Horrible IEP meeting - I could use a shoulder

[Anonymous]

Maybe the elementary team talked to the middle school people in between the two meetings and the middle school people refused to agree to what the ES people promised, and made them come back to the second meeting with you and renege.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. At this point, we do not have another meeting scheduled. There's no point until I can review the data they used to come to the conclusion they did. Since it's summer, I know it's going to be difficult to get anything done until right before school starts. Which, is unfortunate because he's moving from elementary school to middle school. There were/are school sponsored activities he was to have participated in that are now undetermined. I'll have to make some decisions whether I have enough information or not. And, you know that I have to do so with the idea of being able to demonstrate to an impartial 3rd party that I have been reasonable. I don't want the school to say 'we offered....., you had the opportunity....you chose not.....'. Know what I mean? They suck.

Send the informational letter stating your side of the events and ask for another meeting sooner rather than later. That will require them to respond or else your letter becomes important is defining what happened. No response indicates agreement. Look at wrightslaw for letter templates.

If the IEP has not been signed, then whatever was in force in the prior IEP is what should be happening.

And blind cc the head of special ed for FCPS. That is what got quick responses for us.

Yes, when we went through the process she was called the 'compliance officer'. Call the Merrifield office center and ask. I also called Richmond and put in a complaint with our area's legislative reps.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I want to thank you all, again. You've given me some good ideas to follow through on this. I'm in the process now of writing a letter to capture what happened in the meeting and to provide perspective on my reaction. The writing process is helping me be more dispassionate, clarify my thoughts and document how egregious the school's actions were. I came into the meeting and the draft IEP showed they had already selected service delivery options and hours with no input or discussion with me. What they selected was completely different than what we had agreed to in the previous meeting. Of course, their position is that what they were presenting is just a 'draft', it's a 'proposal'. In all the years I've been doing this, I've never been at an IEP meeting where the service delivery options and hours were already populated. And, they couldn't show me the data that lead them to this conclusion. Oh, I had also asked for a person from the central office to attend (someone with expertise in the area we were discussing). A central office person did not attend, I was not informed a rep would not be there and was told the school team had had 'staffing' (not a meeting, a 'staffing') where that representative had spoken to them. Yeah, they're trying to screw us.

And they wonder why I won't attend an IEP meeting without an advocate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. At this point, we do not have another meeting scheduled. There's no point until I can review the data they used to come to the conclusion they did. Since it's summer, I know it's going to be difficult to get anything done until right before school starts. Which, is unfortunate because he's moving from elementary school to middle school. There were/are school sponsored activities he was to have participated in that are now undetermined. I'll have to make some decisions whether I have enough information or not. And, you know that I have to do so with the idea of being able to demonstrate to an impartial 3rd party that I have been reasonable. I don't want the school to say 'we offered....., you had the opportunity....you chose not.....'. Know what I mean? They suck.

I wouldn't accept this. There is no reason for the IEP team not to reconvene once you have reviewed the data, even if school is out of session. This issue was resolved at the first meeting, they reopened the issue with their "new data" and new proposition: there is no need to wait until September to revisit the issue.

I'm wondering-was your meeting with the elementary team and now in Sept you will be meeting with a different group of people from the middle school?

School is no longer in session. The IEP stops on the last day of school (unless there is ESY) and picks up again on the first day in September. That is clearly stated. If there was an issue of meeting a deadline such as testing for eligibility or an IEP deadline, then it would go to Summer Clinic.

[Anonymous]

I'm very sorry to hear of your frustrating experience, but I am not at all surprised. We finally got the results we had been striving for at a crucial IEP placement meeting last year with the help of an educational lawyer and a recording device. Unfortunately, on our own, without expert help, we could not have achieved the same outcome for our DS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. At this point, we do not have another meeting scheduled. There's no point until I can review the data they used to come to the conclusion they did. Since it's summer, I know it's going to be difficult to get anything done until right before school starts. Which, is unfortunate because he's moving from elementary school to middle school. There were/are school sponsored activities he was to have participated in that are now undetermined. I'll have to make some decisions whether I have enough information or not. And, you know that I have to do so with the idea of being able to demonstrate to an impartial 3rd party that I have been reasonable. I don't want the school to say 'we offered....., you had the opportunity....you chose not.....'. Know what I mean? They suck.

Send the informational letter stating your side of the events and ask for another meeting sooner rather than later. That will require them to respond or else your letter becomes important is defining what happened. No response indicates agreement. Look at wrightslaw for letter templates.

If the IEP has not been signed, then whatever was in force in the prior IEP is what should be happening.

And blind cc the head of special ed for FCPS. That is what got quick responses for us.

Yes, when we went through the process she was called the 'compliance officer'. Call the Merrifield office center and ask. I also called Richmond and put in a complaint with our area's legislative reps.

Not the compliance officer- she was probably at the second meeting. I am talking about the Assistant Superintendent for Special Ed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I want to thank you all, again. You've given me some good ideas to follow through on this. I'm in the process now of writing a letter to capture what happened in the meeting and to provide perspective on my reaction. The writing process is helping me be more dispassionate, clarify my thoughts and document how egregious the school's actions were. I came into the meeting and the draft IEP showed they had already selected service delivery options and hours with no input or discussion with me. What they selected was completely different than what we had agreed to in the previous meeting. Of course, their position is that what they were presenting is just a 'draft', it's a 'proposal'. In all the years I've been doing this, I've never been at an IEP meeting where the service delivery options and hours were already populated. And, they couldn't show me the data that lead them to this conclusion. Oh, I had also asked for a person from the central office to attend (someone with expertise in the area we were discussing). A central office person did not attend, I was not informed a rep would not be there and was told the school team had had 'staffing' (not a meeting, a 'staffing') where that representative had spoken to them. Yeah, they're trying to screw us.

