Have you ever disagreed with the rest of the IEP team over school or class placement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we've disagreed with the school team. We wanted our DS to either have support in all academic environments or in an SN school. He doesn't need a 1:1 aide but he isn't able to access the curricula in the general ed classroom without support in the classroom. Our request was well supported by years of data. The recommendations in the IEEs we had done went well beyond what we were requesting. The school team discounted the recommendations and proposed continuing what they'd been doing. DS was making progress but at a rate that caused the academic gap between him and his peers to widen further. The school team disputed that you could plot achievement over time and project a trajectory of achievement. They insisted that achievement could only be looked at discretely and not viewed cumulatively.

At various points, I have refused to sign and IEP and, as a PP noted, I signed and then indicated which portion I was agreeing to and which part I was not agreeing with. It was well documented in the notes accompanying the IEP and I referred to it in my partial written acceptance.

In the end, we got to the brink of filing a state complaint. It seems when the school team believed we were serious about it, they did an about face and we got all that we were asking for. I can't tell you how jaded and bitter I am. I put on my game face in the meetings, swallow my bitterness and cynicism - for the most part. Every now and then it surfaces and every now and then I acknowledge that I am a creature of my experiences. Going through this process has taught me a lot and given me some baggage.[/quote]

I too have become jaded and bitter, but I put on my game face. I also don't trust the "players" anymore because I've caught them on too many lies. I don't tolerate bullshit. I keep my calm, but have no problem disagreeing administrators, documenting and being persistent as hell. I think I am very fair and realistic. I only take things farther if I absolutely have to and that seems to do the trick. I am considering getting t-shirts printed up for my IEP meeting attire. On day I'd wear "Don't fuck with me." If I have to come back for more meetings perhaps I'd choose the "Bitch on wheels" t shirt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we've disagreed with the school team. We wanted our DS to either have support in all academic environments or in an SN school. He doesn't need a 1:1 aide but he isn't able to access the curricula in the general ed classroom without support in the classroom. Our request was well supported by years of data. The recommendations in the IEEs we had done went well beyond what we were requesting. The school team discounted the recommendations and proposed continuing what they'd been doing. DS was making progress but at a rate that caused the academic gap between him and his peers to widen further. The school team disputed that you could plot achievement over time and project a trajectory of achievement. They insisted that achievement could only be looked at discretely and not viewed cumulatively.

At various points, I have refused to sign and IEP and, as a PP noted, I signed and then indicated which portion I was agreeing to and which part I was not agreeing with. It was well documented in the notes accompanying the IEP and I referred to it in my partial written acceptance.

In the end, we got to the brink of filing a state complaint. It seems when the school team believed we were serious about it, they did an about face and we got all that we were asking for. I can't tell you how jaded and bitter I am. I put on my game face in the meetings, swallow my bitterness and cyncism - for the most part. Every now and then it surfaces and every now and then I acknowledge that I am a creature of my experiences. Going through this process has taught me a lot and given me some baggage.

Amen, I used to be a huge cheerleader for public education and teachers. Still appreciate most teachers but the *loathing* I feel for the public school administrators who collect fat paychecks to try to screw your kid over cannot be over stated.

Am I the only one who has experienced this phenomenon? The more meetings you have over an (unresolved) issue, the more and more people from school admin (who have never met your child) feel the need to show up and put their 2 cents' worth in? I have been to meetings where it is just me and 20 people from FCPS. I think they bring in people professionally trained on negotiation techniques, not just special ed per se, but just to try to manipulate you. DH thinks I'm getting crazy and paranoid.

Ohhhh yes. What you won't sign you say?????? *ominous music plays in the background* You are going to have to come back for meeting you know, lots of meetings..and there will be more of us! They even drop names and titles of people they will invite. Better sign crazy mom because we all also send emails where 25 people are CCed with all sorts of fancy titles. I then respond CCing all their people, and my peeps....our developmental pediatrician, outside evaluators, the advocate we consult with and Barack Obama (no, just thought it would be funny. Oh yeah...well the president is going to read this. BOOM!") I am considering adding our school board rep to the mix the next time they pull this.

My requests are more than reasonable and well supported by the reports I provide. I consult with multiple experts. You may give me aggravation and aches and pains, but you will not intimidate me.

Honestly, I am not trying to get major placement overhauls. We're talking about thing like increasing OT or something or I want pull-out and they want pull-in. Pull-in is complete bullshit when you have an inexperienced SN teacher who is overwhelmed. The squeaky kid gets the oil and the rest get ignored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just wondering what happens if you can't reach a consensus.

