What is the craziest thing you have been told at an IEP meeting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My personal favorite was the Principal who said my son simply wasn't going to make any progress until he was on medication and there was just nothing more they could do, at the meeting where they found him ineligible for an IEP.

I've gotten the same attitude at a Churchill cluster school. Honestly, is there anyone qualified at the meeting to give a medical opinion on whether or not control substances would be beneficial for your child? There is no value added to the issues at hand by asking if a child is medicated or not and in the PP's case, it seems the IEP team is pushing off the school's responsibility onto a medical treatment they are not qualified to recommend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:vision specialist told me that parents like to think that vision therapy works because "Parents often spend time and money on things just to feel like they're doing something."

teacher here (so not expertise in vision training) but seriously i think it's phooey. training your eyes impacts behavior? not buying it

I can speak to vision therapy for Convergency/Tracking issues. Our daughter was diagnosed this past fall after years of reading struggles (3-4 levels below grade level). My husband was at the evaluation and saw for himself on the screen what we hadn't noticed, that her eyes were focusing on 2 different points and were not tracking together at all from 18 inches in. Her eyes jumped all over the page and it was an enormous effort to read a string of words together in a sentence. It made reading and decoding words a huge struggle for her despite a great deal of tutoring and in-school intervention that had very slow effect. It also affected her class behavior...because she had such a hard time trying to read, she'd give up and want to talk to her neighbor.

She started vision therapy this past fall and has seen a huge improvement in just 6 months with the weekly sessions to retrain her eyes to focus on one point from 18 inches in. She has jumped up 4 reading levels and was at grade level in her last DRA evaluation 2 weeks ago. She failed last year's Reading SOL and just made 465 on this year's Reading SOL. She is almost never is distracted in class anymore. So yes, vision therapy for that issue does work.

I received vision therapy for convergency/tracking issues as a child. I grew up in a European country where it's referred to as orthoptics and it's been an accepted practice for a very long time. I have terrible eyesight compounded with serious astigmatism but didn't have reading issues (that I was aware of at least). Still, our family ophthalmologist detected issues and referred me for treatment (that's the other thing--you go to an ophthalmologist there to get your eyes checked and get a prescription for glasses. Optometrists run the eyeglass store).
I can tell you that although I had no obvious complaints prior to going in, the treatment made a huge difference in my ability to visually focus.

[Anonymous]

When I asked for an informal accommodation (so naive) for my high school DD with severe and sometimes over the top anxiety I was told that her problem was that I failed to practice "tough love" with her and that's how they would address the problem.

I called the ombudsman's office and got the requested accommodation (a change in a class). Her counselor was furious I went over her head and embarked on a campaign of telling all her teachers that there was agreement with me that they should exercise tough love. It got so bad that finally the vice-principal stepped in and took over the role of academic counselor.

[Anonymous]

How many of these previous posts can I put in our experience at a DCPS high school? DC's eligibility was up for renewal this year. Kid is GTLD.

School psychologist made point that DC has no cognitive delays, so is only eligible for 504. Said this in front of our teen who was attending the first ever IEP meeting. She used the discrepancy model - noting DC was testing in the average range and did not need extra instruction, just more time. We had no warning.

Psychologist went on to say that because DC had been tested numerous times - that all the previous evaluators had been wrong and DC has autism. What?!? Kid's been tested by OT, speech language and neuropsych at different times, but not an unreasonable amount. School psychologist knows better than some of the top experts in their field - "I've never heard of them." How about trying Google? Ever hear of auditory processing disorder, dyslexia and dysgraphia?

School sped caseworker told us in the same meeting that DC was "lazy" and "just like other H.S. kids" because DC wasn't getting the enormous amount of HW - with lots of worksheets - completed. DC certainly heard that.

Dear child of mine, you are not failing - the school system is failing you!

