How to heal relationship between schools and families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, this will get flamed but I also think schools/counties/parents need to differentiate between special needs students who, with the right help and interventions, can become functioning members of society and students who, no matter what anyone does, will never hold any sort of job or live alone period. I'm not saying those students are not also deserving of help and support, but trying to paint both kinds of students with the same brush is not helpful to either group.

My kid will hopefully hold a job but will probably never live independently. He deserves and needs as many resources as he can get. Maybe we should separate out the kids who are special needs light and their parents have a lot of money. They take up a lions share of time and resources at my kids school. They are always complaining and having meetings.

I feel like this would be one of the easiest places to start limiting entitlements. Allow the school team to decline to have yet another periodic IEP review after a certain yearly quota, or to cut off a meeting after a certain number of hours (not continue it, end it). Somebody posted here once that they made their team have at least 5 IEP meetings per year and I was aghast. One family getting five 2-hour IEP meetings, or three 3-hour IEP meetings, or whatever, where 15-20 other kids miss hours of speech or reading intervention or whatever while the staff sit around the table listening to goals being nitpicked in ways that will have no functional impact, is exactly what "benefits do not outweigh the costs" refers to. I had to sit through 12 combined hours of meetings once for a child who didn't even attend the school and whose family had no intention of sending them. During that time, every child seen by the gen ed teacher, the special ed teacher, the SLP, and the OT missed their services. These are the types of cases that drive teachers out.

I remember needing to have a second IEP meeting pretty quickly once I realized the “ school team” didn’t put any of my child’s 504 accommodations into her IEP. Absolutely zero of them, but I’m sure that was an innocent oversight and I guess that IEP meeting was unnecessary. After all they just want what’s best for the child right.

Or maybe you are wrong. Or the child’s needs changed. Or the s hook team was implementing accommodations but you’re not aware or understanding. It also sounds like a request or convo that could’ve been handled via email or phone like “hi I want to check in about accommodations and how student is using them at school. Can you update me?” That doesn’t need to be an official IEP meeting gheeze.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fundamental problem is that IDEA has created a bottomless pit of unfunded entitlements. The federal government has imposed huge requirements on school systems while not covering even a fifth of the cost, and the percentage of students covered by the law has doubled and then tripled. The gap between what parents very reasonably feel they are legally entitled to for their child (since that's what IDEA says), and what the school system is actually physically capable of providing, and the tension of trying to magically make 1+1=3, is driving parents crazy and burning out staff. And then the problem snowballs because less staff makes it all worse. Everyone is in a no-win situation.

I think the system is fundamentally broken, possibly beyond repair, we just haven't realized it yet. Special education staffing shortages are going to keep getting worse and bring it to its knees. No other country on earth provides such a vast well of education entitlements, for the reason that it fundamentally can't be supported. There HAS to be a limit--all public systems have to ration care and have a cutoff point at which they say "no more, the costs outweigh the benefits." It's brutal, but what we have now isn't working anyway and at least this way there would be some honesty about it instead of a shell game. And nothing is stopping the private sector from filling in the gaps. Either you have to vastly increase the funding so that all these entitlements can actually be provided and staff actually want to do the job, or you have to limit the entitlements, or some combination of the two.

I'll probably get tomatoes thrown at me but I am really alarmed at how the staffing shortages just keep getting worse and worse in some of the local districts and how fast they burn through new staff. If you don't have anybody to do the job the law sets out, you have nothing. That is the first and biggest problem, and something drastic has to be done.

Excellent points and very well said. There is not enough funding, not enough staff, and 1+1 does not equal 3. ALL PUBLIC SYSTEMS HAVE TO RATION CARE and yet parents here don't understand that and demand more than that, which staff cannot give.

I will add- many many parents just do NOT understand special education laws or guidelines, and do think their children should receive services when they do not meet the eligibility requirements. This does not minimize that many parents DO have children who DO need services who did NOT get them when they should have. Many parents also don't understand that private/medical world is not the same as education world, and just will NOT listen to school staff.

As a special education staff AND parent of TWO children with disabilities, for me, what would be the most helpful to repair the relationship, would be if parents would start by presuming positive intent, treat special educations staff with respect, be open minded that the education world and medical world are different, be open minded that public education may not meet ALL of your needs and be prepared to do some work/expenses to support your child, and please stop trashing education professionals every chance you get. Recognize what you don't know, recognize that you have your own emotional baggage, recognize that it is hard for all. Recognize that if you continue to be so hostile and critical of special education staff, there will literally be NONE left because staff is tired of being treated like $$%^# by schools, government, AND parents.

