I feel like my relationship with my kid's IEP team often become adversarial

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of these disgruntled teachers would even have jobs if it wasn't for our kids.

Not true at all. If you sent your DC to private or homeschooled, the teachers would still have jobs, and their jobs would be much easier. As rewarding? Maybe, maybe not.

With that attitude towards children with special needs, good luck on your evals this year. You sound like your Praxis scores were low.

I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent. And I'm aware of how obnoxious/disruptive/unenjoyable my DC can be. I'm grateful for the teachers who are willing and able to look past that (it hasn't the majority of them).

Some of the posts on this thread are discouraging in their animosity and aggressiveness.

Some parents have had to deal with things like a team not allowing a 1 on 1 for a child with severe autism, and not conducting an FBA when a child had behavior issues and illegally sending them home instead. As long as nobody's getting verbally abusive to school staff, it's ok to not be warm and fuzzy during an IEP meeting. I think as women, we can have complexes with this sometimes.

Most teachers are women. No, you should be respectful.

And ok, how about parents who hit their kids stomach and send them to school saying the staff did it?
The kid who told me their parents beats them with a belt at home cause they are ‘retarded’ anyway.
Parents who refuse to call their child autistic instead of saying ‘has autism?’

Don’t act like all parents are good and want the best. Some teachers are god awful but so are some parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hiring an advocate has been such a huge help to us. It’s hard to feel like a full member of the “team” when you don’t know every policy and option. I also think having a third party in the room helps both sides watch their words - know it isn’t a financial option for everyone but if you can make it work it’s been a game changer. Both school and central office staff said and did some outrageous things in meetings before we had an advocate.

What is the approx cost of an advocate? An advocate and a lawyer are different right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of these disgruntled teachers would even have jobs if it wasn't for our kids.

Not true at all. If you sent your DC to private or homeschooled, the teachers would still have jobs, and their jobs would be much easier. As rewarding? Maybe, maybe not.

With that attitude towards children with special needs, good luck on your evals this year. You sound like your Praxis scores were low.

I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent. And I'm aware of how obnoxious/disruptive/unenjoyable my DC can be. I'm grateful for the teachers who are willing and able to look past that (it hasn't the majority of them).

Some of the posts on this thread are discouraging in their animosity and aggressiveness.

Some parents have had to deal with things like a team not allowing a 1 on 1 for a child with severe autism, and not conducting an FBA when a child had behavior issues and illegally sending them home instead. As long as nobody's getting verbally abusive to school staff, it's ok to not be warm and fuzzy during an IEP meeting. I think as women, we can have complexes with this sometimes.

Most teachers are women. No, you should be respectful.

And ok, how about parents who hit their kids stomach and send them to school saying the staff did it?
The kid who told me their parents beats them with a belt at home cause they are ‘retarded’ anyway.
Parents who refuse to call their child autistic instead of saying ‘has autism?’

Don’t act like all parents are good and want the best. Some teachers are god awful but so are some parents.

Please tell me you reported those parents who beat their child with a belt to CPS. No one deserves to live like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of these disgruntled teachers would even have jobs if it wasn't for our kids.

Not true at all. If you sent your DC to private or homeschooled, the teachers would still have jobs, and their jobs would be much easier. As rewarding? Maybe, maybe not.

With that attitude towards children with special needs, good luck on your evals this year. You sound like your Praxis scores were low.

I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent. And I'm aware of how obnoxious/disruptive/unenjoyable my DC can be. I'm grateful for the teachers who are willing and able to look past that (it hasn't the majority of them).

Some of the posts on this thread are discouraging in their animosity and aggressiveness.

Some parents have had to deal with things like a team not allowing a 1 on 1 for a child with severe autism, and not conducting an FBA when a child had behavior issues and illegally sending them home instead. As long as nobody's getting verbally abusive to school staff, it's ok to not be warm and fuzzy during an IEP meeting. I think as women, we can have complexes with this sometimes.

Most teachers are women. No, you should be respectful.

And ok, how about parents who hit their kids stomach and send them to school saying the staff did it?
The kid who told me their parents beats them with a belt at home cause they are ‘retarded’ anyway.
Parents who refuse to call their child autistic instead of saying ‘has autism?’

