Lies my IEP Team Told Me- let’s compile

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Inspired by the history book of similar tote- let’s compile a list of the most common lies we have heard in IEP meetings. This could help parents and staff members realize when they are being played or engaging in illegal or immoral behavior.

-Your child has to be failing before they are eligible for an IEP.

-Your dyslexic child has to spend a year in RTI before we can consider other interventions.

-It is better for us to pull pieces from different reading programs to best support your child and not name any of them in the IEP.

Not failing, but has to prove that they need supports in order to "access the curriculum". If your kid has straight A's, they don't need supports to access, they already are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Inspired by the history book of similar tote- let’s compile a list of the most common lies we have heard in IEP meetings. This could help parents and staff members realize when they are being played or engaging in illegal or immoral behavior.

-Your child has to be failing before they are eligible for an IEP.

-Your dyslexic child has to spend a year in RTI before we can consider other interventions.

-It is better for us to pull pieces from different reading programs to best support your child and not name any of them in the IEP.

Not failing, but has to prove that they need supports in order to "access the curriculum". If your kid has straight A's, they don't need supports to access, they already are.

What if they are getting poor grades in one subject such as spelling (which has related SOLs) but good grades in other content? I'm not clear what "access the curriculum" means. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I could start another thread titled “Lies the parents tell school staff about their kid.”

We have no problem with him at home.
He always sits right down and does his homework with no problem. I don’t know why he says he didn’t do it and didn’t turn it in and you found it at the bottom of his backpack all crumpled up and not written on.
You never sent that paper home.
I never got an email like that.
I never got a phone message from you.
We had no idea she wasn’t behaving at school.
We have no problem taking her places in the community. (Despite school staff having witnessed many screaming meltdowns at Target and Giant).
We read with him thirty minutes each day.
He practiced his times tables all weekend. (Funny how you managed that on the weekend trip to Hersheypark).
He was too sick to come to school for the last two days. (Kid wrote a journal entry about the mid-week beach trip).
They have no trouble with him at Sunday School or Scouts.
She is socially very successful at softball (surprising, because her teammates told all about how she chased the pitcher with the bat after being struck out).
There is no history of that in our family background.
It’s the school’s fault that he has bad grades and there is no reason for any testing.

These examples mostly sound like they're from families who don't want services from the school. The rest of them sound like excuses that any parent could make up, if they are irresponsible... in other words, they don't sound special needs related (e.g., lying about practicing times tables, being sick).

The only thing that sounds legit is lying about family history. If a parent doesn't want to share that their mother committed suicide, or that they were physically abused as a child, for example, I think that's their prerogative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Inspired by the history book of similar tote- let’s compile a list of the most common lies we have heard in IEP meetings. This could help parents and staff members realize when they are being played or engaging in illegal or immoral behavior.

-Your child has to be failing before they are eligible for an IEP.

-Your dyslexic child has to spend a year in RTI before we can consider other interventions.

-It is better for us to pull pieces from different reading programs to best support your child and not name any of them in the IEP.

Not failing, but has to prove that they need supports in order to "access the curriculum". If your kid has straight A's, they don't need supports to access, they already are.

What if they are getting poor grades in one subject such as spelling (which has related SOLs) but good grades in other content? I'm not clear what "access the curriculum" means. Thank you.

Spelling (AKA encoding) is connected to Dyslexia and can be part of not able to access the curriculum. My child can not independently spell words near grade level. This impacts his ability to do peer to peer review. He struggles with completing written assignments in class such as writing a number sentence, explaining his thinking or any independent writing. He is self conscious that his spelling is so poor - so instead of writing a sentence with misspelled words, he will not write anything at all. Next he will get feedback from classmates - you should have written a number sentence. This is an example of not being able to access the curriculum and where my child should have adequate accommodations (to write sentences in math) and instruction for how to encode.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Inspired by the history book of similar tote- let’s compile a list of the most common lies we have heard in IEP meetings. This could help parents and staff members realize when they are being played or engaging in illegal or immoral behavior.

