... a series of school decisions that we were being put on the spot to accept. Any response along the lines of "We will need to discuss this with DD's psychologist. We will let you know next week" would lead to DPPS stating something along the line of "Let the record reflect that the district has offered/requested [item} and the parents have refused."
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Let the record reflect that the district has offered/requested {item} and the parents plan to respond by {agreed upon date} after consulting with their child's psychologist" would be accurate, meanwhile the district as described seems to be preparing falsified records? Or at best not working in good faith to allow a reasonable amount of time.
Which gives rise to the question - Was an agenda of meeting topics and expectations of decisions to be made at the meeting supplied to you in advance, and with sufficient lead time? (Might the district's position be that parents arrived unprepared to make decisions they had received advance notification of?) It is difficult to tell from the description whether the district was not proactively communicative regarding its evidence/data/position or if they also hid the agenda of topics, timeframes, discussion items, action items, etc. Sounds like the district may be taking an intimidating and indefensible position.
Just commiserating... no real answers here... possibly a cautionary tale...
Organizations tend to be geared toward self-preservation. Not to make excuses for them but unfortunately much of what parents encounter may be based on a teacher's/school's/district's previous negative experiences with other families who've gone before.
Similarly, future families will embark on their own journeys on the road of gifted education for their childrens' sake, and the journey of these future families may be made easier or more difficult based partly upon advocacy efforts of parents today.
Some have shared that when they encountered no-win situations, they left and found other educational opportunities for their children. Unfortunately some organizations may choose to share negative statements about a family with new schools, preventing families from achieving a fresh start for their child/ren even after investing considerable effort in locating a new school which initially presented itself as being a good "fit" and very welcoming.
It is possible that a district which falsifies its meeting records may be inclined to similarly share false negative information about a family, possibly sabotaging or sandbagging the child/ren & family with the new educational institution... creating a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. Is this something attorneys might deal with... reviewing school records and limiting the information which may shared about students/families?
