Fathers....

Well said Donna :)

Also, sadly, it can be a chauvanistic type of situation, when you bring in some testosterone of your own, the demeanor in the meeting tends to stay a bit more civil. I stepped into the mix when my wife was yelled at and our son belittled by a program specialist (capital letters left out due to lack of respect). I also did most of the letter deliveries etc., while my wife did the proof reading, corrections, modifications and adjustments to any and all written correspondences.

Anyway, once again, well said.

Andy

Hi Donna & Andy,

I think you are exactly right that even in this day and age people still consider that they have to answer to men more than they do to women.

My husband attended my son’s first IEP meeting and that was the most professional meeting we have ever had. The Principal, Kindergarten Teacher, Psychologist, Rep. from Sped Unit, Speech Therapist were all there. That was in kindergarten every meeting since then I have attended alone.

My concerns about my son’s progress have not really been addressed, I wrote a letter in March requesting some mainstreaming, my letter was not even responded to. The last IEP only the sped teacher was present and said about my letter my son is not capable to the reading necessary for regular class. When I told her I was not at all happy with his progress in reading since he has been in sped 4 yrs. and suggested maybe he needs a different reading program. I also requested a complete new evaluation since the last one was 4 yrs ago. She was obviously irritated she claimed they don’t retest because kids don’t change.

After I contacted the Assist. Superintendant of our own school district who used to be the Principal where my son started school. He actually listened to me and contacted the Sped Unit and told them to retest. I am finally getting results even though I made it clear I wanted testing done before school starts I just got the permission form yesterday.

The Assist. Superintendant says he will come to the next IEP meeting and if I need his help to call him.

It is nice to have his attention but sad that people have to go to such extremes to get what they have legal rights to get. I will make my husband take off work (he doesn’t get paid) and attend the next meeting.

Anne

Donna, I have to offer this viewpoint to you. We cannot necessarily “catch up” all dyslexic children. I guess this is my theme song and I want to explain. Dyslexia is often the result of multiple processing “disorders” in areas that are directly related to the ability to process printed language. There are numerous tests we can do to pinpoint some of these issues. Believe me, many of my students suffer from deficiencies in phonological processing (hearing sounds within words, distinguising them, segmenting them and blending them), short term memory (holding all this in the memory long enough to do something with it), visual processing (I have a good article somewhere that explains how this one works cognitively, even though for years we said dyslexia was mostly auditory), and other issues I personally find to be problems but we may or may not have tests for. For some learning to decode words takes several years, every single skill that nondyslexics find easy must be discretely taught. This takes hours and hours and while this is being taught in my resource room, the nondyslexic peers are continuing to progress. Thus, often a gap remains, we do NOT want the gap to increase. As a resource teacher I expect to get a gradual (often slow) trend of the gap decreasing. It may never, ever close.

Even when my students can decode, they frequently remain very slow and do not have the fluency of other nondisabled readers. This area has been, in my experience, a really difficult one to remediate. I also have a study that looked at this particular issue (rapid naming, one I forgot in my first paragraph addressing processing issues) that has determined there is actually a physiological difference in the speed with which these impulses move from the eye through the brain resulting in recognition and naming.

Learning disabilities usually do not go away. They are not “fixed” as a rule. The neurological differences that cause them may be reduced (scientists are referring to brain plasticity). It may be possible in the future to pinpoint better ways to get at these neurological disparities, to identify the most sensitive periods and the techniques that may work and allow transfer.

We have good teaching techniques for many issues that should result in the steady gains (in standard scores) that I have referred to, we cannot assure you we can catch any one up to anything. When students are “caught up” I personally suspect that the disability was either not a real disability in the first place (dysteachia), or that the disability was (thankfully) more confined to perhaps one area of processing , thus permitting the child to compensate by using a combination of serveral other nonimpaired passageways.

When the child has processing deficits that show up in 2 or more areas (common in severe reading/writing disability) that child does not have ready access to compensation. If you are not seeing some progress in standard scores, then something may be wrong. Catching up to grade level average or to the overall IQ score may not be realistic.

Hi Anitya,
I understand what you are saying and I wasn’t probably clear
enough. I realize some kids may never be on level. But with good teaching attuned to what a child really needs he can make
better progress. My eldest son is now 8.2 grade equivalent in
his word attack skills (just completed ninth grade); he used to
be at least a few years behind but with intensive work (private
schools) he has come close. My youngest son with similar schooling is severely dyslexic; he just doesn’t get the encoding
part (Dragon naturally speaking is looking real good for his future), his reading is slow with word attack skills 4 years behind his 8th grade level. My hope is that he can emerge from
high school (The Gow School) and make it in college. Meanwhile,
his areas of deficit are worked on intensively. My point with him is that he is seeing success (at his own speed) and it is with a high level of progress than seen at public. We’ve seen
the intensity he needs in past years (at least two resource periods per day), experienced tutors, outside speech and language
tutoring…all this helped him to begin closing the gap during
only one year of public schooling. They just couldn’t provide
the intensity he needed..the constant repition until mastery is
there. His gap was widening in public.
Maybe this was more clear.

Anitya,

You just answered one of my questions earlier and sound like a wealth of information I would like to tap into. I know we would all love to wake up one morning and our kids would be on the honor role and just fine.

I do not expect that I know how hard my son works and shed rivers of tears for him. However, what we all do want to make sure is that the services they are getting are the best available, that they are being challenged enough, and that they are learning to their full capability.