-Your child has to be failing before they are eligible for an IEP.

-Your dyslexic child has to spend a year in RTI before we can consider other interventions.

-It is better for us to pull pieces from different reading programs to best support your child and not name any of them in the IEP.

Not failing, but has to prove that they need supports in order to "access the curriculum". If your kid has straight A's, they don't need supports to access, they already are.

What if they are getting poor grades in one subject such as spelling (which has related SOLs) but good grades in other content? I'm not clear what "access the curriculum" means. Thank you.

Spelling (AKA encoding) is connected to Dyslexia and can be part of not able to access the curriculum. My child can not independently spell words near grade level. This impacts his ability to do peer to peer review. He struggles with completing written assignments in class such as writing a number sentence, explaining his thinking or any independent writing. He is self conscious that his spelling is so poor - so instead of writing a sentence with misspelled words, he will not write anything at all. Next he will get feedback from classmates - you should have written a number sentence. This is an example of not being able to access the curriculum and where my child should have adequate accommodations (to write sentences in math) and instruction for how to encode.

Thank you. This is very helpful. The LSC didn't think there was suspicion of a disability requiring special education even though all of these are issues. DRA was at the end of year level mid-year, which didn't help. Nevermind that I'm sure the DRA would be much higher if the "reading" was actual decoding vs. memorization. The spelling is the most obviously presenting issue for now, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Inspired by the history book of similar tote- let’s compile a list of the most common lies we have heard in IEP meetings. This could help parents and staff members realize when they are being played or engaging in illegal or immoral behavior.

-Your child has to be failing before they are eligible for an IEP.

-Your dyslexic child has to spend a year in RTI before we can consider other interventions.

-It is better for us to pull pieces from different reading programs to best support your child and not name any of them in the IEP.

Not failing, but has to prove that they need supports in order to "access the curriculum". If your kid has straight A's, they don't need supports to access, they already are.

What if they are getting poor grades in one subject such as spelling (which has related SOLs) but good grades in other content? I'm not clear what "access the curriculum" means. Thank you.

Spelling (AKA encoding) is connected to Dyslexia and can be part of not able to access the curriculum. My child can not independently spell words near grade level. This impacts his ability to do peer to peer review. He struggles with completing written assignments in class such as writing a number sentence, explaining his thinking or any independent writing. He is self conscious that his spelling is so poor - so instead of writing a sentence with misspelled words, he will not write anything at all. Next he will get feedback from classmates - you should have written a number sentence. This is an example of not being able to access the curriculum and where my child should have adequate accommodations (to write sentences in math) and instruction for how to encode.

Thank you. This is very helpful. The LSC didn't think there was suspicion of a disability requiring special education even though all of these are issues. DRA was at the end of year level mid-year, which didn't help. Nevermind that I'm sure the DRA would be much higher if the "reading" was actual decoding vs. memorization. The spelling is the most obviously presenting issue for now, though.

I really hae the trend now for reading to be taught with "sight words" that are words that follow phonetic patterns bit they just haven't taught those patterns yet. Bite is not a sight word and it shouldn't be a sight word. Some literacy programs are such crap that so many kids struggle who would not otherwise. And then kids who have LDs are missed.

Whole language, three cueing, etc are crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Spelling (AKA encoding) is connected to Dyslexia and can be part of not able to access the curriculum. My child can not independently spell words near grade level. This impacts his ability to do peer to peer review. He struggles with completing written assignments in class such as writing a number sentence, explaining his thinking or any independent writing. He is self conscious that his spelling is so poor - so instead of writing a sentence with misspelled words, he will not write anything at all. Next he will get feedback from classmates - you should have written a number sentence. This is an example of not being able to access the curriculum and where my child should have adequate accommodations (to write sentences in math) and instruction for how to encode.