And they wonder why I won't attend an IEP meeting without an advocate.

FCPS sped teacher here--

This should never happen, and your special ed. team should know that--including the PSL. It is one thing for the school team to have thought about and discussed the possible service delivery options they wanted to present to you, but those fields of the IEP should NEVER be filled in prior to the actual IEP team meeting. Also, it is best practice (though not always followed) to send draft goals home at least 3 days in advance of an IEP meeting. It is hard for me to tell how much time had lapsed between the first meeting where the IEP draft was presented and your most recent meeitng to finalize details--could you clarify? If the initial draft had been changed so dramatically, I am very curious as to what data they used to develop the initial set of draft goals, and where the "new" data came from? And of course, why they did not inform you that they were considering a change in the goals and send you a set of the "updated" goals. That should have happened.

Also regarding data, there are some limitations placed on schools as to what they can share--your post does not specify what your child's areas of need are, but for some assessments, like the DRA (a reading assessment) only the scores can be reported--the school is not allowed to share the actual protocols with parents. But they should definitely be able to share the scores with you in some detail for most assessments, including strengths/needs, error patterns, etc. Classwork, tests, quizzes, and writing samples are also reasonable ways to document progress.

If the needs are more about behavioral and/or social issues, there should be a system in place to track progress toward goals. Since behavior is tracked through observation, it is often a challenge to quantify results. I find that using daily or weekly checklists work well, along with some sort of anecdotal notes and (at the elementary level, at least) a way to exchange daily info with the parents. I use this type of chart with many students, and even though I don't often get comments back from the parents, at least I can document that I have shared their child's information and behavioral data on a daily basis throughout the year (the forms go home each day in a folder and are initialed by the parent each night). I keep copies of any data I send home.

I will tell you that this type of support is much more common at the elementary level, mainly because there are fewer teachers involved and it is simply easier to manage. However, middle schools are still required to collect meaningful data, so if your child's issues are in this area you should ask them to share the tools they will be using to monitor progress. They should at least be able to give you an idea of how they will measure behavior.

[Anonymous]

It is hard for me to tell how much time had lapsed between the first meeting where the IEP draft was presented and your most recent meeitng to finalize details--could you clarify? If

OP here. There were 18 business days between meetings - more than sufficient time for the school team. The new 'data' the team had involved teacher notes, teacher made assessments and standards assessements. I'm familiar with not having the details of assessments such as DRAs and am okay with just the scores on those types of assessements. This wasn't one of those cases. There is nothing that could not have been provided to me. The school team wasn't able to provide anything to me other than 'our analysis shows'. I didn't even get a written copy of their analysis nor did they provide me any concrete facts - like on X occasions, Larlo did/scored Y. Nothing. I basically got a 'trust us on this'.

There was also more than sufficient time for us to be notified that a central office specialist would not attend the meeting. It wasn't a case where something came up at the last minute.

[Anonymous]

There was also more than sufficient time for us to be notified that a central office specialist would not attend the meeting. It wasn't a case where something came up at the last minute.

OP again. I just wanted to say that I am understanding of unexpected issues that come up that prevent an IEP team member from attending. When that's happened, I'm given the choice of continuing with the meeting or rescheduling. Depending upon who's absent, sometimes I reschedule, sometimes we meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

School is no longer in session. The IEP stops on the last day of school (unless there is ESY) and picks up again on the first day in September. That is clearly stated. If there was an issue of meeting a deadline such as testing for eligibility or an IEP deadline, then it would go to Summer Clinic.

Instruction stops. The IEP doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you say "you don't believe the data", what do you mean? just want a little clarification.

OP here. I appreciate everyone's good wishes. I've calmed down and had a chance to compose myself. I think what really set me (and my advocate) off is that when we went into the meeting, there was no discuss of data or analysis. The team began with a presentation of goals and service hours that were completely different than what we left with from the last meeting. When we asked why they were changed, the school team said that the data didn't support what we had agreed to previously. We asked to see the data. The school team could only provide the data orally, they did not have the data available for us to review. They had the data, they saw the data and they made a decision that reversed what we had agreed to at the last meeting. It was a fait accompli.

What they're proposing may, in fact, be acceptable. But, without being able to review the data, I can't agree that it shows what they say it shows. This wouldn't be the first time the school team has come to a conclusion that is, in fact, contrary to the data (we've had a number of IEEs and other outside evaluations that supported our interpretation). If they're offering data that contradicts what has been repeatedly documented over the years, they need to be able to show me. and they should have done it first. I learned a long time ago that the system wants to conserve resources and not necessarily do what's appropriate. This isn't my only kid with an IEP and I've seen this over and over again.

So, yeah, I had an emotional reaction. This is why you shouldn't spring something so unexpected on a parent. I can't believe they didn't anticipate how this would be received. How would they have reacted if they were in my shoes and my experience with them?

It was unprofessional and they should have rescheduled the meeting. I think because it was so close to the end of the school year the admin. wanted to get the plates cleared. Never accept recommendations that you don't agree with. I have seen teams try to take services away from kids who still needed the support because they case load was too heavy and they couldn't accommodate that many hours to the student. The system is messed up.