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

[Anonymous]

My post was the one seconding a counseling out incident.

Happened at a public charter school in DC 9 years ago. School took it as a lesson and developed a strong, proactive Special Ed programs. The coordinator who told me that was replaced and my child stayed for the full program (5th grade). No due process or lawyers required thankfully.

[Anonymous]

My field trip post was an FCPS elementary with an ED center, which you would think would be well-versed in FAPE. I'd rather not be more specific.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My field trip post was an FCPS elementary with an ED center, which you would think would be well-versed in FAPE. I'd rather not be more specific.

Wait, since when is a field trip required? The student can still have an educational experience at school. If the parent can't accompany, then the child can stay at school.

[Anonymous]

Yes, 20:40, if the field trip is part of the educational objectives (and they all are now) then FAPE stands and they child must be included.

[Anonymous]

The IEP team that mimicked my DS was from a well regarded public school in this area. I won't name the school because I don't believe a few bad apples should taint the entire school. I am always grateful to those who have helped him.

[Anonymous]

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

I don't see posting the name of the school as appropriate or responsible. I posted about my DD's physical therapist and the head of a specific program. The school, however, has been wonderful. Why would warning you off the school/shaming the school serve any purpose whatsoever?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My field trip post was an FCPS elementary with an ED center, which you would think would be well-versed in FAPE. I'd rather not be more specific.

Wait, since when is a field trip required? The student can still have an educational experience at school. If the parent can't accompany, then the child can stay at school.

If a field trip is not required, and students cannot be kept safe on the field trip, then no students can go. The same principles that apply to students with accommodations apply to all students. Would you tell your 2nd grader who has been studying mummies "You can have an educational experience at the school, you don't need to go to the Museum of Natural History" or "I need to go to the Pumpkin Patch" to keep you safe? Of course not! Why should the parent of a child who needs an accommodation. Under the law, the school system is "in loco parentis" for all of its students. It has a legal obligation to keep them all safe during the school day. Not the parents. The school district. And every activity the school provides -- field trips, recess, lunch -- serves a purpose related to education.

[Anonymous]

To me, the most frustrating is when they refute response to intervention and only look to test scores. The 2004 IDEA permits using RTI to code a kid with SLD, and MCPS is reluctant to do so anyway. Whatever happened to looking at the whole picture?

[Anonymous]

Over the years working with DCPS, I've heard so many crazy things. I'll share a few of my "favorites"

Once at a hearing, when a parent testified that DCPS had not provided them with a placement, despite a court order that they place the child in an appropriate program, the DC attorney told the hearing officer

"You just ordered us to write a notice of placement. You didn't order us to mail it . . . "

At another hearing, again for a child who had been given no placement whatsoever, DCPS brought the IEP and report card for a different child with the same common name as proof that the child had been in school all along. When the parent pointed out that the birthdate and address were wrong, and that the report card came from a school their child had never attended DCPS responded

"How do you really know? I mean you're a working mother. You're not actually with him (him being the 5 year old) during the day. Isn't it possible that he's going to school when you're at work all day, and Grandma just didn't think to mention it?"

And then there was the hearing about bus ride lengths, where DCPS conceded that the child got on the bus before 7 and off the bus after 9, but argued that the hearing should be postponed until the family paid for an expert witness in the area of "math" to determine whether or not the bus ride lasted more than the legally allowed 90 minutes.

And finally, there was the meeting where DCPS told me to remove a goal about biting teachers from a child's IEP because the child was only biting once a week and they considered 80% to be "mastery". I guarantee that the teachers getting bit once a week did not consider the child to have mastered the skill of not biting.

I've been to so many meetings in various capacities (teacher, administrator, parent) and while I've certainly heard parents say things I disagree with, none of them come close to the offensiveness of statements I've heard from professionals.

[Anonymous]

20:40 There is case law on this.

On November 27, 2013, the USDOJ and Camelot Day Care Center in Edmond, OK entered into a Settlement Agreement. The child, with Down Syndrome and toileting issues, was denied participation in field trips. In addition to paying $3,000 to the parents, the child will have a full year, tuition free, at Camelot. Click here to read the Settlement Agreement. - See more at: http://www.wrightslaw.com/caselaw.htm#sthash.lz0k0J1t.dpuf

Anonymous wrote:Yes, 20:40, if the field trip is part of the educational objectives (and they all are now) then FAPE stands and they child must be included.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To me, the most frustrating is when they refute response to intervention and only look to test scores. The 2004 IDEA permits using RTI to code a kid with SLD, and MCPS is reluctant to do so anyway. Whatever happened to looking at the whole picture?

For my child, looking at the scores would indicate he has a SLD because of the discrepancies but MCPS will only consider Response to Intervention. They say they are going to monitor and document then forgot to do so. We re-meet and the school psychologist says we have to go back to the drawing board because the school was negligent trying the interventions so there is no data to say if they work or not.

When I brought up his testing, the school psychologist told us that MCPS does not use the discrepancy model anymore and only uses RTI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So is least restrictive environment considered "adequate/acceptable" schooling or "exceptional/ideal" schooling?

I ask becuase the running away/field trip scenario. At what point does safety and welfare of the child take precedent over bringing the child to an unsafe situation like the zoo field trip where the staff feels like they cannot keep him from running off and might loose him?

[Anonymous]

So is least restrictive environment considered "adequate/acceptable" schooling or "exceptional/ideal" schooling?

I ask becuase the running away/field trip scenario. At what point does safety and welfare of the child take precedent over bringing the child to an unsafe situation like the zoo field trip where the staff feels like they cannot keep him from running off and might loose him?

Why are you so fixated on elopement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So is least restrictive environment considered "adequate/acceptable" schooling or "exceptional/ideal" schooling?

I ask becuase the running away/field trip scenario. At what point does safety and welfare of the child take precedent over bringing the child to an unsafe situation like the zoo field trip where the staff feels like they cannot keep him from running off and might loose him?

Why are you so fixated on elopement?

NP here: I'm a teacher and the worst thing I can imagine is a child running away or getting into a situation they can't handle while we're on a field trip. That's not so hard to imagine, is it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So is least restrictive environment considered "adequate/acceptable" schooling or "exceptional/ideal" schooling?

I ask becuase the running away/field trip scenario. At what point does safety and welfare of the child take precedent over bringing the child to an unsafe situation like the zoo field trip where the staff feels like they cannot keep him from running off and might loose him?

3 big ideas here:

1) Free and Appropriate Public Education -- not perfect, not "ideal" appropriate.

2) Least Restrictive Environment -- with general education peers unless there's a very good reason to remove them. So if gen ed peers are at the zoo, then kid with an IEP is at the zoo. If there's a reason that the zoo absolutely can not be made safe (e.g. kid with life threatening reaction to high temperatures and an end of the year trip), then that's a reason to take a kid out of the L.R.E. But it's hard to imagine a situation where a kid would be safe with mom 1:1 at the zoo and no safe with school staff 1:1 at the zoo. Cost can't be factored in when deciding to remove a kid from gen ed, so if the child can go to the zoo with 1:1, then the school needs to find that 1:1 support and pay for it.

3) Equivalent. IDEA requires that individuals with disabilities have experiences that are equal/equivalent to their peers. So, for example, if you're in a school in Idaho that never takes kids to the Smithsonian, then you don't need to take your kid with a disability to the Smithsonian either. If your HS doesn't have world language classes, then you don't need to provide them for your students with disabilities. But if you school makes something available to the students with gen ed, such as a trip to the zoo, then they need to make it available to all their students.