question for Celeste- not hearing impaired related LONG

[Guest guest]

My question has to due with an IEP in general it does not specifically relate to

an IEP for a hearing impaired child. These people got my name and number from

their son's OT at school who was appalled at what was going on and told the

parents they needed some help.

I got a call from another parent at my son's school yesterday who were concerned

about a reduction in services for their child. This boy has autism and is

severely retarded. Two years ago the school brought in an expert from a nearby

university to evaluate the boy " D " . The recommendation was 40 hours per week,

preferably with 30 hours as the minimum, one on one with a therapist trained in

ABA therapy. (I'm not sure exactly what this is.)

Two years after this eval (fall of '99) the school finally provided an ABA

trained person for 20 hours a week. They offered the mom a job as an aide in

another school and said if she took this job they would pay for ABA training for

her. (My response was that if they thought she needed it they should have paid

for it under parent training not forced her to work for them to get the

training.) In January of this year the teacher told the parents that they were

getting another child who needed this service so they were going to cut " D " to

ten hours per week because it wasn't in the budget to get another ABA trained

person.

The parents had seen a lot of improvement in their son since this training was

finally implemented and did not want his time cut. The teacher told them they

had no choice and they needed to just sign the IEP amendment. The parents did

so. Nothing changed until two weeks ago when the other child was placed in the

class. Already in two weeks they have noticed a decline in their son. Also

just since the service was started last September the ABA person had surgery and

was out for four weeks. No replacement was provided during that time.

Apparently this is a child who cannot be tested with standardized tests. He is

severely mentally retarded in addition to the autism. The parents have not made

any waves because they really like the teacher and don't want to get her " in

trouble " or make anyone at the school " mad " . I talked with the dad at length

about this attitude on the phone and it appears to me that they are past this

and wanting these services for their son and don't care about hurting anyone's

feelings now.

Another one of the recommendations (from the school's own experts) was that this

child needed to be in a classroom with a distraction free environment. The

classroom he has been in is a multi-handicapped room with about 12 kids and 4

aides and is very busy.

The father is prepared to unilaterally withdraw the child from school and send

him to a private school and send the public school the bill. I told him not to

do that unless he does everything step by step or he won't have a prayer of

being reimbursed. I have given them a bunch or URL's about IDEA and wrightslaw

and some of the pages from Kay and Sherry's websites. I have given them some

stuff about advocacy, etc. I think I have covered all the basics.

My questions are, is there a way to turn back the clock? Where do we go from

here? Was this considered a change of placement? Can it be contested based on

the teacher not advising them of their rights when she made them sign the IEP

addendum? (I'm not sure if she did or not I forgot to ask that.) Can they say

they signed under duress because the teacher told them they had to. (I have

since advised them they don't HAVE to sign anything and never to sign anything

until they have had a chance to take it home and think about it.)

Remember this is the same school where it took me 2 & 1/2 years to get an IEP

for my son. The same school that was continually out of compliance on his 504

Plan. The same school where we finally got the IEP working in December and in

February (when his classroom teacher went on pregnancy leave) was out of

compliance again on the IEP.

I recently talked to another set of parents, who has a child in the fifth grade

at the same school. They went through some testing and got the results of the

testing but the IEP would not be written for several weeks yet. Why? The

school didn't know what kind of a language disability this child had. WHAT?

You mean this kid who has had an IEP since kindergarten? The one who has had

speech and language services for five years? You are supposed to come back in a

few weeks while they figure out what his disability is? What kind of therapy

have they been giving him for the last five years? What have they been working

on? What have they been treating? How have they been measuring progress? Is

the child making progress? The parents did not think to ask one of those

questions. The saddest part was they didn't even ask after I asked them. They

didn't want to make the school mad.

Sometimes I think other parents are our worst problem, not the schools. The

parents here are a minority about advocating for their children. One of the

reasons we have such a hard time is that the school's aren't used to dealing

with parents who are involved and expect the school to follow the law. 98% of

the parents either don't show up to the IEP meeting or simply sign what is

thrust in front of them. I used to be in the latter group. I am trying to help

as many as possible move over to our side. We need to make the school

understand that we as parents understand what our children's rights are and we

want them.

Well, now I'm just venting. Sorry. Celeste any insight on my questions would

be greatly appreciated.

Barb