[Anonymous]

This school is not for everyone. It' true that your child's grades have been good so far and hi IEP states he will be given extra time and some modification because of his ELL status.
Even though this literature class is not an AP class, the teacher has high expectations so the end of year test was taken from previous AP tests. We could not lower our standards so your student received an "F". Again, this charter is not for everyone...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"My child also has ADHD and medication for her works great. She doesn't need accommodations or special education services." Really? What bearing does your child's situation have on the discussion about my child?

Omg. Heard pretty much the exact same thing from an administrator at almost every single meeting. My child is on spectrum. Administrator's child is very different from mine. Administrator doesn't understand why dc has the accommodations we've added as admin's child doesn't have them. Admin resents every thing we do for our child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"My child also has ADHD and medication for her works great. She doesn't need accommodations or special education services." Really? What bearing does your child's situation have on the discussion about my child?

Omg. Heard pretty much the exact same thing from an administrator at almost every single meeting. My child is on spectrum. Administrator's child is very different from mine. Administrator doesn't understand why dc has the accommodations we've added as admin's child doesn't have them. Admin resents every thing we do for our child.

Can you say to this administrator: "You know Larla, you tell me that at every meeting. Is there a reason you think that's relevant?"

[Anonymous]

Your child only failed a quarter of the class but passed the semester. Therefore the team sees no educational impact.

[Anonymous]

MCPS - "ESY is only for children with critical life skills," coupled with "There is no one to provide those services over the summer but this is a list of private people who can."

I guess MCPS ignores the presence of emerging skills or break through opportunities, significant interfering behaviors, the nature and severity of the disability, or other special circumstances. Also, if they have a list of people qualified to service my child, why can't one of them service my child if that is what my child needs?

[Anonymous]

I have a child with a language/communication disorder so severe that on English Language Proficiency assessments, he scores as Limited English Proficient. This, despite not knowing any other language. He's not proficient in ANY language and he's been in an FCPS school for over 6 years with an IEP and private/school ST. At one of our meetings, a school team member indicated that, in his opinion, my DS's language challenges were an issue. His attentional issues were the problem. I was like WTF?! How do you expect him to pay attention when he doesn't know WTF people are saying!?


Note: If you indicate any language other than English is spoken in the home, the school is required to test the child for English language proficiency. We indicated another language was spoken in our home because my foreign born MIL was living with us. She's fluent in English but would speak her native language with DH, her friends and other family members. All my kids were exposed to it but we only spoke to DS in English and our kids (he's the youngest) only speak English to each other. I don't speak the language.

[Anonymous]

I have a severely impaired child with autism, intellectual disability and (we suspect) a mood disorder. I was told by an administrator from Gatehouse (FCPS) at a particularly contentious placement meeting that she knew how I felt because her child had ADHD. I just stared at her for like a minute while crickets chirped.

[Anonymous]

I had to somewhat chuckle to myself at my son's IEP screening meeting in MCPS. EVERYONE at the table said they had ADHD and they just learned to cope. Our advocate reminded the team it doesn't matter what their personal experiences were growing up and what disabilities they have, the focus of our meeting was the child and the problems the parents and teachers noted in their report.

But seriously, I was thinking, "No wonder this meeting is off topic and so chaotic. The blind are truly leading the blind."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had to somewhat chuckle to myself at my son's IEP screening meeting in MCPS. EVERYONE at the table said they had ADHD and they just learned to cope. Our advocate reminded the team it doesn't matter what their personal experiences were growing up and what disabilities they have, the focus of our meeting was the child and the problems the parents and teachers noted in their report.

But seriously, I was thinking, "No wonder this meeting is off topic and so chaotic. The blind are truly leading the blind."

Oh, you have got to be kidding me!!!

[Anonymous]

Craziest thing I've ever heard at an IEP meeting: Happened twice: the head of SN at FCPS public high school bragged on about her own child with two doctorate degrees. Nice. Made me feel just great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Craziest thing I've ever heard at an IEP meeting: Happened twice: the head of SN at FCPS public high school bragged on about her own child with two doctorate degrees. Nice. Made me feel just great.