Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Got a few things off my chest at IEP meeting :)

At today's IEP meeting to discuss adding Assistive Technology to DD's IEP we spent most of our time discussing her current status, especially the fact that her anxiety has come flooding back. (She is back to leaving the classroom several times a day with various somatic complaints.) This gave me the chance to say a few things publicly that up until now I have said only in private conversations. The teacher made clear to all in attendance that she really, truly doesn't get it. (i.e In response to a recommendation that DD be excluded from copying either close up or far away - "But sometimes the class is required to copy something down after the para has left for the day. What am I supposed to do then?") A few things I feel so much better about expressing:

- DD's disabilities don't magically disappear just because the para is not there

- DD's right to services doesn't change just because the para's not there

- We will not allow you to place the responsibility for these accommodations on the shoulders of an 8 year old

- We will never agree to requiring DD to raise her hand in front of her classmates and publicly display her disabilities in order to request accommodations that she is entitled to and is supposed to receive automatically

- Of course there are times that she asks to do things the way her classmates are doing them - she doesn't want to appear to be different

- Yes she formed a very nice 8 or 9 word sentence for the OT in the span of about 8-10 minutes. Compare that to this 3 page story she dictated and had scribed in the same amount of time. It obviously takes all her mental energy to concentrate on forming the letters - there is nothing left for content

- I showed them a completely illegible note she recently wrote herself and asked them to try to decipher it. Whenever they tried to approach the idea of DD doing her own writing I raised it in the air and pointed to it

- No adult in the school has ever picked up on an her anxiety without her reporting a somatic complaint or asking to speak to the SW.

- She does not leave any of her service providers (OT, speech or spec ed) with these complaints - only her regular classroom

- At PT conference last fall the first thing the teacher said was how s-l-o-w DD is putting her things away in the morning despite a dyspraxia diagnosis which means she does everything slowly. Gee I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that she asks to go to the nurse as soon as she arrives at school in the morning. Do you think that just maybe she is getting some sort of message that she's not meeting your standards? That she needs to hurry up? That you are not happy with her??????

As a result of this discussion we did not get very far in addressing the AT needs so we will have to reconvene in 2 weeks. Our consultant thinks today was really important, though, because they are realizing that no matter how hard they try they are just not meeting DD's needs. At a minimum we have already shown a need for a full time para (she currently has one 19 hours per week) and an iPad. We didn't even get to the training needed on the iPad or the prescriptive PE that was recently mentioned. Hopefully they are seeing the writing on the wall about the need for out of district placement.

Will keep you posted.

Pemb, well done. It is an art to demonstrate to all what's really going on, in such a way that they "get it."

Do you know what options will be on the table next? Are you still headed for an OOD placement?

DeeDee

Hurray for good advocacy!

Well done. Hopefully the next steps will go just as well.

Good job! I was very proud of myself the other day, when DD9's teacher called me to discuss her grades. She said that the lowest grade was writing, and I said, "Well, I guess that's not a surprise, since that's the area of her disability." (DD9 has a dysgraphia diagnosis.) You wouldn't believe how fast the teacher backpedaled.

Well done! Those are amazing things to have clarified and hopefully all finally understood after all this time.

Got the "IEP" from the last meeting which was really just the minutes since we are reconvening today to continue. Wouldn't you know it - with the exception of noting that DD doesn't leave her service providers and no adult in the school has picked up on signs of anxiety without DD reporting it - not one of the above mentioned items were included in the minutes. Not one! First item of business at today's meeting will be to amend the record to be sure that they are included.

Is it any wonder all of this is so exhausting and frustrating? And yes, we did record the last meeting and will be recording this one well as well.

They probably didn't get recorded because whoever was taking notes thought they were too complex to write down. Pemb, you are ON IT. Do well today, as you always do.

DeeDee

One of my kids has dysgraphia (though not as severe as your DD's). I understand how frustrating these disabilities can be and how they can get in the way of progress.

That said, and I expect I'll get reamed for this, you seem to be asking for an awful lot. A full-time aide, at a minimum, for your daughter? Plus an iPad? On top of other services?

Maybe I've misunderstood here. Maybe the paraeducator is helping generally in the classroom and isn't focused mainly or exclusively on your DD. If so, I'll back off from my opinion, but honestly, have you considered what all these services are costing the school district, and how they may be taking things away from other kids? Is it possible that they're pushing back because their budget is being strained?

Yes, I know your DD needs help, and I know she has a right to it. But don't there have to be limits? I mean, I would really love to have all this for all of my kids, and we all know that HG+ kids have very special needs, as do kids with disabilities. But there has to be a limit.

In writing this message, I'm thinking not just of your situation, but of countless others just like it around the country, where school districts spend (? hundreds of?) millions of dollars on special ed services for a very small number of kids and force sacrifices on others. Schools don't have an infinite amount of money.

Yes, I agree that there is a lot of administrative waste, etc. in schools. I am always complaining about how schools mis-spend their money. I also understand that her teachers may not fully understand how to help her.