Don’t act like all parents are good and want the best. Some teachers are god awful but so are some parents.

I never said to be disrespectful. I hope you aren't teaching ELA with that reading comprehension. It's perfectly okay to not be smiles and sunshine if a team wants to put up roadblocks to needed services, as a prior teacher in the thread admitted her admin would instruct her to do before meetings. The fact that you can compare a parent not simpering in your face to brutal child abuse says everything about your mindset...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hiring an advocate has been such a huge help to us. It’s hard to feel like a full member of the “team” when you don’t know every policy and option. I also think having a third party in the room helps both sides watch their words - know it isn’t a financial option for everyone but if you can make it work it’s been a game changer. Both school and central office staff said and did some outrageous things in meetings before we had an advocate.

What is the approx cost of an advocate? An advocate and a lawyer are different right?

My advocate was $150 an hour. Someone posted a few weeks ago that a lawyer they used had a several thousand dollar retainer.

[Anonymous]

Yellow pages for kids is an advocate and lawyer directory that's part of the Wrightslaw website. Highly recommend browsing there.

https://www.yellowpagesforkids.com/help/md.htm

Pathfinders for Autism has an autism specific directory.

https://pathfindersforautism.org/business-directory/wpbdp_category/advocacy-and-legal/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: But I’ve never seen a parent ever, ever gain anything by complaining to a school. SN or not. Schools hate demanding parents and there’s no upside to being a pain in their backside.

So set demands low, be realistic, be kind, and they tend to like you better and meet your (low) demands. But it’s better than going in with fists up, making lots of demands and getting nothing out of the,, but teachers and admin who now hate your kid. I have friends who have gone through that.

NP here. As parents, we "make demands" everytime we advocate for our child. We advocate because no school team, however well intentioned, sincere, or capable, knows everything about providing FAPE for our child. Speaking for myself, if bringing concerns to the attention of our child's school -- in a respectful yet firm manner -- is "complaining," then so be it. Our kids deserve nothing less. If you don't think you can do this yourself without putting your "fists up," or have a need to be "liked," then put it in writing and/or get a professional advocate. If the school says no, it's not "complaining" to insist that the disagreement be documented on the PWN, that your position be included and your reasons that the law supports your position.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key thing to understand is that just because something is on paper doesn't mean the issue is resolved. There is also a limit to what overburdened public school teachers can provide. Lip service can be paid and administrators just want you to stop bothering them.

Accomodations can be made but the responsibility and effort must come from the student and parent part of the triade as well.

I cannot tell you how many meetings I attended where the expectation was that the teacher carry the student through to graduation.

What the hell does that even mean? The school system my kid attends constantly tries not to provide the accommodations because so many teachers are 99.9% ignorant about disabilities and think they know better. Every single year kid encounters at least one teacher who thought they could refuse to follow the iep. My kid learned to speak up and still got treated horribly by some teachers. They tried to sabotage accommodations that were simple and cost little and required few resources.

I'm sick to death of the comments that all seem to be along the lines of "we don't have enough staff to manage the school so those slow kids with ieps will have to give up all expectation of us following IDEA." This is just discrimination against people with disabilities. You assume people with disabilities are less than so, of course, you want to jettison all help for them at the first perceived sign of distress within the school system.

I have dealt with my school system for over 10 years and I have never seen a parent expecting a teacher to "carry" a student through to graduation. Explain what that even means. You are one of those teachers who is clueless and probably not that talented as an educator but you have strong opinions despite your ignorance. we all hope our kids never have to deal with you.

Foam at the mouth all.you want.

And school employee, comments like yours is why special needs parents justifiably do not trust any of you.

DP And that’s fine, we can just fight and the student is the one who suffers. Have fun losing in court, I never lose.

I hate parents like this. All I want to do is help kids and families but then I get crazy parents who think I need to jump through hoops to build their trust. And ugh it’s even worse when they are non-POC and then racists on top of it.

You try to claim you have the student in mind while threatening that you never lose in Court. I hope you have to spend all your time in due process challenges and you get you eventually get the loss you so richly deserve.

The parents who have sued my school have never deserved free private and that’s the truth. I have gotten students private myself (and of course with the help of the whole team) when I know my school can’t meet their needs. Sorry to disappoint, I won’t lose. I will not back down when it is a case of PRIVILEGE and not NEED.