You sound unhinged. You do understand that on the anon internet forum people offer their unfiltered views? That many SN parents are actually involved in school life in a desperate effort to help their kids by building a cordial relationship with staff? I am a room parent, donate snacks/supplies, volunteer to read, decorate classroom and bring something for every holiday, meaning gift cards to Target and chocolates/handmade kiddo cards. All this in a desperate hope that when my child needs help they'll think of us as a helpful family and will not ignore him, not because I have nothing else to do with my time and money. Our SLP is good, but he main teacher is phoning it in unfortunately, and it's not specific to my child.

I also want to respond to one of the posters upthread who said sped staff need better pay. Yes, they absolutely do. However, in MCPS the teachers union is blocking that. Not the parents/voters, not any other entity, but the teachers union. I just want everyone to be very clear about that. And the shortage of staff, including paras is due to the lack of reasonable pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fundamental problem is that IDEA has created a bottomless pit of unfunded entitlements. The federal government has imposed huge requirements on school systems while not covering even a fifth of the cost, and the percentage of students covered by the law has doubled and then tripled. The gap between what parents very reasonably feel they are legally entitled to for their child (since that's what IDEA says), and what the school system is actually physically capable of providing, and the tension of trying to magically make 1+1=3, is driving parents crazy and burning out staff. And then the problem snowballs because less staff makes it all worse. Everyone is in a no-win situation.

I think the system is fundamentally broken, possibly beyond repair, we just haven't realized it yet. Special education staffing shortages are going to keep getting worse and bring it to its knees. No other country on earth provides such a vast well of education entitlements, for the reason that it fundamentally can't be supported. There HAS to be a limit--all public systems have to ration care and have a cutoff point at which they say "no more, the costs outweigh the benefits." It's brutal, but what we have now isn't working anyway and at least this way there would be some honesty about it instead of a shell game. And nothing is stopping the private sector from filling in the gaps. Either you have to vastly increase the funding so that all these entitlements can actually be provided and staff actually want to do the job, or you have to limit the entitlements, or some combination of the two.

I'll probably get tomatoes thrown at me but I am really alarmed at how the staffing shortages just keep getting worse and worse in some of the local districts and how fast they burn through new staff. If you don't have anybody to do the job the law sets out, you have nothing. That is the first and biggest problem, and something drastic has to be done.

As a parent who used to work in the school, I agree. I also agree with the person who mentioned lack of trust from parents. I think from some teachers and staff there can be an automatic assumption a parent is crazy and entitled before giving the parent a chance.

For now, as a parent I handle it by always assuming the best until proven otherwise and having reasonable expectations.My trust has been broken countless times, but I have seen lousy members of the team improve and we have had some incredible teachers. I always thank the good ones, let the principal know, nominate for awards, give gifts. My child is entitled to the moon and stars under the law, but I know it is unrealistic. We use outside interventions a lot (OT, ST, tutoring) and keep expectations low for what goes on in school since the caseloads are out of control and teachers are spread thin. I rarely call extra IEP meetings unless it's dire (e.g. my kid went several months without getting a service and the person didn't care and didn't think an IEP mattered).

I think teachers and staff also need to assume the best no matter what you heard about the parent. Be professional and let them prove they stink before you assume it. That said, I think some have an impossible job, especially when they have a bad administrator and too many difficult parents or students in the class.

Umm ..... no, your child is not entitled to the "moon and stars under the law"

In the Rowley case in 1982, the Supreme Court held that the ‘educational benefit’ provided by a school district must be ‘merely more than de minimis’ to satisfy the FAPE requirement" Since 1982 until 2017, Rowley's "merely more than de minimus standard" for FAPE has meant that a school system would be FAPE-compliant where it could show any progress at all, even if that rate of progress was minimal, inconsistent with ability testing and/or meant the student had no hope of catching up.

In 2017, in Endrew F. The Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in favor of a new standard for educational benefit which was described by Chief Justice Roberts as, "When all is said and done, a student offered an educational program providing ‘merely more than de minimis’ progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered an education at all,” Roberts said.
“For children with disabilities, receiving instruction that aims so low would be tantamount to ‘sitting idly ... awaiting the time when they were old enough to drop out,’” he added, quoting from key 1982 Supreme Court precedent on special education, Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, that also dealt with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
“The IDEA demands more,” the chief justice said. “It requires an educational program reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances.”

