Did school IEP meeting plan for fall 2013?

Many schools conduct spring IEP meetings for students.  Usually the people at this meeting are the current staffers who work with the child.  However, in the fall some students will be in a different building or different program.  Was this taken into consideration for your child’s IEP?

Was someone from the future building/program invited to the IEP meeting?  Was opportunity provided for your child to preview the new facility/program? or arrangements made to do so before the start of school in the fall?

Other things to consider:

• bus scenario different? driver? pick up time? drop-off time?
• lunch scenario different? menus?
• different para? 
• different nurse?
• rules/expectations in new building different?  does IEP override those?

Advocates at The IEP Center support parents with IEP meetings, and, when issues in IEP meetings become redundant, The IEP Center advocates support parents in mediation, which states offer a free mediator.  The IEPCenter.com 

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Student to repeat first grade? Need IEP?

I am concerned when a parent tells me the public school wants their child to repeat a grade, especially if the child is a “special ed” student.

Too often, the attitude toward our struggling child at this age is “wait and see”.  I have met too many parents over the years who went along with “wait and see” only to watch the years pass by and have a child much older than his classmates in middle school.

“Wait and see” is often a result of poor programming by the school for our child.  Perhaps assumptions were made about the child, or the child’s disability, by those who plan the child’s education.  Parents need to make sure to bring to the IEP meeting folks who know about the disability of the child so that the school can be brought up-to-date on how our child learns.  This is especially true for children who have invisible disabilities, such as Aspergers, head injuries, etc.

Parents can be proactive and insist on further testing by the school in order to get information about the child’s learning styles and abilities. Parents can also ask to see the data collected by the school that either supports or undermines the school’s contention that the child needs to repeat.

Advocates at theiepcenter.com are available to go to school meetings with parents in MIssouri and Kansas, and available for telephone consults.