I hope someone has a suggestion before I rip someones head off!!!
Any idea's or suggestions? I was hopeing for bussing to ease his transition but if I have to I will be driving him daily and charging the school district for gas and time. Handicapped children are entitled to transportation thru the school district here. I know with Jeffrey it is very specific in his IEP that he cannot be on a bus with more than 6 students because he can't handle it. He also has a bus aide. And with him he is very literal in his thinking so no teasing is allowed. The bus aide and driver has to be trained to be able to deal with him too. Plus he has his own bus aide. Tammy I'll second what Tammy said. Paul's IEP has him on a bus with no more than 6 kids, one aid and a trained bus driver. I've also had to make sure that if the regular aide and driver arent' there I need to know who the backups are. And they come right to my door. Jennifer you situation sounds absolutely unacceptable. Why can't they get it??!! Thoughts and prayers are with you. And if you have to rip someone's head off....oh, well. If the aide for the bus is absent that day I have the option of sending Jeffrey to school or keeping him home. If I decide to keep him home, it doesn't count against his absentees for the school year. Tammy In the special ed school it was a full bus of kids (not sure of exact number but it was a full size bus) NO AIDE and I was told unless there is a bonofied reason (like needing suctioned, stopping breathing, seizures etc) they didnt have to provide an aide. Once he went into public school is is on a bus with kids K-6 a FULL full size bus load and NO AIDE and again I was told unless there was some specific reason No aide would be provided! Maybe the school district has jacked me on this all these years too???? I have found that when it comes to dealing with folks in transportation that they either need to be told exactly how they need to be transporting and/or they wait for something bad to happen before actually doing something about it. That being said and in their defense, they really have very little training and background in regard to the needs of indvidual students. Their goal is to get as many kids as they can from point A to point B in as little time as is humanly possible. The people that really need to step up to the plate are the special ed administrators. They tend to be the only folks (along with principals and other district level administrators) that have the ability to trump the transportation folks. That is not to say that it is easy. As principal my two most difficult tasks is getting maintenance and transportation to respond to my needs and or requests even as they pertain to students. However, 9 times out of 10 if I can meet with them 1 on 1 and explain to them about the needs of the student and more importantly the possibilities that could occur if changes are not made then I am able to get what I want. The trick here of course is getting that 1 on 1 meeting. I think that the special ed. administrator is the best person to facilitate this for many reasons. It is important to operate within the context oof the system regardless of how inefficient and irritating it may be. Yoou need to find an administrator that is willing to take the time to work with you and who is willing to go to bat. Most administrators did get into this for the purpose of helping kids (originally anyway) and some would even jump at the opportunity to make a direct and noticable impact. if approached the right way I think that most would look at the situation that you described and they would work to do something about it. Just an opinion, Sincerely, Brett Here it is next to impossible to get a an unofficial meeting with them one on one. And having been thru this before, if it is not in writing, they won't follow it. So you want everything to be in writing and to be official. One year they wanted to deny Jeffrey ESY in home services because the coordinator didn't get the paperwork in time. No she got the paperwork in time , she just didn't do her job right. And I know with his transitional IEP we met with one teacher and then he ended up with a totally different teacher. So the things we talked about with one teacher was not followed by the other teacher, but once again this was not in writing either. And you always have to keep your eye out for a due process hearing. Just in case they screw up, you have all the documentation in place. Tammy Depends upon what the school district's policy is. I know here with any changes to the transportation it has to be a team decision. The team leader has to call the transportation meeting, the parent cannot do that. Here alot, and I mean alot , of the transportation is outsourced. The head of special ed transportation didn't even know how late Jeffrey's bus was running. And no offense but the director of special ed transportation here should had been replaced years ago. And the only way to meet with someone from the administration here is to call a special IEP meeting and request or demand that someone that is capable of making decisions for the district be present at that meeting. Tammy Actually I have met the special ed director before. And she is really good at her job. She remembers me from when Jeffrey was like 4. I think alot of the issue here is the current superintendent. She