Anonymous wrote:At my child's school, instead of trying to partner with families, the staff seems to have their agendas and work out their game plan/strategy prior to the meeting taking place. We have been rebuked if we comment or have questions. In the end, if we think the staff has not considered all the information available or we are unhappy with the out come, instead of listening and discussing our concerns we always get the challenge "You don't like it, then file for Due Process".
If schools actually had the Burden of Proof that they were providing a Free Appropriate Education for the child, then maybe they wouldn't be so quick to push families into Due Process to resolve disagreements. Such processes are lengthy and expensive for both sides. MCPS would be better off using the funds they spend on legal battles toward supporting kids in Special Education and developing better means of resolving disputes.
This has been our experience as well. During the IEP meeting, the school basically said no to every one of our requests, and refused to consider extensive data provided by us both from examples of school work and from outside, qualified experts.
It got so bad during our IEP, during the umpteenth time we disagreed, I said, "hey, isn't this supposed to be a team decision? are you supposed to be compromising or considering how to address my point of view as a team member?" they threw me the bone -=- "we'll collect more data and talk to you in 6 wks.) because they knew that I had already spent thousands of dollars in advocate and assessment fees just to get to the IEP meeting.
Were burden of proof different, I'm sure that there would have been more compromising going on.
The idea of attorney's fees is nice, but it takes years to pursue a case to that point and meanwhile, you are paying out of pocket.
If you can't afford to front the attorney's fees, the school knows it can do what it wants
If you can afford to front the attorney's fees, the school knows your time is likely too valuable to waste it on them -- you will either place your child privately and pay yourself or spend what money you do have on supplemental therapy.