Personally, and I could be wrong about this, I think that if you are planning on filing Due Process or going to mediation, an attorney is essential. If you are looking for someone to review and attend IEP's to make sure the school is following the letter of the law, than an advocate should suffice. For what you are describing, an attorney is probably overkill and probably too adversarial than the situation warrants.
Attorney or Advocate? We've tried both, although not the attorney for very long. I think that the choice is based on what you want to do. If you need to go to due process, then the attorney is probably the way to go. If you want to work things out in the IEP meeting then the advocate might be better. An attorney on the side might also work.
Keep in mind that it is likely that neither is likely to be able to write good goals for you. For that you'd need an outside evaluation, and have the author give you some good goals. An advocate might be able to drag good goals out of the SD staff by asking questions in an IEP, although that probably would require more familarity with the child that our advocate had.
I guess I would wonder if an outside SLP or similar who is familar with the school system might be a better choice since she could work with the SD staff to get some good goals in a collaborative setting.
Here's what I know:
Advocate - No qualifications or licensing is strictly required to call yourself one, but there are courses for training. Cannot give advice about the laws (or else practicing law w/o license). Can go to IEP meetings and maybe mediations. Might have contacts inside the SD that can let you know unofficially what is going on, although our SD is sufficiently large that the various parts don't talk very well, so this is not as helpful as you might first think. Somewhat less confrontational.
Attorney - Has licensing. Can give legal advice. Not allowed in mediations. Our attorney won't go to an IEP since that makes the IEP adverseral. I am not sure if this is personal preference or law. But some families fax the IEP to their attorney for review after every IEP meeting. Some attorneys suggest keeping the existance of an attorney quiet unless you are going to due process, so that the SD does not get upset. Maybe factor of 2X more per hour, but possibly less hours.
[QUOTE=Dad2Luke&Alan] Not allowed in mediations. [/QUOTE]
Not true. My attorney attended and negotiated my mediation settlement. It was like buying a car
There is no law against attorneys attending IEPs. In fact, they make a lot of money doing so, at 0 an hour plus travel time. Generally, a good paralegal in the attorney's office can do just as good a job, though, at half the billable hours cost. Also, attorney's fees are only recoverable in a mediation settlement if they were accrued after Due Process has been filed. So if you hire an attorney with intent of putting a little fear in the SD, and you have yet to file for Due Process, that's money spent that you will never see again. I lost out on about ,000 in my mediation settlement because of this little clause, which no one had bothered to tell me about when we started the process
that reads like a bad joke. I knew enough to know that the goals did not
include any of the needed information like baseline behavior, who is
going to provide a service, how often, where, any form of
measurement...The school played dumb and told me that none of that
information is ever in a new IEP 'because we don't know that yet'. I am
not sure if they really do not know IDEA laws or if they are trying to pull
one over. Either way I feel that I need help. I looked high and low to see
who is available in my area but I am finding only special ed lawyers and
no advocates.
Apart from the cost factor (I assume an attorney will be more expensive),
when should one pick an attorney or an advocate? I am not yet planning
to go court but I do want someone who knows the laws and knows how to
write a good IEP. Any input appreciatedThanks for your responses- that is helpful. I have no interest to create an
adverserial athmosphere at this time, so I will not go the attorney route
yet. I am having a very hard time conecting with an advocate and I think
that I will probably not be able to have one to go to the next IEP meeting
(in 4 days) with me. I am not disagreeing with placement suggestions or
even llevel of service provided but the IEP goals are written in a way that
they arre completly meaningless and unenforcable - no baseline
measurement, no designated provider, no method of skills teaching.
So here is my new plan.
1.Stay up all night and study Wrightslaw.
2. Write a polite and nice letter and cc to the whole team.
I will start with how I liked the 'draft IEP' but that there are some areas I
would like tweaked. I will point out in the letter that I looked up the parts
'the team was confused about at the last meeting' and quote from IDEA
2004 the parts about the IEP goals having to provide a measure, having to
provide a 'present level of functional performance' and 'frequency ,
location and duration' of services. I will politly state that writing into the
IEP who is going to provide services and who and how they are going to
be measured should help every team member to better know what their
role is.
I will also include that IDEA 2004 states that any new school will make
the same provisions, meaning that the fact that our current school is
being closed should not be used to avoid making specific goals (They
told me since they don't know the new school they can not make goals
for them to follow)
I might end by saying that I am looking forward to the revised IEP but
that if the school feels that the team could benefit from an educational
consultant or advocate I would happpily look into providing one.
How does that sound? Polite yet pushy? Digging my own grave?
Thanks for your experience and input.
[QUOTE=micki]Well it happend - my nice supportive school presented me with an IEP
that reads like a bad joke. The school played dumb and told me that none of that
information is ever in a new IEP 'because we don't know that yet'. [/QUOTE]
Wow! That should go under stupid things people say to parents....it is so inaccurate. UMMMM.....goals are what services are based on. If you have lots and lots of speech goals...you need ST, etc
I would get some input on goals from anyone who has been treating your child with therapy and make some goals yourself that you request be reviewed for incorporation into the IEP.
You can do it!
PS- you can try to get a (free) advocate through your local Autism Society---we have not had any returned phone calls in our efforts to get one....but try.