As a parent who recently went through mediation i am fully aggrivated at the way disctricts disregard the law and no one cares that they do it. Funny i told my husband as we were leaving that i should be on the school board and try and fight from the inside as being a parent gets you no where fast!
1. As a parent What are your top five issues with services for your child?
1st would be not to be given a prefilled IEP and told to sign at the first meeting. So frustrating.
2nd Not to be promised services at an IEP meeting and then have them not given because the powers that be say it costs too much
3rd. to have services start when they are supposed to. For example our iep says home services are to start with child turns 3 but that was five months ago and services still have not started. district claims they cannot find anyone.
4th make advocates/lawyers easier to find and work with. make the time frame more rapid as to how one is assigned to you and whether or not they will represent you so you have time to find someone else if it doesnt work out
5th. make the district's abide by the laws. what good is it if the NCLB program is written if the district doesnt abide by them and no one is there to make sure they are. We are a victum of this.
6. Force districts to tell parents what their children are entitled to so that they are involved. For many it seems that if you dont ask, you dont get and the districts are ok with this.
7. Not to have to fight for every service even though you have letters from dev peds, current EI therapists, doctors etc. The child study team has a small snapshot of what your child is capable of. They should also use the recommendations of others who know your child in detail.
2. What does your child see as the most important issues (5 if possible) (if verbal) If non verbal then Parents can post for them.
my child is three but i will try to guess what he (or I am wishing) is thinking
1. a kind, understanding, knowledgable teacher
2. Peers that are either at his level or more advanced so that he can model
3. support groups through the schools so that mommy and daddy can network with other parents that are in the community
4. small classes with small student to aide ratiio so that he can participate and enjoy all activities
5. MOre community and home outing to help with generalization. If a child can do the skills in a classroom that is great but if they cant do it elsewhere there is a problem.
6. opportunity for being around typical peers for some portion of their time in school.
I hope this helps and I would like to be involved in your work. Please let me know if i can be of help.
Thanks for posting this.
From a parent of two disabled children
Alison (if you need my last name please PM me)
I really want to change how special education parents, children, and teachers are treated. I have been doing alot of reasearch on education in this country and others what seems to work and what doesnt. I was hoping that maybe everyone here could help me. I am trying to find the main issues for Parents, Children, and the Special Ed teachers here. I have been collecting this info so I can present it to some other agencys, get their info and then try to get a bill entered and hopefully passed in congress. My congressman is willing to enter the bill. If you have a few minutes then maybe you can help.
1. As a parent What are your top five issues with services for your child?
2. What does your child see as the most important issues (5 if possible) (if verbal) If non verbal then Parents can post for them.
3. As a teacher What are the top five issues you face?
Any feed back would be appreciated.
To give an example;
I answered
1. hard to retain services without fighting even with documentation of need
2. Teacher training in ADS and other disabilities (most teachers do not know alot about the disorders that affect our children)
3. The use of Restraints and Seculision(time-out booths)
4. Closed door policy, No Parental involvement allowed
5. If child has a private professional aide they are not allowed into school anymore.
My Child said;
1. Better, nicer teachers
2. Wants other kids to play with
3. Does not want to be teased by students or teachers
4. More help with reading and writing (that happens to be his weakest areas)
He says the teacher does not have time
5. Better Food (LOL, I wished for the same thing when I was in school)
A Elementary Teacher;
1. Classroom size
2. Not enough materials for class (she has to but her own)
3. Not enough assistants (for kids that need an aid)
4. Not enough help from Administration if additional materials or aid needed in classroom
5. Need more planning time
I would like to compile enough info to find out the top 5 in all three cases, So I can present it to other agencys for input such as the Autism society, NAMI, OSEP, and others. Then there are folks that are willing to help draft a bill to present to my congressman who is willing to present the bill.
When you sign you can sign with your name but you dont have too. Sign with your title so we will know where it is coming from.
Example;
I signed, Parent of Disabled children
The teacher signed, Special Ed Elementary Teacher
Thanks for your Help!!
Venus
What a cool thing to be doing, and Good Luck too! I hope this input helps.
What are the top 5 issues I face as a special ed teacher? (You sure you only want five??!!)
1. First and foremost would have to be the paperwork and required meetings. I understand the paperwork and the need for meetings, but there are times of the year that your children are not given services because we as teachers are busy working on all IEP's for our caseload and then having meetings with every parent of every child on the case load. I have known some special ed teachers shut their programs down for a month at a time in order to get this accomplished. The paperwork reduction "whatever" was passed this last time, but only certain schools chose to pilot it, and Alabama was not one of those states. Plus, from what I read, it really wasn't a reduction.
2. With the inclusion and mainstream terms being thrown around, it would be nice to have concrete definitions of how a child would fit that criteria. I learned a few years back that inclusion is a spectrum. And then from a law class summer, I learned that the writers of the law never intended for inclusion to be taken the way it is so that children are being put in regular classes and most of the time without supports because "it's just the way it is". Since inclusion is suppose to be a spectrum of services from being included in the same building as typical peers to being placed in all regular ed classes, it would be nice to have some criteria to make decesions to help us place children in these different places instead of just going on our own interpretation of the way the law is written.
3. Which leads me to the 3rd one. Not having enough support personnel to enforce inclusion the way it really should be done if we are going to place every student with a disability in regular classes and never pull them out. It is impossible for me to get to every student at every moment that they need help. Without having paras to help disperse that load, some kids are left out of the loop and therefore, inclusion does them no good.
4. I would like to see more support or training for parents that automatically happens. Something that is parent friendly so that so much time is not wasted explaining things to parents. I basically have to take everything I know about sp ed and teach it to my parents so that they know about the decesions that are going on. I don't mean to use the word wasted, but if parents had access to training in IEP processes from the systems, then they would come in knowing from the get go what to expect and maybe not feel as if they are being left out.
5. More training for administrators and regular ed teachers. Special education and the entire program would work so much more better for the children if every teacher and adult in the school understood disabilities and why certain things are done. In this state regular ed teachers take one class that pretty much lists out the disabilities and the definitions and that is it. When I try to explain a program or IEP to a regular ed teacher, they don't get it either. If they had more training about disabilities and what to expect and how to implement strategies without me having to tell them every single time, I believe students would make more progres. Regular ed teachers tend to think that all chidren should look, talk, walk, learn, etc the same and when they don't, they lose control with that child and don't want to help them anymore. In order for sp ed to work the way it should, everyone engaged with the child's education has to understand the disability and teaching methods or the child loses out.
I hope I explained those well enough for you to condense it back down. Basically, we have too much paperwork and meetings to hold and it takes away from teaching our children. Most of the time, we are the only one's pulling for the education of the child, regular ed teacher's and administrators don't view them like NT children, and there is simply not enough help to go around for all the children who need it when they are placed in regular classes with no pullout.