Even this new standard "reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress in light of the child's circumstances," is not "the moon and stars" and it is not at all "unrealistic". This kind of untruth and exaggeration about the law undermines the civil rights of the disabled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fundamental problem is that IDEA has created a bottomless pit of unfunded entitlements. The federal government has imposed huge requirements on school systems while not covering even a fifth of the cost, and the percentage of students covered by the law has doubled and then tripled. The gap between what parents very reasonably feel they are legally entitled to for their child (since that's what IDEA says), and what the school system is actually physically capable of providing, and the tension of trying to magically make 1+1=3, is driving parents crazy and burning out staff. And then the problem snowballs because less staff makes it all worse. Everyone is in a no-win situation.

I think the system is fundamentally broken, possibly beyond repair, we just haven't realized it yet. Special education staffing shortages are going to keep getting worse and bring it to its knees. No other country on earth provides such a vast well of education entitlements, for the reason that it fundamentally can't be supported. There HAS to be a limit--all public systems have to ration care and have a cutoff point at which they say "no more, the costs outweigh the benefits." It's brutal, but what we have now isn't working anyway and at least this way there would be some honesty about it instead of a shell game. And nothing is stopping the private sector from filling in the gaps. Either you have to vastly increase the funding so that all these entitlements can actually be provided and staff actually want to do the job, or you have to limit the entitlements, or some combination of the two.

I'll probably get tomatoes thrown at me but I am really alarmed at how the staffing shortages just keep getting worse and worse in some of the local districts and how fast they burn through new staff. If you don't have anybody to do the job the law sets out, you have nothing. That is the first and biggest problem, and something drastic has to be done.

Excellent points and very well said. There is not enough funding, not enough staff, and 1+1 does not equal 3. ALL PUBLIC SYSTEMS HAVE TO RATION CARE and yet parents here don't understand that and demand more than that, which staff cannot give.

I will add- many many parents just do NOT understand special education laws or guidelines, and do think their children should receive services when they do not meet the eligibility requirements. This does not minimize that many parents DO have children who DO need services who did NOT get them when they should have. Many parents also don't understand that private/medical world is not the same as education world, and just will NOT listen to school staff.

As a special education staff AND parent of TWO children with disabilities, for me, what would be the most helpful to repair the relationship, would be if parents would start by presuming positive intent, treat special educations staff with respect, be open minded that the education world and medical world are different, be open minded that public education may not meet ALL of your needs and be prepared to do some work/expenses to support your child, and please stop trashing education professionals every chance you get. Recognize what you don't know, recognize that you have your own emotional baggage, recognize that it is hard for all. Recognize that if you continue to be so hostile and critical of special education staff, there will literally be NONE left because staff is tired of being treated like $$%^# by schools, government, AND parents.

You sound unhinged. You do understand that on the anon internet forum people offer their unfiltered views? That many SN parents are actually involved in school life in a desperate effort to help their kids by building a cordial relationship with staff? I am a room parent, donate snacks/supplies, volunteer to read, decorate classroom and bring something for every holiday, meaning gift cards to Target and chocolates/handmade kiddo cards. All this in a desperate hope that when my child needs help they'll think of us as a helpful family and will not ignore him, not because I have nothing else to do with my time and money. Our SLP is good, but he main teacher is phoning it in unfortunately, and it's not specific to my child.

I also want to respond to one of the posters upthread who said sped staff need better pay. Yes, they absolutely do. However, in MCPS the teachers union is blocking that. Not the parents/voters, not any other entity, but the teachers union. I just want everyone to be very clear about that. And the shortage of staff, including paras is due to the lack of reasonable pay.

Tell us more PP - who/why is the teachers union opposing better pay for special ed teachers. What does this mean about the value of the "apple ballot stamp" in current MD primary and Nov. general election. I'm reluctant to support the teacher's union because I see the union, teachers and admin as part of the problem in special education and yet I know special education teachers need better pay, better training and better curriculum packages for special instruction.

Who should we vote for at the national, state and local level to support students. (which is, frankly, IME not the same as supporting teachers, admin and MCPS central.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, this will get flamed but I also think schools/counties/parents need to differentiate between special needs students who, with the right help and interventions, can become functioning members of society and students who, no matter what anyone does, will never hold any sort of job or live alone period. I'm not saying those students are not also deserving of help and support, but trying to paint both kinds of students with the same brush is not helpful to either group.

