I am also in New YOrk and I also have this problem. Call the District back. Tell them what you've told us. Yes, there is NO WAY you can participate as a FULL MEMBER of the CSE unless you have all the reports that are going to be presented there 5 business days before the meeting. This is your right in NY. Go search Procedural Safeguards on the NYS ed website. It will take you to that section of the Part 200. Also search CSE and you should turn up lots of information about parent participation. In fact, search parent participation. The first step toward knowing your rights is reading about them. Tell the district that you want ALL the written material that will be presented plus the draft IEP so that you can fully participate as a CSE member. If they can't get the paperwork to you 5 business days ahead of time now, postpone the CSE until such time as they can. If you don't want to postpone, go to the meeting and when you get something in writing you haven't seen before, read it out loud to the group. If at any time you think you cannot make a decision about something without having thought about it more, table the meeting and tell them that they'll have to reconvene the CSE at some later date when you HAVE had time to mull this all over. If you read EVERYTHING out loud at the meeting and make the meeting go from 20 minutes to two hours, they'll know better next time.Thanks Tzoya!
I will stop by boces today as it's close to my house and request the material. I appreciate your response and I admire your knowledge!!!
nakama
I wish I could help you with this but I have no idea what to tell you. Adam is still in preschool and the time that they evaluated him last they gave me the reports also before hand. We are in a different school district and state now so I have no idea how they are going to do it here. I certainly understand how hard it would be to agree to anything without being able to digest any of the results first. I also have never heard of Boces before. Hope someone can come along and help you. Take care and good luck,
karrie
Hi all :).
. How can I review, digest, and reconsider any goalsMy son was in our local district through 7th grade. What I've discovered since he entered BOCES a couple of years ago is that I have a harder time really knowing what's going on in school. The school is much further from my home and there are fewer natural occasions for me to visit. I was shocked this year to find out in January that my son's class, which last year was made up of 7 higher functioning kids of various disabilities, is currently made up of 13 kids -- 8 of whom are nonverbal, non-communicative, medically fragile and some non-ambulatory. I only discovered this because Jamie came home imitating the odd sounds and wild gestures that these kids are making. Clearly what happened is that there was not enough enrollment for BOCES to form 2 classes so they got a variance to put 13 in a 12-1-1 and just dumped the lower-functioning kids (there's no other word for it, their placement is SO inappropriate) into my son's class. NYS requires that self-contained classes have a reading/math range of no more than 3 years. Since there is one girl in my son's class who is so high functioning I mistook her for an aide (these kids are high school age) and one girl who is blind, deaf, non-mobile, in diapers and unable to communicate on any level, we have a range of ability from infancy to near age-level. I could file a state complaint, but that will have to wait until after my annual review for our son because I DON'T want to jeopardize his program. Once next year is set, I WILL lodge a state complaint. This sort of dumping helps no one. This COULD happen in a district class, but I think some parent would find out sooner. Another draw-back I've noticed for BOCES students is that Districts are often reluctant to accept them back into District classes when the children are ready. This may not be true elsewhere, but it's true here. I don't want to dis BOCES, though. The staff there often have far better skills for addressing disabilities that District staffs do. So, again, it all depends.
It all depends on the program and why your son was "kicked out" of the District. The whole point is that you want your son in a placement where he can make progress. If the local school district is incapable of helping your son, even if they SHOULD be able to help your son, BOCES may be the perfect alternative. However, it might not be. My son is also in a BOCES placement but was in the local District through 7th grade. He's now in 10th grade. He is NOT in the Regents track but in alternate assessment.
Can you post more details about your current situation?
Thanks everyone!!
. I hope all goes smoothly!!I'm very glad you got the reports but it's VERY important that you KNOW that the ultimate LEGAL responsibility for an IEP is with the District. BOCES is a service provider. The District contracts with BOCES so that it can get your child's IEP met, but if BOCES can't meet the criteria in the IEP for some reason, the DISTRICT is still responsible. A common problem with some BOCES programs is that they come up short on therapists, often speech therapists. So they'll give only part of the number of therapies a particular student has on his IEP. The DISTRICT is then responsible for giving the extras thru a service or by some other means. The problem is that you may not FIND OUT. Make SURE all your child's therapists are doing all their sessions with your child. If not, contact the District, in writing, and get "compensatory services." This is a BIG problems across the state. Let us know how the CSE goes.
Hi, I am very new to this board, so please excuse me if I don't know the proper formats. I have a question about the people that know the BOCES system. My son was just put in there and I don't know that much about it - whether or not it is considered a good program or not. He was kicked out of public school and BOCES was the only place that took him immediately...Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Also, one other question, are we able to get the passwords from the distric to log into the online Goals programs that the districts use to create the IEP?
Thanks for any help any of you can be to me....
Also, if you've asked BOCES for the paperwork and they haven't given it to you it may be because they are REQUIRED to funnel that to you THROUGH the school district. It's best to get into the habit of contacting your school district IN WRITING for everything.