A big win for my son's ESY!!!!

[Guest guest]

Dear Listmates:

We met for my son's ESY ARD yesterday. This time I had made them give me a

" draft " before the meeting. Before I was given the draft, the principal had

said that it was really good and I was going to love it. I asked her to tell me

what it was, but she said she didn't want to promise something until the

superintendent had approved it.

So almost two weeks later I get a draft, and it is the same inappropriate ESY

they always offer. The only improvements were that he would not be bussed

twenty miles away and be put in a self-contained room with nineteen and twenty

year old MH males.

Everything else was the same. My son would be alone in the ESY (that is because

they say other parents want to spend time with their kids and not because their

program is so inappropriate so other parents just turn it down).

My son would only have an aide. A teacher would make out the lesson plan, but

it would be delivered in a room with only an aide who they have not even hired

yet. Therefore, they couldn't tell me this person's qualifications. Then my

son would be working worksheets all day(I know this because this is the only way

I see them try to teach. He would go to the playground but wouldn't have any

other kids to play with. No speech and no OT.

It was the same scope and sequence (four days, half a day, for four weeks) Only

this time it would be scheduled where he would wind up having a straight six

weeks of unstructured time in the summer at the end of ESY. The emphasis was

going to be on multiplication and division when they haven't even taught him to

add and subtract with regrouping yet! They were going to use " Study Island " for

reading when they only provide the grades to parents and we can't view the

actual work. This program is geared for students who need help passing TEKS and

NOT for an ASD child with specific reading difficulties.

I had done my homework in preparation for the ARD. My son's notebook for this

year is about six inches thick. We had outside testing done that lends evidence

to stagnation/regression.

Anyway, at ARD, they added to it. They were going to bus my son with this

strange unnamed aide to Fort Worth for two separate sessions at an autism social

skills camp in addition to his being alone working at the school. So my son

would be in and out, in and out and constantly bombarded by new personnel and

new situations and new people. It blew me away that they would think I would

agree to anything without knowing who was going to provide direct services and

what their qualifications were. It bothers me that they would think I wouldn't

want to know if this person is certified in CPR and the use of an Epipen and how

to handle autism meltdowns. The camp is an hour and a half away from our home.

Anyway, his math/reading resource teacher kept rolling her eyes during the

meeting. I took the opportunity to ask her if I had all my son's graded papers

through the end of March (I will explain why I asked this later). She said

there were some uncompleted ones she threw away, but no others.

Then, our educational consultant asked if the principal would meet with just us

in the hall. She did. Our consultant asked the principal if she would please

asked this teacher to stop rolling her eyes and contribute positively to the

process. I then took the opportunity to tell the principal that I have evidence

that this teacher has not been following my son's IEP. She has been giving him

IEP progress grades throughout the year for objectives that we have no data to

support, and this is probably why my son is not making progress in reading and

math.

This is why the educational notebook is so important. We have kept all his

papers from the get-go (except for some of the multitudes of coloring that comes

home that is not academic). So I was able to go back through and match

objectives to questions. Then I saw that for a particular objective there was

only ONE question for the whole year!! And for many objectives, I could find NO

questions to support her giving him mastery level percentages. I'm sorry to say

I think there are too many teachers out there who do not think they have to

follow an IEP and who think just writing in any grade is enough and that we

parents don't care and are not going to take the time to look. Not following an

IEP is a denial of FAPE.

The principal said she didn't believe my numbers, but I'll take a lie-detector

test. Will this teacher???? I will go back through the papers and divide by

grading periods and also make note of the grades he actually earned. Say there

are fifty items (questions) given for an objective. If he missed twenty-five

then why would they put a 95% on the progress report, tell me he has mastered it

and can they just pencil in some new ones??

Then the principal asked me if I just wanted my son to go to the private

placement he went to last summer and the district would pay for it. Horray! An

appropriate placement for my son this summer! He will get six weeks, six hours

a day, five days a week; and he will get speech, OT music therapy,

community-based instruction, get maintenance of academics using research-based

programs such as Reading Milestones and Touch Math. He will get social skills

training and independent living skills.

I will feel really happy once I know the school has received the check, but it

is on tape and in the notes that they said they would pay for it. It is going

to be a good summer. Whenever my son goes there he is happy and has so much

less anxiety, and we actually see progress as he wants to come home and show us

what he has learned. The past two summers he stayed healthy the whole time, and

we ere even able to wean him off steroids for the summer.

I am so happy! I just wanted to share. Advocacy can work!