My kid will hopefully hold a job but will probably never live independently. He deserves and needs as many resources as he can get. Maybe we should separate out the kids who are special needs light and their parents have a lot of money. They take up a lions share of time and resources at my kids school. They are always complaining and having meetings.

I feel like this would be one of the easiest places to start limiting entitlements. Allow the school team to decline to have yet another periodic IEP review after a certain yearly quota, or to cut off a meeting after a certain number of hours (not continue it, end it). Somebody posted here once that they made their team have at least 5 IEP meetings per year and I was aghast. One family getting five 2-hour IEP meetings, or three 3-hour IEP meetings, or whatever, where 15-20 other kids miss hours of speech or reading intervention or whatever while the staff sit around the table listening to goals being nitpicked in ways that will have no functional impact, is exactly what "benefits do not outweigh the costs" refers to. I had to sit through 12 combined hours of meetings once for a child who didn't even attend the school and whose family had no intention of sending them. During that time, every child seen by the gen ed teacher, the special ed teacher, the SLP, and the OT missed their services. These are the types of cases that drive teachers out.

I remember needing to have a second IEP meeting pretty quickly once I realized the “ school team” didn’t put any of my child’s 504 accommodations into her IEP. Absolutely zero of them, but I’m sure that was an innocent oversight and I guess that IEP meeting was unnecessary. After all they just want what’s best for the child right.

Or maybe you are wrong. Or the child’s needs changed. Or the s hook team was implementing accommodations but you’re not aware or understanding. It also sounds like a request or convo that could’ve been handled via email or phone like “hi I want to check in about accommodations and how student is using them at school. Can you update me?” That doesn’t need to be an official IEP meeting gheeze.

PP, you are wrong. Changing an IEP document always needs to be a meeting unless something along the lines of the following happens in writing -" Hi IEP team coordinator, I realized after the meeting that DD's prior 504 accommodations were left off her IEP. I'm assuming that was just some kind of oversight or glitch - if so, please send me a corrected IEP showing all the accommodations from the 504 incorporated in the IEP plan.

If these accommodations have been left off due to a decision by someone at school, I am requesting another IEP meeting, because we did not discuss terminating the 504 accommodations, and I don't agree to their termination, and I, as a full and equal member of the IEP team as provided under IDEA law, should have been provided an opportunity to participate in the decision about accommodations. I'm available on X and Y dates should we need to schedule another meeting."

[Anonymous]

It would have helped if the school's assessment wasn't so overly rosy about DS's reading and writing ability and then we got private testing done, which showed dyslexia/dysgraphia. It would have helped if the school hadn't removed all services from the IEP once he started to make progress. Once we got services reinstated (30 minutes of small group reading instruction 3 times a week using a method proven to work with kids with dyslexia), it would have helped if the school district had the staffing needed to actually provide these services consistently. I was always very appreciative of the special ed coordinator/reading instructor, but the school system really let us down. This was in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Everyone keeps referring to paperwork although in reality I've never seen this paperwork. At this Pont though why wouldn't each doctor diagnosed disability not have a set number of help factors and the teachers work from this list with quarterly emails to the parents and students so everyone is on the same page? The IEP list could be standardized and the teachers have more time for the meeting and less time seeded with the letter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, this will get flamed but I also think schools/counties/parents need to differentiate between special needs students who, with the right help and interventions, can become functioning members of society and students who, no matter what anyone does, will never hold any sort of job or live alone period. I'm not saying those students are not also deserving of help and support, but trying to paint both kinds of students with the same brush is not helpful to either group.

My kid will hopefully hold a job but will probably never live independently. He deserves and needs as many resources as he can get. Maybe we should separate out the kids who are special needs light and their parents have a lot of money. They take up a lions share of time and resources at my kids school. They are always complaining and having meetings.

I feel like this would be one of the easiest places to start limiting entitlements. Allow the school team to decline to have yet another periodic IEP review after a certain yearly quota, or to cut off a meeting after a certain number of hours (not continue it, end it). Somebody posted here once that they made their team have at least 5 IEP meetings per year and I was aghast. One family getting five 2-hour IEP meetings, or three 3-hour IEP meetings, or whatever, where 15-20 other kids miss hours of speech or reading intervention or whatever while the staff sit around the table listening to goals being nitpicked in ways that will have no functional impact, is exactly what "benefits do not outweigh the costs" refers to. I had to sit through 12 combined hours of meetings once for a child who didn't even attend the school and whose family had no intention of sending them. During that time, every child seen by the gen ed teacher, the special ed teacher, the SLP, and the OT missed their services. These are the types of cases that drive teachers out.