Thank you. This is very helpful. The LSC didn't think there was suspicion of a disability requiring special education even though all of these are issues. DRA was at the end of year level mid-year, which didn't help. Nevermind that I'm sure the DRA would be much higher if the "reading" was actual decoding vs. memorization. The spelling is the most obviously presenting issue for now, though.

I have in my child's goals language like ….. when reading an unfamiliar level _______ text …..
or - read 12 out of 15 single-syllable nonsense words with digraphs, short vowels, welded sounds, and blends

With these types of goals, they can't fake it.

[Anonymous]

- your child will fail out of school if you don't send her to our program that costs 50K a year

- your child has a massive list of executive functioning issues that magically only show up at our school and only we can fix.

[Anonymous]

In the middle of an IEP meeting with a room full of professionals, I was told that "your child will never be a success in school without medication." It stung and stuck with me. 6 months after that statement DS showed marked improvement. We did therapy at school and I followed up at home. We worked on everything that was in his IEP. It was a ton of work, but the person that said those words to me had to eat those words and apologize to me in the end of year IEP meeting. DS still needed a lot of help, but we made progress. Fast forward 6 years and he has a 504 Plan, has received academic awards, and the average person can't tell that he has issues.

[Anonymous]

I wish I had known that spelling was part of encoding and related to dyslexia. I wonder why the school didn't mention this. Their answer to DS not being able to spell was to give him a dictionary and/or word bank. That was the solution as both elementary schools DS attended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:- your child will fail out of school if you don't send her to our program that costs 50K a year

- your child has a massive list of executive functioning issues that magically only show up at our school and only we can fix.

Thanks for this info. We have a child with multiple issues and is finally getting an IEP with numerous interventions. We cannot afford private school and have been stressed thinking only a $50K private school will help. Tough situation because you often hear about all these great success stories about these schools for children with learning differences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- your child will fail out of school if you don't send her to our program that costs 50K a year

- your child has a massive list of executive functioning issues that magically only show up at our school and only we can fix.

Thanks for this info. We have a child with multiple issues and is finally getting an IEP with numerous interventions. We cannot afford private school and have been stressed thinking only a $50K private school will help. Tough situation because you often hear about all these great success stories about these schools for children with learning differences.

My kid has lots of EF issues in public school. We have to hustle but we do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish I had known that spelling was part of encoding and related to dyslexia. I wonder why the school didn't mention this. Their answer to DS not being able to spell was to give him a dictionary and/or word bank. That was the solution as both elementary schools DS attended.

We are having this issue, too. I honestly think the teacher doesn't know. There is one dyslexia specialist for all of Fairfax County. The teachers are not trained in this stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- your child will fail out of school if you don't send her to our program that costs 50K a year

- your child has a massive list of executive functioning issues that magically only show up at our school and only we can fix.

Thanks for this info. We have a child with multiple issues and is finally getting an IEP with numerous interventions. We cannot afford private school and have been stressed thinking only a $50K private school will help. Tough situation because you often hear about all these great success stories about these schools for children with learning differences.

This is PP: It works for many families but did not work for mine at ALL. In fact, some issues got worse. He is doing much better in a mainstream environment with external executive function coaching outside of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is true that we are not allowed to name a specific program in the IEP goals because if you were to move or transfer to another school that didn’t offer Wilson or OG they would be unable to comply with the IEP. Instead, we will put in the notes that “student benefits from a multi sensory intensive phonics pattern instruction such one based on Orton Gillingham”. And in the present levels we will put that student is receiving and benefitting from “specific program”. However this can’t be part of the goal or indicated in the service hours.

It’s the same as when we say a student’s reading level will improve from X level to Y level we have to indicate “or equivalent” because schools all over use many different text leveling benchmark systems.
It’s not a lie.

The 'not allowed' is not true. There is no legal barrier to adding the name of the program. You can note the program & then say 'or to be re-evaluated based on a change in the school or school system.'

Special ed teachers are told lots of lies of what they are allowed or not allowed to do. Just because it was in your training, doesn't mean it's 'true.'