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[quote=Anonymous]Your post isn’t clear.  Is there an IEP requirement for self contained classes that isn’t being honored?  It’s hard to imagine something that they “don’t do” ending up in an IEP.

I was very happy with MCPS.  Two kids in special education.  One was borderline certificate rather than diploma track and with an IEP and lots of outside support (mostly from me but some paid), he graduated, went on to trade school and is now working full time in a job that pays well and provides health insurance.  He is independent.  Second kid started out with intense services for cognitive related disabilities, then went to 504 in MS due to no need for services, then to non-mainstream for HS due to mental health issues.  Third kid is in gen ed and doing great, thankfully because I’m tired of all the work it takes to get them through school.

Was everything perfect?  Far from it.  But, people were committed, as was I and the rest of the family.  When mistakes happened and services didn’t, we worked together to get things back on track.  The Covid services were out of this world amazing.  The transition out of HS services were excellent and two years after one of mine graduated, they provided some additional services when a need came up that I could not handle on my own.  In the end, big picture thinking, the services were successful despite periodic problems along the way.

My secret was being prepared for the IEP.  I kept my eye on the big picture always.  What was the ultimate outcome I was looking for - which was to get the skills necessary to be an independent and successful adult, though the specifics differed for each of my kids.  As a result, I didn’t bean count or sweat the small stuff because honestly a missed pullout or speech therapy session here and there wasn’t going to make the difference between ultimate success and failure.

Where I focused my attention was on those things that would have affected the ability to achieve the long term goal.  This was things like setting the correct goals that would lead to achieving the long term goals, identifying services to achieve goals and monitoring progress on the goals.  If progress wasn’t happening, then we needed to regroup, not because a pullout got missed.  I also spent a lot of time on the non-mainstream placement selection and the Covid services plan (mine was in 11th and 12th grade at the time of Covid so what happened really would make the difference between graduating or not).

There was one year right after my oldest got his IEP that it was not followed to the point where he failed several courses in a semester, which made him ineligible for Thomas Edison.  The services were on target, just didn’t happen and, not making excuses, but I think it was because teachers weren’t expecting an IEP, but rather a transfer to non-diploma track and they just forgot.  Anyway, I challenged the grades and won, which gave him the opportunity for a redo,  He was successful and ultimately got into Edison.

With my other son, in ES, there was one teacher who repeatedly punished my child for behaviors that were addressed in the IEP in a very public way.  I escalated that as well and it got resolved, though not before a lot of bad feelings.  Like I said, it wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty excellent.  And given that there were probably close to 250 people involved with my two kids over their time in MCPS, to have a serious issue with only one is pretty amazing.  But, again, I think that is because of the way I approach things like special education and IEPs.  It is easy to have a different experience if you expect everything to go right and you can’t see the forest for the trees.  
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