I remember needing to have a second IEP meeting pretty quickly once I realized the “ school team” didn’t put any of my child’s 504 accommodations into her IEP. Absolutely zero of them, but I’m sure that was an innocent oversight and I guess that IEP meeting was unnecessary. After all they just want what’s best for the child right.

Or maybe you are wrong. Or the child’s needs changed. Or the s hook team was implementing accommodations but you’re not aware or understanding. It also sounds like a request or convo that could’ve been handled via email or phone like “hi I want to check in about accommodations and how student is using them at school. Can you update me?” That doesn’t need to be an official IEP meeting gheeze.

PP, you are wrong. Changing an IEP document always needs to be a meeting unless something along the lines of the following happens in writing -" Hi IEP team coordinator, I realized after the meeting that DD's prior 504 accommodations were left off her IEP. I'm assuming that was just some kind of oversight or glitch - if so, please send me a corrected IEP showing all the accommodations from the 504 incorporated in the IEP plan.

If these accommodations have been left off due to a decision by someone at school, I am requesting another IEP meeting, because we did not discuss terminating the 504 accommodations, and I don't agree to their termination, and I, as a full and equal member of the IEP team as provided under IDEA law, should have been provided an opportunity to participate in the decision about accommodations. I'm available on X and Y dates should we need to schedule another meeting."

I brought up something like this and was just emailed an updated document.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fundamental problem is that IDEA has created a bottomless pit of unfunded entitlements. The federal government has imposed huge requirements on school systems while not covering even a fifth of the cost, and the percentage of students covered by the law has doubled and then tripled. The gap between what parents very reasonably feel they are legally entitled to for their child (since that's what IDEA says), and what the school system is actually physically capable of providing, and the tension of trying to magically make 1+1=3, is driving parents crazy and burning out staff. And then the problem snowballs because less staff makes it all worse. Everyone is in a no-win situation.

I think the system is fundamentally broken, possibly beyond repair, we just haven't realized it yet. Special education staffing shortages are going to keep getting worse and bring it to its knees. No other country on earth provides such a vast well of education entitlements, for the reason that it fundamentally can't be supported. There HAS to be a limit--all public systems have to ration care and have a cutoff point at which they say "no more, the costs outweigh the benefits." It's brutal, but what we have now isn't working anyway and at least this way there would be some honesty about it instead of a shell game. And nothing is stopping the private sector from filling in the gaps. Either you have to vastly increase the funding so that all these entitlements can actually be provided and staff actually want to do the job, or you have to limit the entitlements, or some combination of the two.

I'll probably get tomatoes thrown at me but I am really alarmed at how the staffing shortages just keep getting worse and worse in some of the local districts and how fast they burn through new staff. If you don't have anybody to do the job the law sets out, you have nothing. That is the first and biggest problem, and something drastic has to be done.

You have expressed some unpopular opinions. My own unpopular opinion is that any student on grade level (and that means making a c or better) does not need special ed services. We can not continue on our current course.

Not only is your opinion unpopular but it is inconsistent with the explicit provision of IDEA regulation 300.101(c), the school must provide special education to a child with a disability “even though the child has not failed or been retained in a course or grade, and is advancing from grade to grade."

Do you wonder why the regulations say that? It is because this country has a long history of passing special education students from grade to grade and giving "pity grades" in order to pass students with disabilities up and out of the education system.

I thought the "pity grade" was an old-fashioned thing until I saw my own child's teachers giving "pity grades" - passing or even good grades like B's and C's on work that was clearly far below grade level. Even the head of our school's English Department acknowledged that the work being presented as on level was a sham. In fact, private assessment showed our kid was performing at the 25th percentile in the area of SLD even though DC had an IQ in the 99th %ile and the school was repeatedly saying (without supporting data) that DC was on grade level.

This kind of educational fraud is also the reason why parents have a right to an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) because schools lie about grades, evaluation results and their meaning.

