Is your school district or the IEP team quoting policy or regulation that you’ve never heard of before or don’t understand?
Here are a few of the many that pour in this time of year.
1. To observe in the classroom, the school said we had to get 24-hour prior approval from a school administrator, then they would arrange the time for observation.
2. Our School District told us that supplementary programs cannot be named in the IEP. They said the IEP had to target “underlying skills.”
3. The school administrator said that one of my students must be earning D’s or worse to qualify for an extended time accommodation on tests and quizzes through a 504 plan.
4. The school said parents couldn’t call for an IEP meeting.
And these…
5. My district says it is their policy to add language in the IEP goals, under the category of persons responsible for implementing the goals (i.e., teachers, district personnel, student, parents, family). How can a parent, family or child be expected to implement goals at school?
6. The school says a parent can’t request a particular instructor, but has to be assigned to an instructor by the school.
7. I was told in our IEP meeting today that our state law requires goals on the IEP to state the grade level. This “grade level” would be an unreachable goal for my students.
Ask to see a written copy of the school rule or policy or the “law.” Asking for a copy is not just a good idea. It can be one of your best practices for problem-solving.
In addition to asking, put your request in writing – in a letter to the school. Politely request a copy the “policy.”
You’ve heard us say this before. Unwritten school policy is no policy at all.
And remember. School “policy” does not trump the law.
The district did not have a general education or a special education teacher at my son’s “IEP meeting.” I refused to sign the cover page, saying it was not an IEP meeting (we never looked goals and objectives & only corrected a few mistakes in the IEP during the meeting). When I told the CST supervisor that I would not sign because no IEP meeting had taken place, he told me “there is no set definition of what an IEP meeting is.” I believe the law states there is a definition, and it includes teachers present at the meeting! He did not want teachers present at the meeting because the teachers did not use evidence based programs in the classroom. If the teachers were not at the meeting, then I would not be able to ask any questions about the programs used. At other IEP meetings, he tried to keep teachers quiet. This time he kept them out.
My favorite:
After the District spend someplace around 20 man-hours observing my son in his private placement, always sending a teaching staffer accompanied by their unofficial legal person – when we asked to observe the proposed placement policy was that we had to go one at a time for at most one hour and only in the offered times.
What was interesting was that they used this “one at a time” policy to talk to our observers in private even if no exchange of information paperwork had been signed.