Raise your hand if an administrator has ever lied to you or used gaslighting...

[Anonymous]

And if so....was it the last straw that led you to hire an advocate or lawyer? I really try to avoid using either,but if we can't make progress or if I catch a complete lie or get gaslit it just tells me no matter how many buzzwords they use this is not a real team, it is not collaborative and my trust has gone out the window. Curious if others feel the same way.

The times people are just honest with me, even if mistakes are made I am more than happy to move on. Once I catch a lie, all bets are off I know this person does not have integrity and a real interest in doing right by those with special needs.

[Anonymous]

Many many times and the worst was when they weren't consistent with anything they said.

Sadly, we just gave up and removed the IEP as we knew we weren't going to get any help or services from them without hiring an advocate or suing and financially it made more sense to spend that money on services.

However, because you are feeling this way, you are posting here asking, and you don't feel your child's needs are met, hire an advocate now. I wish we did it early on but for our child's needs it wasn't worth fighting but for most people it is worth fighting especially for the long term.

And, document everything.

[Anonymous]

I really didn’t have issues with administrators or with many people really. But there was a teacher that just wasn’t honest and there were a handful of people who didn’t think my kid should/would graduate from HS and I got exhausted from their negativity. The hard work was mine at that point to make sure my kid finished but I would have appreciated if they had shut their mouths while I persevered on.

Sorry you’re having issues.

[Anonymous]

I have had an assistant VP confess to me when she was retiring that she hated what the principal did to SN families. A teacher once gave me the inside scoop on her way out too. I think there are a lot of people who care who get their wings clipped if the person at the helm doesn't have the best intentions.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I have had problems from FCPS in Child Find all the way to my 2E kid now being in High School.
Just had a problem 1-1/2 weeks ago with an administrator at my kid’s high school. They grossly violated my kid’s privacy and messed up, but no apology or admitting fault. In fact, when the administrator found out….the first thing they did was call the superintendent not parents.
It’s pretty obvious FCPS has very little concern for any students with disabilities.

[Anonymous]

When they started calling and asking me to pick up my DS multiple times in the middle of the schoolday. I asked what could they do to help mitigate sending him home, so we could avoid learning loss, and was met with crickets and clown honks. If you ever go the advocate route, try to pick someone who's taught in your county. Makes it much harder for an AP to lie and say the county won't do xyz.

[Anonymous]

I actually had an admin tell me it was her choice whether the IEP was followed like she was the queen. I said "it's a legal document" and she said, "no, it's not." We hired an advocate and she learned.

[Anonymous]

At our DCPS, this is a description of the IEP coordinator.

She is known for not serving children and gaslighting parents. I wish I had recorded meetings - even if just for my personal notes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our DCPS, this is a description of the IEP coordinator.

She is known for not serving children and gaslighting parents. I wish I had recorded meetings - even if just for my personal notes.

A tape recorder on the table keeps everyone honest.

[Anonymous]

When they refused to even evaluate my child despite clear and severe behavioral issues related to his disability, and then tried to claim the 504 was “just as good as an IEP - why do you even want an IEP?”

I hired an advocate immediately and it was the best decision.

[Anonymous]

We asked a supervisor to sit in on our meeting after the school lied to us. You'd be surprised how much they want to save face when their colleagues are there.

[Anonymous]

The principal in our IEP meeting for my extremely athletic dyslexic child said, “are you sure he can’t read because he’s dyslexic it might just be that he is a jock”.

The reading specialist’s jaw hit the floor. We left the school. His son was not athletic and the same age. He had a chip on his shoulder.

My son is a D1 athlete at a great college, his son (btw because I know his wife socially) is also doing amazing.

But WTF!

[Anonymous]

Nope. But we moved to be inbounds for a school cluster that had a great reputation for caring with students with IEPs. Got the IEP in K without a hitch, and accommodations as needed.

The issue is that resources are stretched thin and even though everyone is willing to do what it takes, there just aren't enough special ed teachers, SLPs, etc, to see to everyone's needs. And that's where it gets dicey, since the most needy students get the most resources, and parents of students who are less afflicted feel either forgotten or worse, deliberately lied to. In our elementary, middle and high school systems, where I volunteered for years, I saw it wasn't a question of purposeful stonewalling at all, but a systemic lack of resources, despite great efforts by the administrators to hire more people.

The caveat in my rosy description is dyslexia. For some reason I cannot fathom, dyslexia is not well addressed in public school. It should be the one BEST addressed, since it's so common! The Principal of our elementary school has dyslexia, and despite the absence of that learning disorder in the IEP system, she did what she could for these students, which included bundling them in "Other Health Impairment" and hiring an excellent SLP, the best one my son ever had. But I've heard horror stories of students with dyslexia not receiving desperately-needed services at their home schools, with less-informed administrators and IEP teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our DCPS, this is a description of the IEP coordinator.

She is known for not serving children and gaslighting parents. I wish I had recorded meetings - even if just for my personal notes.

A tape recorder on the table keeps everyone honest.

We were fortunate - we did not tape record - but we sent meeting minutes.
I think if I had a tape recorder, people never would have said - "We are not providing FAPE"

[Anonymous]

We secretly taped. Yes, it's illegal in some states but we did it anyway and I later referenced it simply by saying I could prove that the IEP coordinator had lied. i left it to their own devices to figure out how I could. It's illegal only if used in court.