ARD = soap opera

[Guest guest]

We had an ARD yesterday for speech therapy - part of a service plan for my

son

whom I homeschool. This is a meeting that was supposed to happen at the

beginning of school but they kept dragging their feet. Some examples:

1. eventhough, he is supposed to be in 6th grade (middle school), we had ARD

with the

elementary school staff including the 5th grade teacher - meaningless and a

waste of time

2. The purpose for the ARD was for me to meet the speech therapist and to

discuss the stimulus money for homeschoolers.. The ST was a no show.

There was no one who has the info and the authority re: the stimulus money.

They wanted to schedule another ARD for that one. There were 5 people in

the room to supposedly discuss IEPs for ST only. Why not discuss the

stimulus

money (as they promised me ) in the same meeting????

3. The IEP goals were written by an ST back in 2007 and she no longer works

there.

4. The IEPs were so out of date and vague and no longer applies to my

son. Example: Ability to follow one or two directions 40 percent of the

time. My son is 12. He can read. He has a great receptive language. What

kind of an ST goal is that ...and %40 of the times ????????? You call that

teaching and successful!!!!!

5. Eventhough I have opted to homeschool my son and had no plan to place

him this year, they had to have an ARD (as a formality) for that before

discussing the service plan. While I was signing the papers before refusing

the fabulous (FAPE), I noticed a phrase indicating that the academics are

developed based on " peer-reviewed " researched methodologies or something to

that effect. When I asked what methodologies would that be. None of them

knew

including the special ed. teacher, They were pointing their hands to the

ceiling and

said " people in the top " wrote that. So, I asked to meet these people and

no one who

they are....

6.They kept looking at their watches, exchanging glances and rolling their

eyes every time I said something they did not want to hear.

7. When I was explaining to them how my son learns and how I use " errorless

learning " to make him successful and teaching him new ideas. None of them

knew what I was talking about. The diag refused to include this in his IEP

because " it is not an approved teaching methodology " . When I further asked

if she can tell me what methodologies are APROVED. She would not say and

did not know but my galley she is not going to put " errorless learning " in

the IEP.

8. When I decided to stop the meeting as it was a complete waste of time,

the diag started reading back the minutes. They were five bullets. She

paraphrased everything I said, picked and chose to document what happened.

There was one line saying " the parent was upset and asked to stop the

meeting " . No details of why. I thought minutes are an accurate

representation of what happens in the meeting not summary of the sentiments

and opinions of the minute taker. At that point,m I did not even want to

sign anything. I just got up and left in disgust. What a waste of time.

There is more to share but I hope you got the gist.

[Guest guest]

,

I'm sorry you had to endure that fiasco. And just to get speech therapy.

Too bad the ST wasn't there. But if she had been it's very likely it

wouldn't have gone any better.

The ST my son had at school didn't have a clue about autism. And certainly

knew nothing about " errorless learning " .

Your knowledge of your son's needs and how to help him are probably light

years ahead of the school or their ST.

It's so frustrating. Are you going to have another ARD (with the ST

present)? I hope it will be worth it.

Marilyn