We signed the IEP stating we disagreed with placement. Then we brought in an advocate. She observed in the classroom then drafted an IEP that better addressed his needs. It also necessitated a change to the program he needed.

[Anonymous]

Yes, we disagreed. The school was recommending PAC for our verbal, social child. We wanted to keep her in the non-cat decision. Everyone wanted to move her, we stood our ground. Their PAC had non-verbal aggressive children. No way we were sending her there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, we've disagreed with the school team. We wanted our DS to either have support in all academic environments or in an SN school. He doesn't need a 1:1 aide but he isn't able to access the curricula in the general ed classroom without support in the classroom. Our request was well supported by years of data. The recommendations in the IEEs we had done went well beyond what we were requesting. The school team discounted the recommendations and proposed continuing what they'd been doing. DS was making progress but at a rate that caused the academic gap between him and his peers to widen further. The school team disputed that you could plot achievement over time and project a trajectory of achievement. They insisted that achievement could only be looked at discretely and not viewed cumulatively.

At various points, I have refused to sign and IEP and, as a PP noted, I signed and then indicated which portion I was agreeing to and which part I was not agreeing with. It was well documented in the notes accompanying the IEP and I referred to it in my partial written acceptance.

In the end, we got to the brink of filing a state complaint. It seems when the school team believed we were serious about it, they did an about face and we got all that we were asking for. I can't tell you how jaded and bitter I am. I put on my game face in the meetings, swallow my bitterness and cyncism - for the most part. Every now and then it surfaces and every now and then I acknowledge that I am a creature of my experiences. Going through this process has taught me a lot and given me some baggage.

Amen, I used to be a huge cheerleader for public education and teachers. Still appreciate most teachers but the *loathing* I feel for the public school administrators who collect fat paychecks to try to screw your kid over cannot be over stated.

Am I the only one who has experienced this phenomenon? The more meetings you have over an (unresolved) issue, the more and more people from school admin (who have never met your child) feel the need to show up and put their 2 cents' worth in? I have been to meetings where it is just me and 20 people from FCPS. I think they bring in people professionally trained on negotiation techniques, not just special ed per se, but just to try to manipulate you. DH thinks I'm getting crazy and paranoid.

Ohhhh yes. What you won't sign you say?????? *ominous music plays in the background* You are going to have to come back for meeting you know, lots of meetings..and there will be more of us! They even drop names and titles of people they will invite. Better sign crazy mom because we all also send emails where 25 people are CCed with all sorts of fancy titles. I then respond CCing all their people, and my peeps....our developmental pediatrician, outside evaluators, the advocate we consult with and Barack Obama (no, just thought it would be funny. Oh yeah...well the president is going to read this. BOOM!") I am considering adding our school board rep to the mix the next time they pull this.

My requests are more than reasonable and well supported by the reports I provide. I consult with multiple experts. You may give me aggravation and aches and pains, but you will not intimidate me.

Honestly, I am not trying to get major placement overhauls. We're talking about thing like increasing OT or something or I want pull-out and they want pull-in. Pull-in is complete bullshit when you have an inexperienced SN teacher who is overwhelmed. The squeaky kid gets the oil and the rest get ignored.

Hahahaha!!! Love it!

[Anonymous]

An MCPS Parent Chiming in:

I am astounded at the number of parents who are offered an opportunity to sign the IEP. I haven't been asked to sign an IEP since the first one 10 years ago. My DD's current school has even stooped to changing the IEP AFTER the meeting WITHOUT parental consent and they DO NOT CARE if they are violating state and federal law. The school does whatever they want. If I disagree, the last thing we are offered is an opportunity to put our concerns in writing in the IEP. They have even held IEP/Reevaluation meetings without proper notice and without us being afforded an opportunity to attend.

They take the notes. They lie on the IEP. They withhold data that shows areas of concerns. They do not work towards consensus. Instead they try stacking the deck and the room with enough people and then say you are "out voted" - like that is the purpose of such a meeting. The whole process in MCPS is broken due to the lack of integrity of the administrators who oversee Special Education. It starts at the top and filters down to the school level. Truly, how can the disabled child be afforded a Free Appropriate Public Education through such a rancid system?

