Fw: JUST WANT TO STRESS....(PLEASE READ!!)

[Guest guest]

The petitions being circulated about the IDEA are very good and

represente outstanding work. But, it is also important for every

person to email their own Congressman now. Your Congressman's office

will pay a lot of attention to emails from people who live in their

district and so its important to write, even if you only send one

paragraph.

Next week, the House of Representatives will consider a bill that

waters down the rights of children with autism under the Individuals

with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The IDEA protects the rights

of children with autism and other disabled kids to get an appropriate

education and the services and therapies they need to learn. But

Congress is considering a new bill, H.R. 1350, that will water down

the IDEA and mean disabled kids will get an inferior education. LET

CONGRESS KNOW NOW THAT THEY SHOULD VOTE AGAINST THE NEW LAW, H.R. 1350.

Congress needs to know how parents (and relatives and friends) feel.

Right now, parents have been silent while school districts have

lobbied hard. Congress thinks we don't care. The House of

Representatives is going to consider this bill in early April so it is

very important that you send your message to Congress quickly. Do not

wait; do it now. Just write what you feel. It can just be a

paragraph or two. You can contact your Congressman at

http://www.house.gov/writerep/ and your senator at

http://www.senate.gov. Be sure to say you are writing about H.R. 1350.

It is very important for people represented by Judy Biggert (Far West

Suburban Chicago, including Downers Grove, Naperville, Lisle, DuPage,

Plainfield, Orlando, Homer, etc.) to contact her at

http://www.house.gov/writerep/ because she is on Congress' education

committee. She is going to be involved in editting the bill around

April 2-3. Get your friends and family in her district to contact

her, too.

Here are some things to think about in writing your note. You don't

have to write about all of them. If you want to copy any of these

ideas, go ahead.

1. H.R. 1350 does not provide full funding for the IDEA. Does your

child with autism receive therapy services in a big group? Does your

child need 1:1 services, a tutor, aide, ABA, or other services or

equipment your district isn't providing? How does this affect your

child? You might want to explain this to your Congressman and explain

why full funding is so important: because it would enable school

districts to fix this problem. Be sure to explain how not getting

these services or therapies hurts your child.

2. Right now, the IDEA gives school districts money that has to be

spent on disabled kids. H.R. 1350 will let schools spend the money

for other purposes. Money should not be taken away from disabled

children, even if for a good purpose. Tell your Congressmen why this

is a bad idea. Explain to your Congressman that the IDEA pays for

therapies for your children that they need to learn, pays for special

equipment, pays for aides (and anything else you can think of that the

school provides your child). Without these things, your child cannot

learn. If school districts can spend their IDEA money on other

things, it will shortchange our children and the IDEA will be

toothless. (Even if things are bad now, they would be worse if school

districts could take the money and spend it on other things. What if

your child didn't get speech therapy so they could buy fancy computers

for another class?)

3. H.R. 1350 would take away many protections for parents' rights

that are in the IDEA, called the procedural safeguards. It is

important for schools to give parents their rights before every IEP

meeting, so parents can use them to make sure their children get a

good education. H.R. 1350 would prevent this. When you sign an

important contract, you get notice of your rights. It should be the

same way with IEPs. H.R. 1350 would let schools to give a short

description of rights to parents. They could use a misleading

statement or leave important things out. Congress should require

schools to fully explain these rights like they have to now.

5. H.R. 1350 will end the protections disabled children have when

they are disciplined. It would let a teacher misuse discipline

procedures to take children with autism out of her room. Right now,

under the IDEA, children who are a danger can be removed from the

classroom. Other disabled children get a hearing, to make sure that a

teacher isn't just getting rid of disabled children from her classroom

because she doesn't want them there. H.R. 1350 would punish children

for behavior that they cannot control, like children who cannot sit

still or obey every command. Children will be put into alternative

schools that become permanent parking lots where they do not really

learn. Right now under the IDEA, schools have to perform a Functional

Behavior Assessment if a disabled child is removed from the classroom.

The assessment ensures that the school finds out what is causing the

child to misbehave so they can fix it. The new bill gets rid of this

requirement. If there are positive behavioral interventions that would

resolve the problem, schools should have to figure them out and use

them and that's what a Functional Behavior Assessment is all about.

Tell Congress to put this back to H.R. 1350.

6. H.R. 1350 changes the " Prior Written Notice " portion of the law so

schools can ignore changes that parents request. If a child is not

making progress in school, under the IDEA, schools have to consider

all options and explain why they are rejecting the ones they don't

choose. This makes sure that schools really do consider those

options. So, if you ask for an aide or speech therapy 1:1 for a child

who has great difficulty communicating, or ABA therapy, and the school

district denies your request, it has to tell you why. Tell Congress

to keep the Prior Written Notice Provisions in the law. Without them,

schools will not be accountable. Isn't accountability what the No

Child Left Behind Act was all about? The new bill also contains a

provision, 615©(2) that would make the prior written notice portion

toothless: it would prevent parents from suing if the school doesn't

give prior written notice. Tell Congress to get rid of 615©(2).

7. H.R. 1350 gets rid of short-term objectives and benchmarks from

IEPs. Children in regular education receive regular report cards.

Children with disabilities should also receive regular reports on

their progress on their IEP goals. And, instead of annual IEPs,

schools can give parents the option of a 3-year IEP. This means that

the IEP is revised only every 3 years or when a child transitions into

elementary school, middle school, and high school. Parents will feel

forced to accept this and won't understand that they can ask for a one

year IEP. If parents are pressured to accept a three-year IEP,

schools won't be accountable. Because H. 1350 changes the procedural

protections for parents, the schools will not be required to fully

explain to parents their right to a one year IEP.

How to contact your Congresspeople:

(A) go to http://www.house.gov/writerep/ and put in your zipcode. You

will be able to write to your member of the House of Representative.

If the system asks for your 9 digit zipcode and you're not sure of it,

go to http://www.usps.gov (the post office site) and put in your

address and zipcode (20500). It will give you your 9 digit zipcode

(20500-0300).

( Next, write to your Senator. Go to http://www.senate.gov Click on

choose your state, it will list your senators and how to contact them.

If you use regular email to write to your Senator, BE SURE TO PUT IN

YOUR HOME ADDRESS because Senators only pay attention to email from

people who really live in their states. Many have computer programs

that reject email from people who don't give full addresses and zipcodes.

© Finally, send a COPY of the email you wrote your own Senators and

Congressmen to Joe.Novotny@.... He works for Congressman

, who has worked hard to defend disabled children and the

IDEA. This way, Congressman can have a big stack of letters to

use. ***BE SURE TO SEND AN EMAIL TO YOUR OWN CONGRESSMEN AND SENATORS

AND JUST SEND A COPY TO JOE. YOUR OWN CONGRESSMEN AND SENATORS ARE

THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE: they need to know to vote against H.R.

1350.**********

PLEASE SHARE THIS EMAIL WITH ANYONE YOU WANT AND RE-POST IT. GET

EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO WRITE TO CONGRESS: your child's relatives, your

friends. Congress needs to hear our voices.