I get it. If you disagree with parents, they are “privileged” rather than honestly trying to help their children. You are exactly why special needs parents do not trust the motivations of IEP team members.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key thing to understand is that just because something is on paper doesn't mean the issue is resolved. There is also a limit to what overburdened public school teachers can provide. Lip service can be paid and administrators just want you to stop bothering them.

Accomodations can be made but the responsibility and effort must come from the student and parent part of the triade as well.

I cannot tell you how many meetings I attended where the expectation was that the teacher carry the student through to graduation.

What the hell does that even mean? The school system my kid attends constantly tries not to provide the accommodations because so many teachers are 99.9% ignorant about disabilities and think they know better. Every single year kid encounters at least one teacher who thought they could refuse to follow the iep. My kid learned to speak up and still got treated horribly by some teachers. They tried to sabotage accommodations that were simple and cost little and required few resources.

I'm sick to death of the comments that all seem to be along the lines of "we don't have enough staff to manage the school so those slow kids with ieps will have to give up all expectation of us following IDEA." This is just discrimination against people with disabilities. You assume people with disabilities are less than so, of course, you want to jettison all help for them at the first perceived sign of distress within the school system.

I have dealt with my school system for over 10 years and I have never seen a parent expecting a teacher to "carry" a student through to graduation. Explain what that even means. You are one of those teachers who is clueless and probably not that talented as an educator but you have strong opinions despite your ignorance. we all hope our kids never have to deal with you.

Foam at the mouth all.you want.

And school employee, comments like yours is why special needs parents justifiably do not trust any of you.

DP And that’s fine, we can just fight and the student is the one who suffers. Have fun losing in court, I never lose.

I hate parents like this. All I want to do is help kids and families but then I get crazy parents who think I need to jump through hoops to build their trust. And ugh it’s even worse when they are non-POC and then racists on top of it.

You try to claim you have the student in mind while threatening that you never lose in Court. I hope you have to spend all your time in due process challenges and you get you eventually get the loss you so richly deserve.

The parents who have sued my school have never deserved free private and that’s the truth. I have gotten students private myself (and of course with the help of the whole team) when I know my school can’t meet their needs. Sorry to disappoint, I won’t lose. I will not back down when it is a case of PRIVILEGE and not NEED.

I get it. If you disagree with parents, they are “privileged” rather than honestly trying to help their children. You are exactly why special needs parents do not trust the motivations of IEP team members.

Right? I doubt this troll is even a teacher. Teachers don't 'win' or 'lose' due process hearings, outside contracted lawyers do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key thing to understand is that just because something is on paper doesn't mean the issue is resolved. There is also a limit to what overburdened public school teachers can provide. Lip service can be paid and administrators just want you to stop bothering them.

Accomodations can be made but the responsibility and effort must come from the student and parent part of the triade as well.

I cannot tell you how many meetings I attended where the expectation was that the teacher carry the student through to graduation.

What the hell does that even mean? The school system my kid attends constantly tries not to provide the accommodations because so many teachers are 99.9% ignorant about disabilities and think they know better. Every single year kid encounters at least one teacher who thought they could refuse to follow the iep. My kid learned to speak up and still got treated horribly by some teachers. They tried to sabotage accommodations that were simple and cost little and required few resources.

I'm sick to death of the comments that all seem to be along the lines of "we don't have enough staff to manage the school so those slow kids with ieps will have to give up all expectation of us following IDEA." This is just discrimination against people with disabilities. You assume people with disabilities are less than so, of course, you want to jettison all help for them at the first perceived sign of distress within the school system.

I have dealt with my school system for over 10 years and I have never seen a parent expecting a teacher to "carry" a student through to graduation. Explain what that even means. You are one of those teachers who is clueless and probably not that talented as an educator but you have strong opinions despite your ignorance. we all hope our kids never have to deal with you.

Foam at the mouth all.you want.

And school employee, comments like yours is why special needs parents justifiably do not trust any of you.

DP And that’s fine, we can just fight and the student is the one who suffers. Have fun losing in court, I never lose.

I hate parents like this. All I want to do is help kids and families but then I get crazy parents who think I need to jump through hoops to build their trust. And ugh it’s even worse when they are non-POC and then racists on top of it.