[Anonymous]

^Another MCPS parent here. Have seen all of the above, and more. Including:

Parent didn't agree with change of placement decision from School A to School B. MCPS says "we are implementing change whether you agree or not." MCPS sends different bus to home (going to School B). Parent drives child to School A, where principal says "your child is no longer placed at School A, your child must go to School B, and if you don't leave the premises, I'm calling the police."

How's that for RANCID?

[Anonymous]

In MCPS you only sign the first IEP. After that they can make whatever changes they want including placement. You have to go to due process if you don't agree.

In FCPS, parents have to sign every time.

[Anonymous]

That is the most insane thing I've ever heard. What school is this PP?
I really think these principals should not be allowed to act like this.

Anonymous wrote:^Another MCPS parent here. Have seen all of the above, and more. Including:

Parent didn't agree with change of placement decision from School A to School B. MCPS says "we are implementing change whether you agree or not." MCPS sends different bus to home (going to School B). Parent drives child to School A, where principal says "your child is no longer placed at School A, your child must go to School B, and if you don't leave the premises, I'm calling the police."

How's that for RANCID?

[Anonymous]

Yes even though she clearly still has trouble with some things like handwriting which they refuse to worry about until K because "that's not an appropriate milestone"- so even though this is a known problem area for her, they don't want to address it until K at which point it IS a problem, but if they have their way, she will no longer have an IEP and I won't have any way to ADDRESS the problem. She has made a lot of progress and I don't deny it but it seems that the system wants them to make enough progress to be dismissed and not to be fully caught up. I was told by the assistant principal of the elementary school my child will attend (who has never even MET my child but had to attend the IEP meetings) that I was borrowing trouble by "anticipating problems in the future where there might be none."

9:10 here. I am the future YOU! We agreed to drop OT two years ago because DS was 'good enough' for K (he'd also had 3 years of private OT). We really couldn't justify him continuing school OT and we were choosing to battle for school ST services. But, at each IEP meeting (and there was more than 1 per year) we reiterated our concerns about his ability to play the recorder and keyboard. We began teaching DS the recorder before he started 2nd grade (in FCPS they start in 3rd). But because of his fine motor and processing skills, he's having significant problems. Yes, I understand many kids have problems when they start but he's not a beginner and he's well down the path of 'challenge too great to overcome without services/support'. This is not unexpected and not new.

If you read my earlier post, you'll know that I've refused to sign an IEP and have also given 'partial agreement'. When we were in a period where I refused to sign the IEP, I was told FCPS couldn't do an OT evaluation unless there were a signed IEP in place. You read that right! I had it documented in the notes because that's flat out BS and an example of the tactics they use to pressure parents to sign an IEP. Okay, you say you can't do an OT evaluation, I'll invoke my right to an IEE. But, I digress.

Since we know it takes DS longer to acquire skills, his behavior when he's overwhelmed is already well documented and we recognize what path he's on, why not start addressing the problem? Nooooooo. FCPS's position is you can't predict that he'll fail. I mean, he's already refusing to participate in music class and he doesn't pass the tests. But, because their testing has him in the very bottom of the average range (their testing, not the IEE which has him far below average), they don't believe anything needs to be done. Their position is he should fail before taking any action. Then, I was asked, why did you agree to drop OT two years ago. I told them - that we believed that he'd be okay for the next 2 years but that we thought he'd have problems when it came time to the recorder - and he has. I told them what they've taught me is to never give up services. I also told them that I'm screwed if I do and screwed if I don't. If we don't do private therapy, DS falls behind. After all these years of OT and practice with the recorder, DS is at the very bottom of average - high enough not to garner services. Yet, we don't do therapy, DS fails. He'll qualify for services but we have to go through his failure first. They suck.

[Anonymous]

Am I the only one who has experienced this phenomenon? The more meetings you have over an (unresolved) issue, the more and more people from school admin (who have never met your child) feel the need to show up and put their 2 cents' worth in? I have been to meetings where it is just me and 20 people from FCPS. I think they bring in people professionally trained on negotiation techniques, not just special ed per se, but just to try to manipulate you. DH thinks I'm getting crazy and paranoid.


Ohhhh yes. What you won't sign you say?????? *ominous music plays in the background* You are going to have to come back for meeting you know, lots of meetings..and there will be more of us! They even drop names and titles of people they will invite. Better sign crazy mom because we all also send emails where 25 people are CCed with all sorts of fancy titles. I then respond CCing all their people, and my peeps....our developmental pediatrician, outside evaluators, the advocate we consult with and Barack Obama (no, just thought it would be funny. Oh yeah...well the president is going to read this. BOOM!") I am considering adding our school board rep to the mix the next time they pull this.

