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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good god! These are all bad. I don't know which is the worst, the cancer/eating disorder or tic exaggeration/mimicking.

DS has tics and at one point they involved scratching himself in an organized method all over his body. So he would start at his face, scratch from side to side and then on down his body to his feet scratching his calves and then start again. The teachers and aides started calling him "the itchy boy." Naturally it caught on with the kids. Lovely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. Very sorry for family who went through this. I hope your DS wasn't in the room.

Anonymous wrote:<<The special education teacher, the primary teacher and OT decided to imitate my DS's stim in over exaggerated way to defend a bully during first IEP meeting in a new elementary school. I know my DS's stim. It's harmless stim when he is super excited and he had done it for years and most people don't even notice it. No one had ever imitated him, not even his peers. I was too shocked to say anything. >>

I actually think this is the worst thing that i have seen on this thread....

OMG! I just posted. If your DS was in the room, you are the winner of the worst. I hope not.

He wasn't there. I wish I wasn't there either. After a few years, I still can't get the image out of my head.

[Anonymous]

My kid has a history of eloping. I was told at an IEP meeting that they didn't think it was a problem anymore because they read a story about kids on a safari and that the point of the story was that the kids learned that they needed to stay with mommy and daddy.

I said thanks, but my kid has ASD. If you read him a story about safaris, he has learned to stay with the group while on safaris. A fundamental problem for ASD kids is that they have no ability to generalize.

Needless to say he'll be fine on a safari... but he's still in danger of eloping from school!

[Anonymous]

Counselor blames me for not knowing my son lost his assignment book and for not filing his papers in his notebook (he is in Middle School). Then the school psychologist thinks I should back off and let my son learn from mistakes and consequences instead of contacting his teachers when there is a problem. She termed the phrased "planned ignoring". My child would rise to the occasion on his own without the need for supports and instructions.

What?!?!? Can the school come up with a plan that even they agree on? So much for consensus from the team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we get the names of these schools? We are in FCPS and haven't experience this.

So no one? What a useless thread.

you only posted the question about an hour ago. besides the joy of an anonymous forum is being anonymous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. It is the school's responsibility to provide resources to keep ALL students safe.

I'm honestly curious here - so does the school need to provide another person to come along to make sure that child does not run off, handle a meltdown etc? I'm asking because I can completely picture a school telling me that I need to come along or my son has to stay home...which seems wrong and putting a parent in a really shitty position. Can they actually require this of a parent?

[Anonymous]

PP here again, I am horrified by some of the things I've read here. My son is 4 1/2. We have only had minimal exposure to IEP meetings for his Early Childhood program. If someone said some of these things to me, I cannot imagine that I would be able to sit there and keep my mouth shut, Rather, I think I would end up blowing my lid and calling all these people under-educated assholes...Guess I need to prepare for this kind of thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD just graduated from MCPS, and the absolute best thing about it is no more IEP meetings!

I did not know my experiences were the norm and apparently we weren't even getting the worst of it. It took me from 4th to 9th grades just to convince them she needed an IEP for LDs. So here goes for our insanity (these are all at the high school level):

1. "All you care about is her grades." (Well, if she's failing nearly every test, but gets As on essays, there is some disconnect, I would think.)

2. DD is diagnosed with a language-based disorder, whose primary treatment is speech-language therapy. From school speech therapist at the meeting: "Well, she can talk just fine and doesn't mispronounce anything." No school speech therapy was approved.

3. The meetings were so horrible, DD started refusing to go. I told her counselor DD didn't feel comfortable and found them very upsetting and the counselor burst out laughing. She later sent me an email apologizing, but still.

4. The school psychologist looked at the private, professional neuro-psych report I paid thousands of dollars for since the school wouldn't test her and said, "I'm not sure if I really believe this, but I think there's slightly more than 50 percent chance it's right."

OMG. Because I'm sure she's more qualified than the evaulator.... (sarcasm.)

In MCPS - most school psychologists only have a Masters degree with a certificate that allows themselves the title of "School Psychologist". In the real world, you would need a Ph.D. to practice psychology. Why a person with a Masters thinks they know more than a person with a Ph.D. is beyond me. I actually pointed this out to our school psychologist and he got quiet real quick and stopped challenging the report.