is way too abrassive for Minnesota and for Minneapolis. She is not very well liked either. Alot of people that work right underneath her have asked to be transferred. It also doesn't help matters that the school board mismanaged the budget for years. So now you have all these school closings. Seems like they never learned to say no. I know with this next school meeting I will have to make sure everything is in writing. Since when we had his transitional IEP meeting, alot of stuff was agreed to but was not in writing. Also severe lack of communication between his teacher and me. I will insist on a communication notebook. Plus I think his current teacher needs to be trained by his previous teacher on how to communicate with him. Jeffrey is very literal in his thinking. Tammy Tammy, That ESY thing really blows my mind. It is obviously the school districts responsibility to monitor progress (and regression) for the purpose of providing ESY. In regard to transportation, there really is a disassociation between special ed and transportation in most districts. Also, in many districts special ed is seen as a hassle for many transportation supervisors. In our district it is always a tug of war. Transportation tries to charge special ed as much as possible and is very rigid and difficult to work with. Once again, I think that it all goes back to the fact that special ed tends to conflict with the goal of the transportation dept. which is to move as many students as possible in a short period of time. Sometimes I think that they forget that all of our students and parents are our customers. I know that many people think of a school district as one big machine. However, as it sounds like you are finding out it is sometimes a disjointed group of machines that do not always speak with one another. I would bet that the director of special ed is not in the loop regarding your son's transportation issue. Now if you have a special ed director and/or administrators that care about kids (and I really believe that most do - but I am biased) then once they hear about your situation then they should want to work with you. That was my point regarding a one on one meeting. I would not assume that the special ed folks know about the transportation issue. Also, if this is the case in your district then it might pay to play the relationships against each other. Of course this is assuming that your district is allot like the ones that I have worked for (medium size to large urban districts). If your sped director is bent on defending the district at all costs then of course you have another issue all together. Most sped directors that I know will seek to alleviate an injustice if they perceive one to exist (most of us have been teachers in the past and most got into t he field to do what is right - although over time the bureaucracy has a way of wearing off on you if you let it). If we know about it then we will want to do something about it. That being said, I do not know your sped director and it is possible that he/she is a jerk and is just interested in being right all the time. Just my 2 cents, Tammy, It sounds like there is a real culture of mistrust there. Well I know the district was sued in the 70s over having locked rooms for timeout rooms. Tammy i believe that the administrators are very much in tune to what is going on and do not stop it unless someone complains. if only one person complains they will do nothing need many complaints to finally get something done. have been at this for many years and had people say to me on the phone, well you are the only one complaining. then i would have to get all the other parents to call in and complain and finally something would be done. administrators all very sorrowful when you talk with them but just trying to smooth over things. afraid of lawsuits etc. have had to call police a few times to find my son on his transportation route because he has been on route over 5 hours and no one knows where cab or bus is. nothing scarier than that. i finally contacted a lawyer after second time because my son is non verbal and how do i know what happened. after my lawyer spoke with them once things were miraculously solved. do not like to be argumentative or be fighting with anyone but 16 years of hitting your head against the wall with the same people is too much. my normal son rode transportation in the same school district for 8 years and his bus was only late one time 15 minutes. feel transportation offices do not like to transport handicapped children because of the cost of doing so. it is a very expensive part of the iep. was told a few years ago that it is over 5 thousand dollars a year to transport a handicapped child. wish us luck we meet jacks escort in the morning have spoken to her on the phone and am not hopeful he will be transported by car with 2 other pupils and one escort he has never been to school without me taking him but his new school is too far away for me to get him there i'm dreading it already Dee I guess the other problem that I have is that you have to walk 2 blocks w/ your spectrum child and a car seat every morning. Doesn't that bother anyone else? Since the school is requiring your child to ride a Kindergarden bus, can't you ask them to provide a car seat so you don't have to lug one around (or if you have an extra one you can leave it on the