You try to claim you have the student in mind while threatening that you never lose in Court. I hope you have to spend all your time in due process challenges and you get you eventually get the loss you so richly deserve.

The parents who have sued my school have never deserved free private and that’s the truth. I have gotten students private myself (and of course with the help of the whole team) when I know my school can’t meet their needs. Sorry to disappoint, I won’t lose. I will not back down when it is a case of PRIVILEGE and not NEED.

I get it. If you disagree with parents, they are “privileged” rather than honestly trying to help their children. You are exactly why special needs parents do not trust the motivations of IEP team members.

That is exactly what a privileged person would say and think,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key thing to understand is that just because something is on paper doesn't mean the issue is resolved. There is also a limit to what overburdened public school teachers can provide. Lip service can be paid and administrators just want you to stop bothering them.

Accomodations can be made but the responsibility and effort must come from the student and parent part of the triade as well.

I cannot tell you how many meetings I attended where the expectation was that the teacher carry the student through to graduation.

What the hell does that even mean? The school system my kid attends constantly tries not to provide the accommodations because so many teachers are 99.9% ignorant about disabilities and think they know better. Every single year kid encounters at least one teacher who thought they could refuse to follow the iep. My kid learned to speak up and still got treated horribly by some teachers. They tried to sabotage accommodations that were simple and cost little and required few resources.

I'm sick to death of the comments that all seem to be along the lines of "we don't have enough staff to manage the school so those slow kids with ieps will have to give up all expectation of us following IDEA." This is just discrimination against people with disabilities. You assume people with disabilities are less than so, of course, you want to jettison all help for them at the first perceived sign of distress within the school system.

I have dealt with my school system for over 10 years and I have never seen a parent expecting a teacher to "carry" a student through to graduation. Explain what that even means. You are one of those teachers who is clueless and probably not that talented as an educator but you have strong opinions despite your ignorance. we all hope our kids never have to deal with you.

Foam at the mouth all.you want.

And school employee, comments like yours is why special needs parents justifiably do not trust any of you.

DP And that’s fine, we can just fight and the student is the one who suffers. Have fun losing in court, I never lose.

I hate parents like this. All I want to do is help kids and families but then I get crazy parents who think I need to jump through hoops to build their trust. And ugh it’s even worse when they are non-POC and then racists on top of it.

You try to claim you have the student in mind while threatening that you never lose in Court. I hope you have to spend all your time in due process challenges and you get you eventually get the loss you so richly deserve.

The parents who have sued my school have never deserved free private and that’s the truth. I have gotten students private myself (and of course with the help of the whole team) when I know my school can’t meet their needs. Sorry to disappoint, I won’t lose. I will not back down when it is a case of PRIVILEGE and not NEED.

I get it. If you disagree with parents, they are “privileged” rather than honestly trying to help their children. You are exactly why special needs parents do not trust the motivations of IEP team members.

Right? I doubt this troll is even a teacher. Teachers don't 'win' or 'lose' due process hearings, outside contracted lawyers do.

I provide 70% of the data and materials, so yes it’s me. The lawyers can try and fix schools who are shady but there’s only so much they can do if the teacher is full of BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of these disgruntled teachers would even have jobs if it wasn't for our kids.

Not true at all. If you sent your DC to private or homeschooled, the teachers would still have jobs, and their jobs would be much easier. As rewarding? Maybe, maybe not.

With that attitude towards children with special needs, good luck on your evals this year. You sound like your Praxis scores were low.

I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent. And I'm aware of how obnoxious/disruptive/unenjoyable my DC can be. I'm grateful for the teachers who are willing and able to look past that (it hasn't the majority of them).

Some of the posts on this thread are discouraging in their animosity and aggressiveness.

Some parents have had to deal with things like a team not allowing a 1 on 1 for a child with severe autism, and not conducting an FBA when a child had behavior issues and illegally sending them home instead. As long as nobody's getting verbally abusive to school staff, it's ok to not be warm and fuzzy during an IEP meeting. I think as women, we can have complexes with this sometimes.

Most teachers are women. No, you should be respectful.

And ok, how about parents who hit their kids stomach and send them to school saying the staff did it?
The kid who told me their parents beats them with a belt at home cause they are ‘retarded’ anyway.
Parents who refuse to call their child autistic instead of saying ‘has autism?’