Similar thing just happened to us...MCPS school psychologist ambushed me telling me that our private psychologist who actually has a PhD and has been in private practice for 30+ years, just doesn't "get it" and that there is no way she knows our DS the way the school knows him! All because our 20 page report refuted her agenda of trying to label DS with something he doesn't have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we get the names of these schools? We are in FCPS and haven't experience this.

Posting the name of a school wold be too identifying for my DC.

Same. not going to name the school but I am willing to tell you that its MCPS, in what is considered to be the best school "district/triangle" in the whole county.
for whatever that's worth....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:<<Anonymous wrote:
"We're having trouble with your child's needs and we don't think this school is a good fit. Have you thought about going somewhere else?" (Public school special ed coordinator)


+1 - In PK4>>



i actually don't think that's so crazy. Isn't that better for them to be upfront and honest -- especially in public, where the disctrict is obligated to find a placement that can meet the kdi's needs....

(written by a parent who was told the same thing about their child and is now very glad child is in a different school)

Agree. I was told that in a private school and at the time, I was super offended. But my DS thrived in public school, despite the large class size. I'd rather know stuff like that up front, before I have to spend a lot of money on a place that can't accommodate my kid.

It's quite a different thing to be told this by a private school, which has neither the resources nor the legal obligation to educate disabled kids, than to be told it by a public school. (Although even a private school must make accommodations for the disabled.)

Public school is a public good paid for by everyone and available to all. Special ed families are explicitly told or implicitly pushed to leave the system. It's not right, and it's what the law, IDEA, was designed to end. If the school says, "have you thought about going somewhere else?" without offering alternative placement in the system or paid private placement outside, then it's disability discrimination pure and simple.

That might be right, legally, if they really said they couldn't meet his "needs." But like the PPs we were very grateful when our public school teacher made clear that he was surviving but not thriving, and might do better in a different environment. He's a smart and reasonably well behaved HFA kid so there's no way they would have paid for private placement. They knew they could give him an "adequate" education, and I'm glad our teacher was brave enough to tell us that for him there might be a big gap between adequate and best possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we get the names of these schools? We are in FCPS and haven't experience this.

So no one? What a useless thread.

you only posted the question about an hour ago. besides the joy of an anonymous forum is being anonymous.

My post happened at Robinson SS.

[Anonymous]

OMG! I just posted. If your DS was in the room, you are the winner of the worst. I hope not.



He wasn't there. I wish I wasn't there either. After a few years, I still can't get the image out of my head.

Thank goodness - small blessing. I can only imagine how horrible this was for you and how terrible the image is for you. Hugs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- We do not need to provide accommodations in (target language), only in English [at a bilingual school where half of the instruction is in target language]

- Your child is not being served well here. If you got him a diagnosis of "emotionally disturbed" we could get him private placement somewhere else.

- Your child is autistic [based on ONE teacher report from a teacher with 2 years of experience, and a psychologist practicing for her first year. Negated by testing from the best in the area]

- Your child will either need to have you along or stay home on field trip days. We can't support his needs.

I understand this one. If your child is prone to run off in an open setting (unlike a classroom) wouldn't you prefer that he stay safe? Not all schools have the manpower to watch a child 1:1

Then they need to find the manpower.

It's the school's responsibility to arrange field trips so that everyone can come. if that means bringing in a sub for a key staff, or going in smaller groups so the special educator can attend to a smaller group of kids, or whatever, then that's what they need to do. Because it's federal law, and not doing so is a civil rights violation.

[Anonymous]

My post was for a child in MCPS Winston Churchill Cluster. However, my hypothesis is that there are multiple clusters represented in this thread which points to a bad special education program in the county instead of bad special education programs in individual schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. It is the school's responsibility to provide resources to keep ALL students safe.

I'm honestly curious here - so does the school need to provide another person to come along to make sure that child does not run off, handle a meltdown etc? I'm asking because I can completely picture a school telling me that I need to come along or my son has to stay home...which seems wrong and putting a parent in a really shitty position. Can they actually require this of a parent?

Field trips should be part of FAPE so yes. If a child has a need it is up to the school to provide an aide. It should be written in to the iep