bus). The other question that I have is how many aids do they have on the bus. I don't think 1 aid on a bus full of Kindergardeners and 1 or more special needs children is adequate. Maybe you can pursue that avenue just to make some kind of changes to your benefit. I hope it works out. Tabitha, thanks for the clarification about 501. I didn't think they could hide behind fuinds or anything when it came to what they must provide. I definitely am getting the specific in the IEP thing--I didn't know that. But I don't think they have the option of saying no because they can't afford it. I thought they can only say no if they don't agree that it is needed. They MUST provide "appropriate" transportation. Of course the issue then is what is appropriate for this child. But they can't just say they don't have the funds??? Can they??? They have to show that this is appropriate transportation and the mom has to show that it isn't. Educate me, guys! p- Its the language. 501 says you have access to it. Just like anyone with disabilities has the right to have access to the courthouse or the library. The Special Education Transportation under the IEP says they will provide it. Which they are doing. If you want them to do a,b,c,d, etc. then you have to put that in language so plain and simple that even a five year old could understand it. If not they will do what they think they can get away with. Jeffrey's language in his IEP is very specific on how many kids can be on the bus. That he must have a bus aide and that both, the bus aide and driver must be trained to be able to deal with his specific disability. Which I might add, they failed at this summer. The IEP on the transportation issue also said that they would provide the appropriate aids on the bus to enable him to have a more smooth transition to school. They didn't do this either. I do know the bus aid he had this summer had a hands off approach towards him and you just don't do that. It has to be a hands on approach. Plus this aide had never worked with him directly. Tammy This is some really bad stuff. The special ed administrators in your district should know what is and what is not acceptable. It is their responsibility to take the safety factors into account. I am going to reiterate my opinion that in many cases the administrators (the ones who actually have the power to do something) do not realize the crap that students with disabilities are subjected to by others in the district (i.e. transportation folks and principals). Usually they are the last ones to know the particulars regarding any transgression. By the time they find out parents are usually irate and the administrator know has to go back and try to fix the mess that was created by others. This creates a whole other dilemma as the special ed administrator then has to figure out how to fix the situation without stepping on toes. At the same time they have to educate the transportation person who was operating from their frame of reference as opposed to the child's and parents frame of reference.Many times it is a training issue and these events serve as opportunities to train those who do not have a good grasp of the needs of student's with autism. Finally, this is all conveluted by the fact that special ed administrators are still district employees who need to have one foot in the rotten culture of exclusion that still permeates many districts throughout the country. They have to maintain the image of being team players while also fighting the negative vestiges of a system that was never created to work with those students who present differences (we are still part of a system that has shown little propensity to change - bureaucracies are very slow to change and schools represent the last vestiges of the industrial revolution). I work with a great many people who do not believe that all kids can learn. They still do not think that all of our kids belong and do not see the value of educating all students in our system. But I digress, the bottom line is that the special ed administrator also has to play the game if they are going to be able to navigate the system and cash in on relationships later. Furthermore, being part of the district team means outwardly supporting that team even if you know and believe that it is screwed up. The ability to change it from within will not come from fighting the sytem but rather knowing the system and manipulating the sytem for the purpose of changing from within. I think that the average special ed administrator lives this every day. The effect is certainly an inefficient system that does not always take into full account the individual differences of all of our students. Administrators are constantly fighting the "one size fits all" approach. Parents often times do not see this battle as it is a carefully kept secret that goes on behind closed doors were nobody can see. Principals hate sped administrators because they challange their authority to run their own little kingdom where they are free to make all of the decisions (regardless of whether or not they are legal). The same holds true of transportation folks. Special ed does not jibe with their goal to move as many kids as possible in the shortest amount of time. In my opinion everything needs to be treated as an opportunity to teach and to train. Transportation issues provide me with