But a full-time paraeducator costs around $25,000 per year. For one student? Plus OT, speech, special ed, and an iPad? Again, I know I won't be very popular here for saying this, but to me at least, with an aide for 19 hours a week (out of what, 30 hours of classroom time? Less when you consider PE and non-academic subjects?), it sounds like your daughter is already getting a lot.

Our district staff purposely didn't write things into minutes that they didn't want in the minutes. Not saying that to be cynical, but just for parents reading this to be aware it does happen sometimes. If it didn't, I doubt that there would be so many suggestions in places like wrightslaw etc to record meetings

polarbear

ps - the way we dealt with the issue of items not appearing in the minutes was for us (parents) to write our own summary of what was discussed at the team meetings right away after the meeting was over, then send it via email to all the team members and ask if the members agreed this was what was said. That gave them the chance to disagree with something they'd insisted on during discussion but didn't want to put in writing because it was either not legal, untrue, against district policy, or was bullying - which sadly did happen at our meetings.

Well we started the meeting with our corrections to the previous minutes. ALL of them. They said that the minutes were meant to be a summary not a verbatim recording. I countered with "Yes, but we will not accept that you accurately record the district's position on each of these issues but choose not to include the parents input. This is important because at some point what happens during this meeting may become part of an official proceeding. We need to be sure the record is accurate and not simply whatever the district chooses to present." Yeah - that set the tone for the meeting.

I remained calm and respectful but called the teacher on everything. After a 30 minute discussion (which was a follow up on the 20 minute or so discussion that we had at the end of the last IEP meeting) about how to word the accommodation that DD should be excluded from "near or distance copying" the teacher pulled out a sample worksheet that she called "fill in the blank" to ask how much writing DD could be allowed to do on something like that. After talking about percentages and number of words I finally got to look at the page. It had a word bank on top - it was not fill in the blank - it was actually a near point copying task. EXACTLY what we had already spent an inordinate amount of time discussing. I used this as an opportunity to reiterate about the pattern of on-going IEP violations, DD's right to have access to the full curriculum not a watered down version, that her 99%+ scores were not consistent with a child who would be unable to complete 2nd grade work if she was properly accommodated, etc. I have to admit I was a bulldog. A respectful bulldog but a bulldog nonetheless.

At the end of the meeting the district decided to authorize 4 more evaluations and convert her part time para to a full time para. We did not request any of this - it is their effort to try to meet her needs. Yes Val they are spending a lot of money on our DD. We had been picking up some of the cost initially but once the principal decided to violate her IEP and started take actions to intentionally antagonize her anxiety we decided to hold the district accountable. If DD needs a service and is entitled to it they provide it. It would be illegal not to. Frankly we believe that when all is said and done it will be less expensive for them to pay for the out of district placement we want than to try to duct tape together this hodgepodge of expensive services. That is the reality.

I wish DD didn't need any of these services. If it weren't for the disabilities we would be paying out of pocket for private school tuition to have her in the educational setting we want for her. The district stopped us from doing that at the time she was identified. They were the ones who pointed out her need for services and insisted that she had to be enrolled at a public school to get them. I didn't make the rules but I am playing by them.

It's very difficult when her disabilities are so severe. I just want to caution you that if a one-page fill-in-the-blank test is still problematic at age 8, the District may be heading towards putting her into a small special education classroom where they will argue that all her needs may be better met at least for part of the day.
At least from my investigations/visits many years ago of a couple of special schools marketed to 2E students, your DD may still have problems even there. Some kids really need one-on-one instruction and homeschooling.

Thanks MoN and Quantum. We are pushing for Assistive Technology being the best thing for her. Yesterday I made the point that voice-to-text would be the best bet to get her independent immediately with a goal of building keyboarding skills. As of now they have done nothing. Nada. Zilch in terms of trying to get her independent. Neurotypical kids in other districts receive technology instruction starting in kindergarten as part of their regular curriculum. We have been raising holy he!! for a kid that desperately n-e-e-d-s it and have gotten nowhere. It would be way, way less expensive to get her up to speed on these skills than to hire a para but they have chosen not to. DD would do great with one-to-one instruction but I cannot believe they would try to argue that this verbally gifted, extremely social child should be placed in special ed classroom set up for the most low functioning children in the school. No way could they argue that was the least restrictive environment. Could they really?

We met with the folks at a 2E school recently who seem to think that they can meet her needs. I think she would be the 6th kid in her classroom (max of 10) with 2 teachers - a gifted teacher and a special ed teacher. All math done by the math specialist, all reading by the reading specialist. OT/PT/SLP/Psychs on staff. Very, very individualized. All kids are issues an iPad starting in kindergarten. That is the placement we will be asking for when all is said and done. We will have to see what the district offers.

Needless to say DD's situation is very, very challenging for all concerned. Having a teacher who doesn't get it, and doesn't even get that she doesn't get it, along with a principal who it totally unqualified for her job and has gone out of her way to make a difficult situation even worse changes the game. The gloves come off.

I hope you don't mind my asking but what is out of district placement?

Although this is an old thread, I want to emphasize for current and future readers, that it is SO important to uphold truth, and hold the school accountable. Glad you nipped the school's practice in the bud, and got the minutes corrected, before their falsification of records went any further. Documentation matters. Kudos.