Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Advice on setting the stage with an iffy IS

Help me out here:

DD10 is on the first year of an IEP for disorder of written expression and a reading disability. After a rough start last week with pull-out Wilson, things seem to be humming along. It got off badly because the IS launched into her standard speech about how it's ok not to be a good reader yet. DD reads. Very well. Not the problem. That situation is now smoothed over, and the IS seems to be hitting it right down the middle of where she needs to be given DD's talents and personality.

DD also has a push-in IS to work on the writing goals, 90 minutes a week, with 2 other kids in the room getting services from the woman at the same time. I'm hearing from other parents that this IS is passive aggressive about enforcing the IEP accommodations, has low expectations, teaches on instinct rather than best practices, and she expects kids to be "self-directed learners" on the areas covered by the IEP.

DD's goals are about a mile higher than the school's ever written for IEP goals before, as the goals are tied to her present levels of performance. In short, we've got a pretty good 2e document, recognizing DD's extreme verbal abilities. DD already meets low grade-level expectations. She'll move to middle school gifted language arts next year, which has closer to high-school level writing expectations. That's the IEP's target, not grade level.

We've established that teaching however the teacher feels like teaching doesn't work. That's what the school did for K-4 for DD, and DD ended up on an IEP as a result. Teaching on instinct isn't going to work. DD needs the multi-sensory approach outlined in her IEP.

DD is not self directed when it comes to her writing goals. Simply put, they're hard. She will need to be motivated.

As I was triple booked for back-to-school night, I didn't meet her last night. Instead I have an appointment with her Friday after school.

Given the above, yet recognizing that at this point I'm mostly working on hearsay (but independently from 3-4 parents of not-dissimilar kids), any suggestions on how to address this meeting to get off onto the right foot?

I have a ds10 who is HG and dyslexic. He's a good reader, but like your dd, writing is extremely difficult for him. First, I'm impressed your school is even addressing the writing problem. My son has accommodations, but no remediation, so we're hiring a tutor this year in writing.

I think my strategy at the meeting would be to ask her directly how she's working with your dd on writing and follow up by asking how that fits in with the research-based program. Ask what the plan is to meet the measurable goals. Tell her you'll want a check-in every 6 weeks. Basically, put her on notice that you're an involved parent who knows what to ask for. I would also try to work in the fact that you know "best practices" are to be used in the "research-based" program, and you're very interested in making sure that happens for your dd.

I would also make sure to bring cinnamon rolls to the meeting, with enough extra to go into the teacher's lounge after your meeting!

Good luck!

Thanks, syoblrig. That's helpful.

Yes, we are very lucky to have all this extra help and support. It sadly comes on the backs of several years of misdeeds by the school administration, leading to a complaint to the state department of ed over violations of Child Find and IDEA. The previous principal and district-level administrator would lie to parents and bully teachers to withhold services. The district, and this school in particular, are now under supervision of the state. I suspect DD is being viewed as a guaranteed success so they can prove they're doing right by students. And the school is truly headed in a new direction with 100% new administration in place, and the hiring of several well-trained new ISs. This IS is a hold over from the previous regime.

Hi, Geo,

GAH! on the "ok that you can't read" speech. That must have been such a boost for DD's confidence and ego.


Oh, my. The self-directed piece sounds especially peculiar, but it all sounds challenging.


The separate meeting is the way to go, in any case. This kind of substantial work can't be done at back-to-school night IMO.

Some thoughts.

--How clear is the IEP about what teaching methods are to be used and what goals accomplished during the push-in time? If they are specified, that is helpful, and you can discuss implementation of the one or two you find most important. If not, you will have some work to do if you feel DD has to be taught a certain way. Only what's in the IEP is mandated. You can always call another IEP meeting and revise the document if you feel that what's happening is not working, but you do have to give the IS some startup time.

--You will want the IS to feel respected for her professional expertise even as you probe for her methods. "How are you approaching [difficult issue no. 1?] We'd like to make sure we tackle homework the same way for the sake of consistency." "What language do you use to instruct about [difficult issue no. 2]?" Sound like a learner.

--You can offer some info like "We have found in the past that [specific useful motivation strategy] has worked well for DD, especially if we tie it to [kind of praise or whatever]" but you can't insist that she use the info. IME the worst teachers don't usually care what works well in other contexts, they are going to do what they do.

--You could theoretically ask how she is planning to take data, although I would proceed with caution there: this may make her defensive; some ISs are good at taking data, many are not. But it is also part of the IS's job, because the IEP is a data-driven document, and to show that it is working there must be quarterly data on the student's progress. More conciliatory would be that you can ask to check in with her informally every 6 weeks to check in on the progress. It's unlikely that the data would be aggregated or even taken more than once per quarter, but she should be able to show you work samples.

If you have an advocate, it is viewed as less pushy (for some reason) to have the advocate ask about data than to be a parent who asks about data. I think this is silly, but there it is.

--You could request regular communication via email or some other means. Again, some teachers find this intrusive, and if it's not specified in the IEP that you get it, she may give you a hard time about it. The best ISs have been in regular communication with us voluntarily, and seen us as an extension of their team, knowing that we back up their work at school with our work at home.