This summer I bought 2nd & 3rd grade workbooks, lots of math in them. My son is working in the 3rd grade math, reading between 2nd & 3rd with assistance. But at school they say math is 1.6 and reading 1.5. His tutor thinks he has not been taught decoding and just guesses at words. I think she is right.

I know you want the best and full-potential. We all want this for our children and this is appropriate that we should.

I want to caution you re. using those loaded terms in an IEP meeting (perhaps you already know). IDEA does not anywhere mandate that sped. programs teach a child to his/her full potential. IDEA does not anywhere mandate that the program be the “best.” It is possible that a small handful of states may have this sort of language in their laws, but in most cases they do not.

So, while we understand this here, avoid any suggestion at the IEP meetings that you want the best there is. Public schools are in the mass education business. No one anywhere is getting the best.

In my humble opinion I would not let the school re-test him, I would get him and outside independent psycho-ed evaluation. The district must pay for this.

Not only did I take my children’s father, I took my father, mother, brother, and anyone elso who would come along for the ride. When we have an IEP meeting, there is like a big gang on the school’s side and I was always intimidated by being outnumbered. This year was different when we had a gang of our own (it also didn’t hurt that all of the aforementioned persons are currently being treated as psychiatric patients and the males are very aggressive).

Remember not only can parents attend, but under law anyone you feel should attend can attend. And you do not need to inform the school of who will be attending (the look of surprise this past year was priceless) but they do have to inform you of who will be in attendance on their side. Take your child’s entire support system, sometimes others see what you miss.

Crystal

“This year was different when we had a gang of our own (it also didn’t hurt that all of the aforementioned persons are currently being treated as psychiatric patients and the males are very aggressive).”

I hope that you’re kidding about this. Getting thuggish is not setting a good example for your children.

I don’t think the term “aggressive” necessarily means “thuggish”!

I for one loved the mental picture Crystal painted — aggressive uncle and dad leaning forward, ready to interject forcefully (USING THEIR WORDS!) when administrative doubletalk shows up…not to mention insults or lies, which CAN become part of this process as we all know…Auntie sitting close, ready to support Crystal if she starts to lose her cool…”Poppa” staring gimlet-eyed at the principal, ensuring that he knows what is at stake…”Gran” taking notes of EVERYTHING…Uncle #2 sitting back, arms crossed, watching reactions and body language to share with Crystal later…LOL, the high point of my day!

Gee, Crystal — do you suppose your family would do this for money? Sort of a “rent-a-family support group” for school battles?

All kidding aside, the advice was very sound — I NEVER go alone, not even to teacher interviews. The schools DO arrange things purposely to intimidate us and get their own way — with our children’s very lives at stake, are we not entitled to use every “weapon” available to us? (weapon used metaphorically, of course, I am NOT advocating the use of literal “weapons”!)
Best wishes,
Elizabeth

Thanks Elizabeth for stepping in. I did not mean “aggressive” as in “beat the heck out of someone”, I meant “aggressive” as in “takes not guff from anyone”. The picture you painted of the way things went was quite accurate. There we were, myself, my husband, my mother, daddy, and my brother all facing the teachers for this school year, the principal, the assistant principal, sp. ed. teacher, and the school counselor.

And yes, it was a good thing they were there. I found out at that meeting that not only had my son been given detention for a manifestation of his ADD, he was also paddled by the assistant principal without my knowledge or permission. Had my family not been there with me, there would have been violence involved. They helped me keep my cool and go on with the meeting. And they had noticed things in my son that I had not and could answer questions that I didn’t have answers to. And they helped me state my case when I went to the state board of education about the situation.

If this is considered “thuggish” then I am proud to be the cheif of this gang of thugs that care so deeply for my child that they will go to the mat for him and me too.

Crystal

I think sometimes aggression is needed. But, also sometimes being non-aggressive is called for. My last IEP, I wrote a letter explaining my son’s and my feelings about his dyslexia. I told them we’ve all said things the others didn’t like and I thought it was time for us to all get along for the betterment of my son. Most dyslexic children are very kind hearted and it didn’t do him any good for us say these things about one another. He loves us all. We a least could do the same for him. I hope this year will go a little better. He’ll have a new regular ed teacher and I hope whoever he/she is that they will respect him enough to do the same.

I also told them it is okay to disagree some of the time. But, hopefully we can come to some kind of resolution, most of the time.

Hi , I agree you shouldn’t go to the meetings alone, it is very intimidating, especially for someone who is a conflict avoider . Gosh knows I always had to take some pepto bismol before a meeting, even with my husband coming along.How I hate the stress!
This doesn’t work so well in a DODDS school where just about everyone is in a military uniform,but you should see how respectful the teachers/staff are in a civilian school when my husband comes along in his camouflage!!Talk about ready to do battle. Actually, we never had any of the problems with our school in VA that others have had in theirs, but it did tickle me that the principal never called my husband Mr. she always addressed him by his rank.

PADDLED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can’t reply — disgust fills my mouth. Should someone spank my child I would be…THUGGISH! Is this even legal???
My admiration for you grows…
Elizabeth

No it was not legal and that was actually to my advantage. According to our State Supertendant, I could have had her arrested for child abuse. And even the State Disabilities Coordinator said she probably would have gone after her to do physical harm.

But I didn’t do that. I used the fact that I could have her arrested to make certain that she had no dealings whatsoever with either of my sons at school. I also put the word out to other parents about her methods and after several Congressmen looked into it and contacted the State about the problems we were having with the school, last year’s Assistant Principal is no longer at our school (YAY!!) We have the Assistant Principal we had the year before last is back and all of us parents can deal with him a lot better.

Let’s just say this is one proud THUG.

Crystal