Schools have many tools to dismiss students from IEPs - they have all the data and the ability to collect, hide or mischaracterize that data - and dismissal can be done over the consent of the parents because the IEP team decision does not have to be by consensus. If the school team wants to dismiss and the parents do not, the school team can dismiss. The only right parents have is to safe harbor during due process, but due process requires parents have money for a lawyer to file suit or time to research, write and file state or federal complaints. And, that due process will fail where the school has data to support a decision to dismiss. If a school team "can't dismiss a child because the parents refuse to agree", it means the school team did not have the data or the school or parent data supported the parent's position.

[Anonymous]

To be fair , some school system misappropriate special education resources. At our elementary school, the special education teachers were used regularly by the principal to cover teachers when the principal wanted a meeting or couldn’t find a sub or no one else wanted to cover lunch or recess. Some school systems get money from the state/fed per child on an IEP but the money doesn’t follow through to the schools. It is redistributed by the main office to cover other needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone keeps referring to paperwork although in reality I've never seen this paperwork. At this Pont though why wouldn't each doctor diagnosed disability not have a set number of help factors and the teachers work from this list with quarterly emails to the parents and students so everyone is on the same page? The IEP list could be standardized and the teachers have more time for the meeting and less time seeded with the letter

Ahhh. Omg. Doctors are not part of education! They have no clue! And a diagnosis doesn’t determine needs. Or services. That’s like saying if you have autism, then you get this IEP and it’s the same for all if you with autism. Your total ignorance and lack of understanding is mind blowing. This is what school staff are dealing with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, this will get flamed but I also think schools/counties/parents need to differentiate between special needs students who, with the right help and interventions, can become functioning members of society and students who, no matter what anyone does, will never hold any sort of job or live alone period. I'm not saying those students are not also deserving of help and support, but trying to paint both kinds of students with the same brush is not helpful to either group.

My kid will hopefully hold a job but will probably never live independently. He deserves and needs as many resources as he can get. Maybe we should separate out the kids who are special needs light and their parents have a lot of money. They take up a lions share of time and resources at my kids school. They are always complaining and having meetings.

I feel like this would be one of the easiest places to start limiting entitlements. Allow the school team to decline to have yet another periodic IEP review after a certain yearly quota, or to cut off a meeting after a certain number of hours (not continue it, end it). Somebody posted here once that they made their team have at least 5 IEP meetings per year and I was aghast. One family getting five 2-hour IEP meetings, or three 3-hour IEP meetings, or whatever, where 15-20 other kids miss hours of speech or reading intervention or whatever while the staff sit around the table listening to goals being nitpicked in ways that will have no functional impact, is exactly what "benefits do not outweigh the costs" refers to. I had to sit through 12 combined hours of meetings once for a child who didn't even attend the school and whose family had no intention of sending them. During that time, every child seen by the gen ed teacher, the special ed teacher, the SLP, and the OT missed their services. These are the types of cases that drive teachers out.

I remember needing to have a second IEP meeting pretty quickly once I realized the “ school team” didn’t put any of my child’s 504 accommodations into her IEP. Absolutely zero of them, but I’m sure that was an innocent oversight and I guess that IEP meeting was unnecessary. After all they just want what’s best for the child right.

This is kinda on you. You had a draft of the iep before the meeting and never looked at it? Also, I’m a sped teacher and I have no access to any 504 paperwork. So I would have no idea what would have been on a 504.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, this will get flamed but I also think schools/counties/parents need to differentiate between special needs students who, with the right help and interventions, can become functioning members of society and students who, no matter what anyone does, will never hold any sort of job or live alone period. I'm not saying those students are not also deserving of help and support, but trying to paint both kinds of students with the same brush is not helpful to either group.

My kid will hopefully hold a job but will probably never live independently. He deserves and needs as many resources as he can get. Maybe we should separate out the kids who are special needs light and their parents have a lot of money. They take up a lions share of time and resources at my kids school. They are always complaining and having meetings.

I feel like this would be one of the easiest places to start limiting entitlements. Allow the school team to decline to have yet another periodic IEP review after a certain yearly quota, or to cut off a meeting after a certain number of hours (not continue it, end it). Somebody posted here once that they made their team have at least 5 IEP meetings per year and I was aghast. One family getting five 2-hour IEP meetings, or three 3-hour IEP meetings, or whatever, where 15-20 other kids miss hours of speech or reading intervention or whatever while the staff sit around the table listening to goals being nitpicked in ways that will have no functional impact, is exactly what "benefits do not outweigh the costs" refers to. I had to sit through 12 combined hours of meetings once for a child who didn't even attend the school and whose family had no intention of sending them. During that time, every child seen by the gen ed teacher, the special ed teacher, the SLP, and the OT missed their services. These are the types of cases that drive teachers out.

