Hi Sun Dogs,


Our grandson 8, has an IEP due to his mild autism (he is not BPD), and as I recall, the process of getting his IEP involved a good amount of paperwork together with some medical records and I think some academic testing too, to determine and customize his needs. As schools are government-funded, and special programs receive extra funding, I think that is the reason behind the paperwork - to substantiate the need first, and then to determine the specific way to meet the need... .  

What are your concerns regarding the counselor putting down cognitive and physical disability?

Would it help if you asked the counselor to explain the whole process to you in detail, so both of you can cooperate effectively in the best interest of your d?

It's recommended that the letter be sent registered mail so that you have a record of when they received it... .   I think they have 15 days to respond.

Some of the more common accommodations in an IEP/504 plan:

In public school:

Extra time to complete assignments

Smaller classroom sizes

Open invitation to leave a class and go to the counselor when feeling overwhelmed

Increased/daily communication w/parents

Extra time to complete state standardized testing

One on one tutoring

Reduced assignments

Alternative education:

In home tutoring/online public school

Therapuetic day school

Therapuetic boarding school

It is important to understand the difference between a 504 (a voluntary agreement) and the IEP (a binding contract).

They will use their tests.  You can bring a statment before from the p or a dr.  but rememebr it is for their consideration only; it is not a mandate just because a dr. says so.

Her diagnosis is not that important. The school cares about school performance.  That is all that is in their jurisdiction. The good side of that is there is no generalizing especially with BPD there is such a spectrum you don't want your dd sterotyped.

They will probably look at her grades and decide if she needs an academic assessment.

THey will discuss her behaviors as she acts in school and decide if she needs a beahavior plan

They will discuss social/emotional, if she has friends, participates, speaks up, asks questions, interacts socially.

You can advocate with the stress she brings home from school and things that may help lower her stress so she can bemore successful in school.

Before you leave ask for the timeline and when you will  hear back.  All of these events have legal timelines as to when and  how long the school can take to test and make determinations.

good luck and keep usposted!

Hi Sun Dogs,

Here are my experiences with your questions.  My daughter by law was invited to attend all SCE meetings.  Notices were sent to her via USPS which I promptly destroyed.  I asked her T and her P if she should attend and was told in the beginning she should absolutely NOT attend.  I was glad I listened.  I can't imagine how DD would have reacted to some of the ignorant statements that were made at these meetings such as, "why can't she just get herself to school on time" or "since you drive her to school, maybe you just need to put your foot down and demand that she is on time".  These meetings often brought me as a parent to tears and on more than one occasion I had to make the statement that I was leaving the meeting for a few moments and my hope was that when we resumed we could address the issues at hand without commentary.

I did let DD know I was going to meetings and I asked her to write down anything she thought she would like to say or anything she thought might be helpful to her.  More times than not she came up with nothing because she truly didn't understand herself, but I always gave her the opportunity.  I also sat down with her after the meetings and talked about what was discussed.

As far as testing, DD was put the a barage of tests that took two full days to administer.  They were administered and interpretted by the school psychologist and they ranged from overall IQ tests, to subject specific IQ tests, psychological testing and the one test that I thought was most interesting was a test they gave her answering questions about herself and her behaviors and then I was asked to come in and complete the same test answering questions about DD and they compared the two to see levels of disparity on how DD saw herself and how I perceived her.

Once the testing was done the psychologist sent a copy of the results and findings to me.  I in turn sent copies to my advocate and her P and was amazed at how off base the school was.  They drew conclusions based on her testing that her P thought were ridiculous such as comparing her high IQ to her level of academic production and the conclusion was that she "certainly could do the work and that there was nothing impeding her success.  I had DD's P respond to their findings and make corrections and suggestions.  He delivered this in a most cordial manner and was well received by the committee.  He also continually noted that all though he was willing to allow the district to try to accommodate DD's issues that there needed to be a time limit set and if things had not improved satisfactorily that his recommendation was for residential schooling. He even went as far as listing the residential facilities that he would recommend. This made me very nervous at first but he also explained to me that residential schooling was a possibility but the school district would not want to go down that road so basically they would do everything in their power to accommodate DD's needs.  The other thing that D's P also had me insist upon were monthly "team meetings" that included the school social worker, guidance counselor and DD's teachers.  This I found very helpful since some teachers were able to be more successful in helping DD and they were able to share what they were doing with other faculty members.  It also gave me a chance to update them on the progress or lack of as I was seeing it at home.  I will tell you that a few of the teachers did not like this at all. God forbid they give up there precious prep time but I did not let a month go by without one and I always set a date for the next one at the conclusion of the meeting. I also made sure that at the end of each meeting I let everyone know how thankful I was for their help and I often followed up with actual written Thank You notes to a few of the faculty members who I truly believe wanted to do all in their power to help. 

The only meeting that DD attended was her exit meeting when she was graduating.  The superintendent of Special Education called me and asked me to please have DD come and she assured me that this meeting was to celebrate her success.  She did attend this meeting and although it was a very emotional meeting for all of us it was nice for DD to be praised.

Griz

The possible upside of your dd being there is she will learn how to start to advocate for herself.