Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional IEP Mtg - Dysgraphia/Writing Accomodations Help.

Is the principal the person who really drives the IEP process at your school? I'm just curious because at our school it was the SPED staff person who was *really* technically in charge, and she would have been the person that would have made the decision re whether or not another meeting needed to be held to make a change in wording of an accommodation. She also reported to a SPED chairperson in the district rather than only reporting to the principal, so I think the district chairperson helped to prevent situations like a principal acting on emotion from getting out of control or acting in a way that wasn't in the district's best interests. I'm just curious if you have a SPED staff person at your school, and if so do you think he/she has any kind of power over this decision, or do you think the principal is simply digging in and wielding his power and there's no changing his mind? If you have a reasonable SPED person, I might just drop in and talk to her or give her a call and ask if this small update to the IEP couldn't be handled via phone calls - we did that for a change in our ds' IEP and it worked fine! (Of course, we didn't have our principal acting as a roadblock).

I'd also ask your advocate what she recommends.

And... I'd do my best to simply ignore the fact the principal is digging his heels in and making mountains out of molehills. Respond to his email per mon's suggestions, and offer up the times *you* (and your advocate) are available to meet - make sure all of the times you suggest are workable times for both you and your advocate. Your principal can't insist that the meeting happen at 8.

I'd also only suggest dates after the next eval comes in, since it's 2 weeks away.

Hang in there - you're really doing a GREAT job of advocating - I'm sorry your principal is being such a bottle neck in the process!

polarbear

ps - don't know how your district is set up, but we also had a team member from our district office sit in on each of our IEP meetings to be sure that the school members followed district policy etc. I don't know for sure if this was routine in our district, or something that happened at our school because our school had been in trouble for violating the spirit and law of IDEA in the past... but if you have a person like that who is sitting in, you might also give them a call and ask if this is really something that warrants a meeting. My gut feeling is that if the SPED team members are ok with the change to the wording, they will be motivated and able to get the change through without a meeting - because I'm guessing that they have more meetings than they can fit into their days to begin with, and scheduling endless meetings over something that could easily be agreed to on the phone isn't high on their agenda, kwim?