I think I need to brag..a little!

About three weeks ago, I took my brother and sister to a workshop designed to help kids speak up for themselves at IEP meetings. Two local advocacy groups put it on through a grant. I was not sure how they would do and if they would even participate in the discussion because they are extremely shy when it comes to school, IEP, and disability matters. My brother is 14 and my sister is 18.

Well, my glowing happiness started out Thursday night. My brother and sister were at my house, we live next store to my parents, doing their homework. My brother stopped and asked if I had a copy of his IEP. I told him of course and asked why? He said he was pretty sure that his new teachers, (today was his 3rd day of 9th grade at a new school, who are all special ed/regular ed teachers had not received his accomodations list from his IEP, he asked if he could photocopy it and hand it out! I was pretty amazed; he generally waits for someone, namely me, to do that!! I told him, I would copy the whole IEP and get him enough copies for his teachers!

Then today I picked up my sister at school. She is a senior and is having trouble with her schedule. I wrote a nice but extremely firm letter to the new acting vice principal expressing my concerns. My sister unfortunately must take English, Chemistry, French, Acting, and Math at school and take college history and college physics in order to get a diploma. We have discussed it at great length and she understands the difficulty level and the challenge she is facing.

So I go to school Thursday to deliver my letter and the college course description. I ask that they stop being so negative and telling her that she will not succeed. I also ask that they fix her schedule and remove her from the history class, since she is already taking the college level. Of course, they didn’t do that. So today when my sister go to school, she went right to the vice-principals office. She said “Tell me where there is study class is this period. I am not going back to that History class. I don’t know what they are talking about, I can’t keep up, and you were informed that I would be taking college History” The VP hemmed and hawed and said “Gee I don’t think you should do that, why don’t you just stay in History one more day” My sister said “No thank you, I know there is a study upstairs in room X, I will go there” She went to the study but before she left the VP’s room, the VP said “You know between your classes here and the college classes, it will be very hard, I am not sure I can do it” To which my sister replied ” I am well aware of what I am capable of, and I will do fine” With that she left the room and ending up spending her History class with another teachers that she adores and adores her!

The point of that very long story was that after she told me all this in the car, she said “That class we went to really helped! I sat in her office and spoke up for myself and didn’t let her talk down to me!

I was pretty darn proud!! I guess advocating and teaching them to advocate is paying off!!

K.