I totally understand how this feels uncomfortable - I've been in very similar situations in meetings with our school and it does feel really uncomfortable. It's important to just remind yourself that if it's feeling uncomfortable, the reason here is that the school staff didn't do *their* job last year - they want to "lay last year to rest" because you have evidence that things were not handled appropriately last year. In this case, with no previous 504, it's perhaps ok for the school to look at this as "a fresh start" - but if the 504 isn't followed or things don't work this year, keep notes and don't be intimidated into not bringing it up at future meetings - learning from what's happened in the past is a very important way of understanding how to provide FAPE to a student who has any type of challenge in the classroom.
Best wishes,
polarbear
Thank you.
For clarification, he did in fact have a 504 last year and the school was out of compliance a majority of the year. I honestly didn't know what to do, and didn't handle it right (made a lot of assumptions, based on previous experience), that ended up being very harmful for my DS.
That was the ONLY reason I referred to "last year." I was trying to make the point that when 504 is not adhered to, some really bad things happen.
I am supposed to immediately report non-compliance. So I already have two reports, for crying out loud! I did not bring those up per se but asked for specific language so I would know what to consider compliance or non-compliance.
My example is: I sent weekly check in last Friday morning and have yet to hear from two of the teachers. I needed to know what a reasonable expectation is and now it's written in the 504 that 24 hours is the expectation.
The thing is--it is not my style to be rigid and I see no reason to report this stuff EXCEPT (and this is a huge exception) if there is critical information that I need about my DS that indicates he is not in good shape, mentally and emotionally.
I have a lot of things to do in my life besides hover over the electronic gradebook and take screenshots to make sure nobody's backdating stuff and make unnecessary reports about insignificant events.
I guess I am frustrated, can you tell? OTOH, I realize a lot of this is just a really steep learning curve and we are making a lot of adjustments as we go on.
Thank you for your help!
