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I.E.P. Pop-Up - Become empowered, learn the laws and understand your rights to advocate for a communication driven education for your child!

Edu-Speak

Your Child Has School Problems: Who Is To Blame?

Worth the Cost?

A disagreement about whether a disabled 5-year-old boy would get one weekly hour of private speech therapy cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

Note: The above link is no longer available on their website, but if you go to their home page and do a search using 'worth the cost speech therapy' (without the quotes) for all years, you'll come up with a number of articles about this. Their site is set up such that I can't provide you with a direct link to the search.

In a similar story Missed Interpretation, this California case has dragged on for 3 years at a cost equal to the above case.

Abuse Widespread at Schools for the Deaf Nationwide

Advocates Fight for the Right to Help

Delaware is suing to keep experts from representing special education students

I am regarded as a pain in the butt to several of the special ed teachers because I actually take the time to READ their students' IEP's (I teach "regular ed"--whatever that is) and subsequently to follow up with them if the child is experiencing difficulty in my class. When recently inquiring about two male students, I was told, "Oh, don't expect so and so + so and so to do anything in your class...they are the bottom of the barrel in this school. You should just be happy if they don't cause you any discipline problems." !!!!!!!!!! When approaching this same teacher for help with an ADHD student, I'm told, "Oh, just treat him like everybody else." Well, hmmmm...let's see. It seems to me the child has an IEP that says he is NOT to be treated just like everybody else! DUH!! 

Also, I have to add that I feel the program where I received my degree in secondary ed was appalling in that it did not require a single course for regular ed teachers on disabilities of any type. This means that I, the teacher of 180 students, about 20 of which are learning disabled, have no training to deal with those students beyond one summer school class on learning disabilities that I took as an OPTION to my degree. So is it any wonder that (because I actually give a hoot) I need to look for help from the so-called special ed "experts" who are basically selling me down the river and leaving me to fend for myself with these kids?

Try adding to the frustration that half the time I can't even manage to give special attention to the kids who really need it because I spend 99% of my time policing unruly kids and not getting any administrative and/or parental back up!!! 

Note from Listen-Up: We chose to include this correspondence because I get a lot of mail from teachers just like this. They feel ill-prepared to help the child, and they receive little, if any, support from the "experts". In fact, at our last IEP, we were told that state law didn't require that our son's teachers have any prior training or experience in how to help him, that all the school district was required to do was to provide some training for her. They were willing to give her a weekend workshop. Big deal! This letter just points out that this little bit of training the teachers receive doesn't make them feel prepared enough to help these children and what training they receive isn't enough. I've had this feeling expressed to me time and time again from my son's teachers, as well as others. In fact, it wasn't until my son was in the 5th grade that the school district offered any training at all to my son's teachers. Thanks to this teacher for putting these thoughts in writing and allowing us to use them here.

In order to purchase hearing aides or an FM system in NH, you must have a doc's prescription. Also, for children it must be accompanied by a letter stating that the child's hearing will not be further impaired by the use of hearing aides or the FM system. If the school supplies the FM system or the hearing aides, they are exempt from this law.

This was sent to me and I just had to include it here. It was taken from a page of services available at the Louisiana State Capitol. Just who do they think is going to use this audio link; the Deaf or Hard of  Hearing? To make this even more outrageous, the audio portion doesn't even work. But to be fair, they did the same on the section for People with Visual Impairments. Makes about as much sense as a number of other things our tax dollars are spent on.

Update: When we revisited their page, we noticed that the sound file had been eliminated.

I just read in the IDEA News that, "The National Education Association has just published The New IDEA Survival Guide! to help navigate the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. Designed in an easy Q & A format, this resource leads you through scenarios and practical suggestions. Read it free, on-line, or obtain a print copy from NEA for only $6.95. Check it out at: http://home.nea.org/books/idea/"

So, I went to the website to read it. I haven't gotten very far, but was just now stopped dead cold by reading (on the second page):

"IEP meetings can be held at varying times. If necessary, you can ask your principal for release time to attend these meetings. Some best practices include writing release time into the IEP for future meetings, holding IEP meetings during a common planning period, providing substitutes for classroom teachers if the meetings are held during the school day, and providing remuneration if the meetings are held after school hours. Some school districts have contract language that promotes these practices."

WRITE RELEASE TIME INTO THE IEP FOR FUTURE MEETINGS???? This simply confirms what I have always suspected: that teachers (and administrators) think that the IEP is about THEM, not about the child. Where do they find the people who write this? Let's see, would teacher release time for future IEPT meetings be properly placed under "Related Services," or more properly under "Supplementary Aids and Services?" After all, it does relate to the child's placement in general education.

Additionally, there is no mention that the IEPT meeting must be scheduled *with the parents* at a mutually agreeable time and place. Like the teachers' common planning period would fit right in with the parents' work schedule! 

Don't we have enough to deal with trying to develop appropriate IEPs for students, without having to fight against this kind of nonsense?

-CJ