--For backup: You will want to build bridges with the regular classroom teacher(s), because that person is going to be there the rest of the time when this IS is not, and if they are dedicated enough they may be able to make those goals happen with or without the IS's help. (Technically, everybody's responsible for your DD meeting her goals, even though that IS is supposed to do the push-in part.)

If the whole teacher team is working on the issue together, using a coherent system, that may do the most for DD in any case. You may find that the other IS (the one who is with the program now) can be helpful in educating other teachers (nicely, professionally) about a key issue or two and asking them be watchful for it and act on it. A good IS can be a really great professional liaison with the rest of the school staff. I wouldn't use the push-in IS that way until you trust her, obviously...

Sorry if that wasn't coherent. Lots to think about there.

DeeDee

It did actually give her confidence a boost. We've discussed at length at home that there are so many moving parts this year (she has 9 teachers, 2 schools, an aide, and a bus driver), that if she thinks *anything* is getting dropped/forgotten/misunderstood, she should speak up immediately. She did, and I addressed it quickly (indeed, on the spot as we were still at school). She witnessed adults figuring out the problem and addressing it. Overall, this was positive, though DD and I were both pretty angry for a few days.
Indeed. I made the choices of where to go last night strategically. The time conflict made for an easy way to schedule a proactive conference.


It just says "multi sensory (e.g. finger tapping, ...) This is probably the weakest part of the document.

I was indeed planning on asking for an explanation of what those methods mean, as this is honestly all new to me. So I guess my instincts were pretty good in going in asking for an education.

On the data collection, I honestly don't understand how the non-academic data is supposed to work, so again, I will be going in asking for an education. Seriously, how do you take data on getting bullied? It should be prevented, not counted. I can tie that to the more straight-forward writing data.

On motivation, I think I know how to do this for DD, but it will involve walking her through the details of the IEP, something we haven't gotten around to. I guess that's on the agenda for the weekend.


Thanks for this reminder. Her language arts teacher isn't her homeroom teacher, but so far he seems on the ball. He's viewing DD as a kid he wants to set free from these struggles while stretching her on her strengths. There are just lots and lots of adults to manage. One little snafu (DD missed math Monday) led to an email cc'd to 12 people!

I think that you have gotten some great suggestions. I also find that it is helpful to put it all in writing after you have had one of these meetings. I try to do this informally, usually through email. I would let her know that you plan to send an email confirming what you discussed. I usually phase it as "I just want to make sure that we both heard the same thing." I usually include my "responsibilities" as well, such as "I know that you have a lot on your plate. I will send you an email when we get close to conferences to let you know what we are seeing at home and to remind you about the extra data so we both can be prepared for the meeting." Once I have agreement from the person, I let them know that I will send out a copy of the email correspondence to the team so that we can all be on the same page. I've found that if I tell people what I am going to do, i.e. send out emails, they tend to be less defensive and don't perceive them as an attack.

Well, it went about as well as I could have hoped. I went in and pulled out the IEP and a notebook, wrote the date and her name at the top of the page. She was pretty defensive to see me pull out the IEP, and I brushed it off as "Oh yes, of course, but parts of this document are so complicated for me that I have to have it right in front of me to have a conversation about it." It was then quite useful to have out in front of me so that I could show her DD's present levels of performance (spelling at syllable juncture stage, see that? Oh yes, of course, so substituting spelling words with one syllable, short vowel words isn't useful. Yes, I know that's where she is in Wilson. How will simpler spelling words support her learning and support her in meeting these goals?)

She showed me DD's notebook where they'd had 20 minutes to free write. DD wrote one sentence. So we discussed anxiety, prewriting, goals, deadlines, expectations. "You know, her summer tutor found that DD would produce quite a bit of free writing if she said that she needed to write 10 lines in the next 20 minutes."

I think the closest to multi-sensory instruction DD's going to get is to use graphic organizers. Sigh. I've asked that writing on the Neo not be an option until after DD is comfortable with it.

The low expectations are going to be a continual problem. Thankfully, the LA teacher does not have low expectations. I brought up a few times the writing expectations of gifted 6th grade LA. She waved it off as an unreasonable expectation, at the same time noting the DD's giftedness is highly unusual. From there I was able to help be a bit more productive in brainstorming with her how to get to where DD needs to be.

She had no background on why her IEP spells out that the team (led by her) will collect data on DD's "social and emotional needs." I outlined the bullying. I was clear: It starts in November. It gets REALLY BAD in January and February. DD has internalized that it's just the way it is because she's different (gifted). Of course when put that way, she was appropriately appalled.

We'll see. She's committed to me to send an email update by next Friday on how implementing the brainstormed ideas appear to be working.

I just sent an email thanking for all her time and outlining the strategies.

Geo, sounds like you laid some good groundwork. You certainly can't fix an iffy teacher in one meeting.

If you think this IS isn't going to rise to the occasion, can you meet with the LA teacher and talk about your DD, just to get her perspective, make sure she knows what the challenges are, see if you can get her on board with some of the multi-sensory strategies (the ones that would really benefit all the kids), and get her watching for the bullying? Pick the most important things, and see if LA teacher will help get your DD ready for the MS language arts program? You need someone to take responsibility for bringing her up to that bar.

Or is there a gifted teacher who could help with some of that?

The good thing about your DD having 9 teachers (!!!) is that if one of them isn't that great, the other 8 can still likely get her where she needs to be-- if they understand her needs.

DeeDee