the opportunity to sit down with the transportation manager and/or the bus driver and discuss the needs of a particular student with autism. It also might present me with the opportunity to provide them with some insight into the students wants, needs and strengths (something that bus drivers rarely have the time to contemplate). In our office we call it "preaching the good word." The biggest mistake that I think special ed administrators make is when they blindly fallow the districts lead believing that their district could do no wrong. The loyalty sometimes acts like blinders to the actual truth of what is going on. That being said, it is sometimes the sheer amount of students, paper work andadministrative responsibility that can serve to have a similar effect (creates blinders). The other mistake that I sometimes see is the inability of administrators to be frank about things. Especially in larger districts the special ed director has little control regarding the day to day happenings in a classroom. Typically the sped director does not even know the teacher in the classroom. Many times the principal hires the teacher and is the one to evaluate him/her regardless of the fact that principal may have very little training in special ed. This is allot like the transportation issue where the sped administrator is the last one to find out when something goes awry. A good administrator when they hear about a possible issue will go and ask questions, investigate the situation thoroughly and will evaluate whether or not the incident did or did not occur. They should not blindly defend their teacher or their program. They should not sweep the issue under the table. Instead, they should hold the situation up to the light so that they can use it as an opportunity to better their service delivery. Most importantly though, they should be honest when a screw up occurs (and they will occur) and work with the parent to make it right even if it means providing compensatory education and/or other expensive interventions. This is called taking responsibility for your actions (i.e. the districts actions where you as a representative bear some of the responsibility). Integrity is a huge part of a well respected and a well rounded district wide special ed program. Furthermore, when your customers know that you are willing to work with them in an honest fashion and that you want to do the right thing then I believe that they are more willing to provide you with some leeway and will also be more likely to excercise patience as you seek to improve upon things. Ok, I can know get off of my soap box. It is late and it is a school night! Thanks for listening to my rant. Sincerely, Brett 501 plan only applies if you have the 501 over the IEP. If you have the IEP then the school goes by the IEP. And if you have the 501 plan then their fallback position would be you can either use mass transit, the regular transportation thru the schools, or Metro Mobility or something similar to that for the elderly and disabled. Tammy It's true, they are required to provide transportation (CRF 300), but as Tammy has stated many times, the specifics really should be written in the IEP...I know it's part of ours, we are always asked if we want transportation, but those specifics really have to be specified. I wonder if it's just diff't in the larger districts --- as far as # of students and aides, etc. --- I can't imagine putting Riley on a bus with 20 people...no chance really and you'd think they'd take his limits into consideration. At least with an aide they stand a chance, but to just stick 'em into a crowd like that makes me cringe. ~Lesley I haven't read this in detail so I may be adding nothing but--it is in the IEP and even if it doesn't have specifics about how they must do it. Then the queustion is what is appropriate transportation. This bus for of kindergartners is not acceptable on 2 mjor points I can think of. 1) it is a set up for failure to have you child have to deal with that level and I'm sure there is something in your IEP that could support that he must avoid loud noises, or overstimulation, or too many people he is overwhelmed, point it you shuld hae somehting in the IEP to support the inappropriateness of their decision. This brings us to 2). It isn't safe!! Are they crazy? Safety stuff is a hot button because it smacks of potential law suits so.....wouldn't it be terrible if my child because of this arrangement is injured wehn they losed control, have a tantrum, upset the other children who are at risk.....we wouldn't want to have to sue the district because of an injury--it is inherently an unsafe situation. hugs! pat Once again if it is not specific enough in the IEP the school can always say it is a busy route and they don't have the funds or drivers to have a less crowded bus. You have to be very specific in the IEP in regards to transportation issues. Tammy
Bprilik----It's GREAT :) that you care so much for your students, and I think you're right, most of the people I deal with love what they do for our kids, AND want the best for them....unfortunately our sped admin. is all about the budget. But good for you! maybe you can train people around the country...it's sad what so many of these parents and their kids more importantly, are having to endure.
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