My requests are more than reasonable and well supported by the reports I provide. I consult with multiple experts. You may give me aggravation and aches and pains, but you will not intimidate me.

Honestly, I am not trying to get major placement overhauls. We're talking about thing like increasing OT or something or I want pull-out and they want pull-in. Pull-in is complete bullshit when you have an inexperienced SN teacher who is overwhelmed. The squeaky kid gets the oil and the rest get ignored.

It's 9:10 again. You're not crazy/paranoid. I've actually been able to dissociate myself from me and admire the technique of the administrator. I've actually learned a lot from them. I'm not so good at putting it into practice at the IEP meetings but it's been a boon to my professional life. I may not apply their negotiation tactics in the IEP meetings but they're also teaching me a lot of other things. Once burned, twice shy. You should see how we wordsmith the notes. I hate those fucking meetings. If they're in the morning, I have to take the whole day off work because I'm too drained afterwards. I wish I could meet you guys for drinks after them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^Another MCPS parent here. Have seen all of the above, and more. Including:

Parent didn't agree with change of placement decision from School A to School B. MCPS says "we are implementing change whether you agree or not." MCPS sends different bus to home (going to School B). Parent drives child to School A, where principal says "your child is no longer placed at School A, your child must go to School B, and if you don't leave the premises, I'm calling the police."

How's that for RANCID?

That's batshit crazy !

I didn't think anyone could top the Kindergartener they kept suspending but this is absolutely insane. Does MCPS just have tons of lawsuits against it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Am I the only one who has experienced this phenomenon? The more meetings you have over an (unresolved) issue, the more and more people from school admin (who have never met your child) feel the need to show up and put their 2 cents' worth in? I have been to meetings where it is just me and 20 people from FCPS. I think they bring in people professionally trained on negotiation techniques, not just special ed per se, but just to try to manipulate you. DH thinks I'm getting crazy and paranoid.


Ohhhh yes. What you won't sign you say?????? *ominous music plays in the background* You are going to have to come back for meeting you know, lots of meetings..and there will be more of us! They even drop names and titles of people they will invite. Better sign crazy mom because we all also send emails where 25 people are CCed with all sorts of fancy titles. I then respond CCing all their people, and my peeps....our developmental pediatrician, outside evaluators, the advocate we consult with and Barack Obama (no, just thought it would be funny. Oh yeah...well the president is going to read this. BOOM!") I am considering adding our school board rep to the mix the next time they pull this.

My requests are more than reasonable and well supported by the reports I provide. I consult with multiple experts. You may give me aggravation and aches and pains, but you will not intimidate me.

Honestly, I am not trying to get major placement overhauls. We're talking about thing like increasing OT or something or I want pull-out and they want pull-in. Pull-in is complete bullshit when you have an inexperienced SN teacher who is overwhelmed. The squeaky kid gets the oil and the rest get ignored.

It's 9:10 again. You're not crazy/paranoid. I've actually been able to dissociate myself from me and admire the technique of the administrator. I've actually learned a lot from them. I'm not so good at putting it into practice at the IEP meetings but it's been a boon to my professional life. I may not apply their negotiation tactics in the IEP meetings but they're also teaching me a lot of other things. Once burned, twice shy. You should see how we wordsmith the notes. I hate those fucking meetings. If they're in the morning, I have to take the whole day off work because I'm too drained afterwards. I wish I could meet you guys for drinks after them.

Crazy/paranoid poster here. I was reading DH this thread and he just reminded me of this one particularly contentious meeting a few years ago. (My DS is 10 and has had an IEP since 3 so...a lot of meetings). There was a social worker there with a "social work" intern. The intern sat next to me. She pulled out a yellow legal pad with "meeting itinerary" across the top. Number 1 on the list: Acknowledge parent's feelings of frustration with process. Number 2: Use "pivot" technique.

I still don't know what the pivot technique is but every once in awhile when DH and I are arguing one of us will shout out "Use the pivot technique, damn it!"

[Anonymous]

I was told in Fairfax, that the "procedural support liaison" only shows up for the top 10% most difficult meetings. So if you meet one, you know your meeting is expected to be difficult.

[Anonymous]

Ha! I had the procedural support woman AND HER BOSS show up once. She was so useless that I was wondering if they were trying to get rid of her.