I remember needing to have a second IEP meeting pretty quickly once I realized the “ school team” didn’t put any of my child’s 504 accommodations into her IEP. Absolutely zero of them, but I’m sure that was an innocent oversight and I guess that IEP meeting was unnecessary. After all they just want what’s best for the child right.

This is kinda on you. You had a draft of the iep before the meeting and never looked at it? Also, I’m a sped teacher and I have no access to any 504 paperwork. So I would have no idea what would have been on a 504.

I've had this happen to me before. I'm the one who said I handled it by email. First off, I wrote them before the meeting saying I thought it was good to stay as it was but wanted to hear from the teachers. When I arrived, I was told they wanted to dismantle the document completely out of the blue. The comments from teachers had another issue listed so a clarification was made to one comment already in the original document. That was not updated after the meeting. So I was blindsighted and they made no updates after the meeting as they said they would. I would say the same goes for the school. If they want to blindside the student and parent by suggesting sweeping changes, they should notify the family before hand with a reason, not just present it at the meeting. And secondly they should take better notes and pass them around at the end of the meeting or soon after.

Also if you have no access to any paperwork, why are teachers like you saying that you have so much paperwork? From what? And why wouldn't you have a copy of the IEP or 504? It makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Also, we are in Fairfax County and there is this AAP process we went through with one of our kids plus he also applied and got into TJ, the governor's magnet school which also has it's own special programs with additional money. The amount of people and paperwork for that AAP program not to mention the additional classes and schools is far more than my special ed child ever received for special ed despite having a lifetime disability. I am not against advanced programs; however I do not understand why we have bussing for these kids to other schools, advanced classes, a complete in-house review of achievement, etc. and my special ed kid got less than 1/10 of this amount of focus and money. I was constantly told that I was asking too much for every tiny bit of help I asked him to have. I was not asking too much. There is a deliberate attempt to provide as little as possible in special ed and constant complaining about the smallest tasks that other kids just get because teachers and administration just doesn't have this triggered reaction to everything. Easily the PTA president's kid takes up more time than any special ed kid in the school. And FCPS proved this by rating students by how popular and influential their parents were in the community to determine how much work they would do. It's sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, this will get flamed but I also think schools/counties/parents need to differentiate between special needs students who, with the right help and interventions, can become functioning members of society and students who, no matter what anyone does, will never hold any sort of job or live alone period. I'm not saying those students are not also deserving of help and support, but trying to paint both kinds of students with the same brush is not helpful to either group.

My kid will hopefully hold a job but will probably never live independently. He deserves and needs as many resources as he can get. Maybe we should separate out the kids who are special needs light and their parents have a lot of money. They take up a lions share of time and resources at my kids school. They are always complaining and having meetings.

I feel like this would be one of the easiest places to start limiting entitlements. Allow the school team to decline to have yet another periodic IEP review after a certain yearly quota, or to cut off a meeting after a certain number of hours (not continue it, end it). Somebody posted here once that they made their team have at least 5 IEP meetings per year and I was aghast. One family getting five 2-hour IEP meetings, or three 3-hour IEP meetings, or whatever, where 15-20 other kids miss hours of speech or reading intervention or whatever while the staff sit around the table listening to goals being nitpicked in ways that will have no functional impact, is exactly what "benefits do not outweigh the costs" refers to. I had to sit through 12 combined hours of meetings once for a child who didn't even attend the school and whose family had no intention of sending them. During that time, every child seen by the gen ed teacher, the special ed teacher, the SLP, and the OT missed their services. These are the types of cases that drive teachers out.

I remember needing to have a second IEP meeting pretty quickly once I realized the “ school team” didn’t put any of my child’s 504 accommodations into her IEP. Absolutely zero of them, but I’m sure that was an innocent oversight and I guess that IEP meeting was unnecessary. After all they just want what’s best for the child right.

This is kinda on you. You had a draft of the iep before the meeting and never looked at it? Also, I’m a sped teacher and I have no access to any 504 paperwork. So I would have no idea what would have been on a 504.

You know you’re right, I expected some type of competency from a system to find and evaluate kids with disabilities and then provide appropriate services and accommodations, that was absolutely my fault. I hope others don’t do the same and have an advocate or attorney from the very beginning.