Don’t act like all parents are good and want the best. Some teachers are god awful but so are some parents.

I never said to be disrespectful. I hope you aren't teaching ELA with that reading comprehension. It's perfectly okay to not be smiles and sunshine if a team wants to put up roadblocks to needed services, as a prior teacher in the thread admitted her admin would instruct her to do before meetings. The fact that you can compare a parent not simpering in your face to brutal child abuse says everything about your mindset...

I hope you aren’t a parent with that big old stick up your bum, must be divorced.

How TF do you know what is needed? Most of you don’t know the first thing about teaching and listen to your advocate who was in the classroom for under 5 years or not at all lol. You know your child which entitles you to an opinion but not the only one.

Oh who lacks comprehension now? I said respect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of these disgruntled teachers would even have jobs if it wasn't for our kids.

Not true at all. If you sent your DC to private or homeschooled, the teachers would still have jobs, and their jobs would be much easier. As rewarding? Maybe, maybe not.

With that attitude towards children with special needs, good luck on your evals this year. You sound like your Praxis scores were low.

I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent. And I'm aware of how obnoxious/disruptive/unenjoyable my DC can be. I'm grateful for the teachers who are willing and able to look past that (it hasn't the majority of them).

Some of the posts on this thread are discouraging in their animosity and aggressiveness.

Some parents have had to deal with things like a team not allowing a 1 on 1 for a child with severe autism, and not conducting an FBA when a child had behavior issues and illegally sending them home instead. As long as nobody's getting verbally abusive to school staff, it's ok to not be warm and fuzzy during an IEP meeting. I think as women, we can have complexes with this sometimes.

Most teachers are women. No, you should be respectful.

And ok, how about parents who hit their kids stomach and send them to school saying the staff did it?
The kid who told me their parents beats them with a belt at home cause they are ‘retarded’ anyway.
Parents who refuse to call their child autistic instead of saying ‘has autism?’

Don’t act like all parents are good and want the best. Some teachers are god awful but so are some parents.

Please tell me you reported those parents who beat their child with a belt to CPS. No one deserves to live like that.

Of course and in one case CPS did nothing. It’s disgusting how states/districts don’t lookout for children with disabilities or enough for children in general. They are not property, they are humans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As long as you're not cursing the team out or throwing furniture, you're good. Nothing wrong with applying a little pressure.

What a low standard.

This is a professional meeting, applying pressure doesn’t mean rudeness and trying to invalidate what the experts in the field are saying. Believe me, teams react just the same in private when you act passive aggressively and entitled.

I was at a meeting in FCPS and the teacher stood up and started yelling, flapping their arms, and mocking my child. The teacher kept yelling and interrupting to the point that her boss told her to stop, and she still continued.
I got an apology from the district as well as the principal. It still doesn’t fix the HELL that my kid had to put up with in that teachers class. She decided she didn’t have to accommodate a 504 and just didn’t care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key thing to understand is that just because something is on paper doesn't mean the issue is resolved. There is also a limit to what overburdened public school teachers can provide. Lip service can be paid and administrators just want you to stop bothering them.

Accomodations can be made but the responsibility and effort must come from the student and parent part of the triade as well.

I cannot tell you how many meetings I attended where the expectation was that the teacher carry the student through to graduation.

What the hell does that even mean? The school system my kid attends constantly tries not to provide the accommodations because so many teachers are 99.9% ignorant about disabilities and think they know better. Every single year kid encounters at least one teacher who thought they could refuse to follow the iep. My kid learned to speak up and still got treated horribly by some teachers. They tried to sabotage accommodations that were simple and cost little and required few resources.

I'm sick to death of the comments that all seem to be along the lines of "we don't have enough staff to manage the school so those slow kids with ieps will have to give up all expectation of us following IDEA." This is just discrimination against people with disabilities. You assume people with disabilities are less than so, of course, you want to jettison all help for them at the first perceived sign of distress within the school system.

I have dealt with my school system for over 10 years and I have never seen a parent expecting a teacher to "carry" a student through to graduation. Explain what that even means. You are one of those teachers who is clueless and probably not that talented as an educator but you have strong opinions despite your ignorance. we all hope our kids never have to deal with you.

+10000