes OOD means Out of District.

Shucks! The telepathic aliens sounded pretty intriguing.

So, I'm envisioning you in a meeting, and you are referring to report #754, and someone looks up and asks, "Dr. Who? And what does this have to do with the OOD discussion?"

All jokes aside, sincere good wishes to your family.

I think we ALL loved the alien thought! ... don't we all feel like we and our kids don't always belong on this planet? lol

I've often wondered if my child isn't a Time Lord, actually...

FYI Heard back from our Dept of Ed complaint. The Director of Pupil Personnel Services was able to totally get the district off the hook. This is why parents who approach things like these complaints, Due Process or mediation without an attorney lose 90%+ of the time.

Through justification, partial truths and outright untruths the conclusion was that there was not enough documentation to require any corrective action. You all have been through this with us but they successfully argued that the hat issue was not raised, that the nurse never failed to follow medication orders, that upon learning that color charts exacerbated DD's anxiety they were immediately removed, etc. Needless to say I am disappointed and discouraged. Also any minimal strands of trust I may have had for this DPPS to do the right thing by DD has gone right out the window. We have an IEP meeting scheduled for next week to continue the discussion of Assistive Technology. Yeah I expect that to go well...

Had a first thought of: wow bummer

then: well at least you know what sort you are dealing with

then: they now need to match what they said to the the Dept of Ed

and finally: They better be extra careful, because even without the dept of ed finding in your favor, anti-retaliation rules should be kicking in and anything untoward could be very high risk for them

With this type of complaint there is only a document review - no hearing or appeal. We had been warned that they have very limited effectiveness and it has to be a very, very clear and specific violation in order to have any effect. (i.e. Your child is supposed to receive speech therapy twice a week but the speech therapist has been on medical leave so he hasn't received therapy for the past 6 weeks.) We therefore didn't expect much in the way of accountability as a result of the complaint. The manner in which the DPPS responded was very telling though.

The biggest lesson that we learned is to file a complaint *immediately* upon discovering a violation if you are interested in accountability. We gave the district enough time to meander through partial solutions. The total effect remains bad for DD but each individual problem had enough of a band-aid solution that the state did not see a need for corrective action.

I'm sorry it didn't work out the way you hoped.

I hope that Zen Scanner is right and they will now see the need to match what they do in the future to what they claimed to the state that they had already done.

This actually reminds me of a speeding ticket that my father contested. The policeman pulled out behind him, and my father drove for a fair distance trying to find a safe place to stop. He not only got a speeding ticket, he got a ticket for trying to "elude" the police. (I have told him that if it ever happens again, he needs to turn on his hazard lights while looking for a safe place so the policeman will know that he has been seen.) He went to court and explained his position, complete with a map showing where the officer pulled out and that there was not a safe place to stop for 3/4 of a mile or something. The officer claimed to have pulled out of a driveway in a different place on the map. The judge threw out the "eluding" ticket but made Dad pay the speeding ticket. Dad was completely mystified about where the policeman said he had been, so he went back and drove the route again. There is no driveway along that whole stretch of road. But so sorry, no appeal, should have been prepared with pictures of the whole route, pay your fine and shut up, old man.

Well DH just came up with a hypothesis. He thinks the district actually got a good scare and now has no doubt that we will follow through on taking actions. He pointed out that DD's situation in school is significantly improved since the day we filed the complaint. She is consistently receiving para support and her enrichment breaks, she is being tested orally and is no longer expected to work to the point of failure before requesting assistance. I was thinking that they managed to manipulate the system and get away without penalty. He pointed out that actually they were forced to take their own corrective action before responding to the complaint. So maybe the 60 day time period for the state to make a decision is actually intended to give the district the opportunity to correct any problems that are raised so the state doesn't have to take action to do it for them.

I don't know if this is the case but at least it's a plausible explanation that makes me feel a bit better. Or maybe I'm just clutching at straws ...