IEPHi My four year old son's annual IEP was last week and the school is insisting that they are not going to give him one on one instruction for academics in school or at home ABA. Can we tell them that we are getting an outside evaluation and based on that results we will agree/disagree with what they are offering?? They have just done a classroom observation/assessment and only by the classroom teacher Thanks UV Your district sounds like mine.Let's start with some disclaimers: I am assuming that your district is like mine and will refuse until the end of the universe to accept anything that comes out of a parent's mouth. To the point of accusing them of fudging parent form assessments (such as the BASC-2) that the districts gave to the parents to fill out. I believe that there are districts that are better, and whole states that are worse. Second, I cannot tell from your description if a 1:1 aide would be a good thing. Locally 1:1 aides are only minimally trained and a high functioning kid with a low functioning aide would be a bad thing since the aide will do stuff for the kid that he could learn with some work. I have aided my own kid(s) and it is hard to do right and much easier to do wrong. Some how you will have to figure out if the 1:1 aide is a "hill worth dying for". Your outside evaluator might be able to do that. ABA is something that might be worth dying for, it is known to be an effective treatment for autism (see Educating Children with Autism by the National Research Council. They are probably not biased.) This might also be something to get the outside evaluator to look at. Third, if this is your start into legal difficulties (we waited until our 2nd year of Special Ed before realizing that there was something really rotten in the state of...) you might want to check out the Wright's Law web site. And their book about advocacy From Emotions to Advocacy. That being said, IMHO what you will need to find out if these services and necessary and to try to get the school to offer them, is an outside evaluator with familiarity with the school setting to observe in class and give you an opinion if the 1:1 aide is necessary. And maybe that ABA is necessary. It is also helpful if this person is willing to stand up to the district in an IEP meeting and in court. It is further helpful if this person is willing to come to the IEP meeting to present the report. Otherwise some district spin-meister will tell you that what is written in black and white in front of you does not exist and what they really meant was exactly the opposite of what they told you. I have seen this happen. You choices for getting te outside person are to pay yourself or try to get the district to fund an Independent Educational Evaluation since their evaluation was inappropriate. IDEA-ly if you ask them to fund an IEE they either file for due process to prove their evaluation was appropriate or they let you go ahead. Locally they send a form letter threating to file for due process hoping you will go away. You can just go ahead and hope that they will reimburse later on. In some ways this is the best since the district does not get into the evaluator's face until after the evaluation is done. But you have to be careful to meet all the requirements to get a refund (you can ask for the IEE guidlines before you start.) Anyways after your presenter gives the report, if you district is like mine, they will say (I'm quoting) "This is nice, but what you want will never happen." At this point you would have to file for due process, or give up. We have been told that moving to another school district is cheaper than due process. I'd go for the IEE and starting to interview lawyers. If you're looking for ABA you'd be best to get an assessment by a BCBA credentialed professional who generally completes an ABLLS assessment. They will let you know the level and intensity your child would need. I'd also suggest contacting an educational advocate (some agencies have free ones)who can help give you the tools and info you require for your situation. As well as they support to keep negotiations non-adversarial and provide you a good person to vent to. Our state has large funding cuts in education and the most recent IEP meeting resulted in the IEP being handed to us after the meeting was over and from one end to the other it is riddled with errors and things that were not discussed in the IEP meeting. For some reason all the errors seem to favor the district.  Have I mentioned that I hate my district's SpEd management with the intensity of a thousand suns...
Dad2luke&Alan Thanks for your response. We had contacted an attorney and she is on vacation Ozzie Thanks for your response. My son was getting ABA from the regional center and I am going to contact the director and planning to get her opinion about the ABA and see how it goes. UV |
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. Any ideas??
she's not returning calls and responding to my emails. The school district this year has been the worst and they have manipulated the IEP so much, and they insisted that we sign the IEP at the meeting telling that its going to delay the services they would provide, which was barely minimal acc. to the new IEP. I am hoping to find a new attorney/advocate who will help us with the mess.