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[quote=Anonymous][b][quote=Anonymous]Best of luck to you, OP.  I'm so burnt out with our family's school educational dramas, so burnt out...losing the motivation to fight for my kids.  I keep thinking, if jobs are so difficult to come by these days, is there any excuse for hiring and keeping on so much mediocrity?  [/quote][/b]

I so relate.  OP, I am an attorney but not a special needs expert.  I've had three SN kids go through the system.  Advocates, IMHO, have been worthless and often don't know what they are talking about.  Once you start a legal action, all help for your kid and communication from the school system will stop and you will be involved in litigation for years.  It will be stressful for you and for your family and child.  And it will be very expensive.  If you have not yet done it, the much better approach is to call the FCPS Compliance Officer.  It is her job to make sure each FCPS is "in compliance" with the IDEA and ADA.  I had to do it once and immediately everyone in FCPS fell into line.  WE had a very civil meeting, brought in our shrink, testers, tutor, the school's IEP people and DC's teachers.  I laid out the problems politely and presented evidence.  The shrink, testers and tutors each spoke.  The IEP was revised on the spot.  All the teachers now understood better what the IEP was supposed to do and what they needed to do for DC.  In our school we had a hostile SN head who felt it was her job to make sure kids did not get the benefits they deserved. To this day I don't know if that was her mandate or not - but she clearly felt she was a gatekeeper and her role was to keep kids out of the SN programs and fought all IEPs.  I did raise it with the principal but he said "I know there's a problem; make an appointment with my secretary".  To me, that was his way of saying he wasn't interested in changing her role.  He never called me to get my views (and we were friendly).

You do have to advocate for your child in FCPS.  You do neet to be assertive.  But you don't need to hire an attorney.  If you haven't called the Compliance Officer, do so Monday.  Then read up witih WRightslaw and other IEP online services and books so you know your rights.

Please stop and think this through before involving a lawyer.
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