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

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have disagreed. You may sign the IEP and add a statement by your signature saying you disagree with portions of the IEP.

You may refuse to sign the IEP and the last IEP will carry over.

I hope you get more responses. Good question.

[Anonymous]

This past fall at the start of second grade, we had a lot of behavior issues so much so that the school, Sp Ed case manager, and our developmental pediatrician thought we should transfer DS to a SN school. We are at a immersion language charter that is it's own LEA. DS is fully mainstreamed without academic issues. But before recommending another placement the school/IEP team had to do a FBA and a behavioral plan as a matter of course.

The FBA worked out well; no more behavior issues. We fired our developmental pediatrician and had a neuropsych eval for DS who was diagnosed with ADHD, combined type, in addition to ASD. DS is medicated and sees a psychiatrist. IEP was rewritten with help of neuropsych who attended the IEP meeting.

DS is doing great now and loves school.

[Anonymous]

While I haven't disagreed with the IEP team on school or class placement, I have disagreed on many other things. I have refused to sign the IEP despite pressure. I am pretty sure I am red-flagged as the bat shit crazy mom many people don't want to deal with in IEP meetings, but I find that the people who are truly dedicated and skilled on the team find me reasonable and often even agree with me.

[Anonymous]

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

We moved it up the chain.

[Anonymous]

Yes. They wanted to place our child in an autism classroom. We thought as did his therapists and dev ped that he would do better being mainstreamed with an aide. We ended up going to a charter school that is its own Lea and he gets what he needs.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I refused to sign the IEP when they wanted full termination. They caved a bit and gave me 30 minutes of resource time a week at her private preschool. Now they want to reevaluate and are attempting again to discontinue all services RIGHT before she transitions from
Preschool to Kindergarten, which is hugely frustrating for me. This isn't even the standard 3 year reevaluation, they just said if I wanted to challenge her dismissal I would need her reevaluated so we had to agree to that to keep a foothold in the door. Feels like every meeting is them trying to get us out of the system and me scrabbling for any kind of purchase. Not at all pleasant and I have come to dread IEP meetings and dealing with anyone on the administration side of things (blessedly, teachers have been great).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I refused to sign the IEP when they wanted full termination. They caved a bit and gave me 30 minutes of resource time a week at her private preschool. Now they want to reevaluate and are attempting again to discontinue all services RIGHT before she transitions from
Preschool to Kindergarten, which is hugely frustrating for me. This isn't even the standard 3 year reevaluation, they just said if I wanted to challenge her dismissal I would need her reevaluated so we had to agree to that to keep a foothold in the door. Feels like every meeting is them trying to get us out of the system and me scrabbling for any kind of purchase. Not at all pleasant and I have come to dread IEP meetings and dealing with anyone on the administration side of things (blessedly, teachers have been great).

Yikes, why did they want to terminate--saying she was caught up?

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

A family friend a few years ago disagreed with putting her K-er straight into a special ed-only class at a center far from their house without trying the local school. They suspended the kid for bad behavior over and over again that fall until the parents finally agreed to move the child to the center. (My guess is they were not providing whatever supports the kid needed to on purpose but who knows what really went on?) Once they reached the limit on suspensions (not sure how many days), they went to in-school suspension and just made the kid sit in a room alone with a teacher all day.

This was in FCPS.

[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 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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A family friend a few years ago disagreed with putting her K-er straight into a special ed-only class at a center far from their house without trying the local school. They suspended the kid for bad behavior over and over again that fall until the parents finally agreed to move the child to the center. (My guess is they were not providing whatever supports the kid needed to on purpose but who knows what really went on?) Once they reached the limit on suspensions (not sure how many days), they went to in-school suspension and just made the kid sit in a room alone with a teacher all day.

This was in FCPS.

This whole story is .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I refused to sign the IEP when they wanted full termination. They caved a bit and gave me 30 minutes of resource time a week at her private preschool. Now they want to reevaluate and are attempting again to discontinue all services RIGHT before she transitions from
Preschool to Kindergarten, which is hugely frustrating for me. This isn't even the standard 3 year reevaluation, they just said if I wanted to challenge her dismissal I would need her reevaluated so we had to agree to that to keep a foothold in the door. Feels like every meeting is them trying to get us out of the system and me scrabbling for any kind of purchase. Not at all pleasant and I have come to dread IEP meetings and dealing with anyone on the administration side of things (blessedly, teachers have been great).

Yikes, why did they want to terminate--saying she was caught up?

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." Because I listed the ways the transition to K would be difficult for her and how I hoped her IEP could remain in place to help us help her. Related to that, I said that the class size will be bigger and she will be overwhelmed at first in a class of 30 kids vs the 15 she's used to in preschool (and will get less one on one help because of it). AP said and I quote "I need to stop you right there and tell you that we have never had 30 kids in a kindergarten class. Not since the 70s. Maybe 25, so you're just wrong about that." Because that discrepancy in 5 students mattered SO much to her she had knock me down a peg when all I was doing was advocating for my kid and explaining why she would still need help in K. I LOATHE IEP meetings. It's a constant struggle of "my kid needs this" and "but we don't want to give you that."

[Anonymous]

This same exact thing is happening to the child of a friend of mine. No supports but suspensions and school seems to be doing it on purpose. MCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A family friend a few years ago disagreed with putting her K-er straight into a special ed-only class at a center far from their house without trying the local school. They suspended the kid for bad behavior over and over again that fall until the parents finally agreed to move the child to the center. (My guess is they were not providing whatever supports the kid needed to on purpose but who knows what really went on?) Once they reached the limit on suspensions (not sure how many days), they went to in-school suspension and just made the kid sit in a room alone with a teacher all day.

This was in FCPS.

This whole story is .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I refused to sign the IEP when they wanted full termination. They caved a bit and gave me 30 minutes of resource time a week at her private preschool. Now they want to reevaluate and are attempting again to discontinue all services RIGHT before she transitions from
Preschool to Kindergarten, which is hugely frustrating for me. This isn't even the standard 3 year reevaluation, they just said if I wanted to challenge her dismissal I would need her reevaluated so we had to agree to that to keep a foothold in the door. Feels like every meeting is them trying to get us out of the system and me scrabbling for any kind of purchase. Not at all pleasant and I have come to dread IEP meetings and dealing with anyone on the administration side of things (blessedly, teachers have been great).

Yikes, why did they want to terminate--saying she was caught up?

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." Because I listed the ways the transition to K would be difficult for her and how I hoped her IEP could remain in place to help us help her. Related to that, I said that the class size will be bigger and she will be overwhelmed at first in a class of 30 kids vs the 15 she's used to in preschool (and will get less one on one help because of it). AP said and I quote "I need to stop you right there and tell you that we have never had 30 kids in a kindergarten class. Not since the 70s. Maybe 25, so you're just wrong about that." Because that discrepancy in 5 students mattered SO much to her she had knock me down a peg when all I was doing was advocating for my kid and explaining why she would still need help in K. I LOATHE IEP meetings. It's a constant struggle of "my kid needs this" and "but we don't want to give you that."

Interesting. My child has low tone and handwriting is an issue. We did a year of OT and the OT suggested lots of playdoh-hiding things deep in the playdoh and having the child did it out, beads/lacing toys etc. Also gave us a home exercise sheet with yoga moves to try to strengthen the brain/body connections. If you research OT therapies for strengthening motor control/hand strength, you might get some ideas of stuff to try at home. Just an idea.