Last spring it had been agreed that our son would be attending a third year of special ed preschool. All of a sudden, after all of the other children in our son’s class had their transition meetings, the school scheduled an IEP meeting. We finally had an IEP meeting last week after 4 months of excuses as to why it kept being cancelled and delayed. We were told, in writing, that the meeting was to discuss placement. They refused to discuss placement at the meeting and instead insisted that we allow them to test our son. They had tested him in January without consent and ambushed me at the previous IEP meeting with the results. The school psychologist had done the parent assesment portion herself and based on her results she wanted to remove one of my son’s reasons for program eligibility. I did not allow them to keep the test results in my son’s file and now they say they have the right to test him again for a tri-annual review. They said that a couple of times before I pointed out that he had only been there for two years. They then said they had the right to test him for transition. Transition had never come up as a topic before this meeting. They also kept threatening that our son may no longer be elegible for services. He was DX autisticby a respected pediatric developmental specialist days after their own psychologist reported that he qualified for services based on autistic characteristics and a language delay. We told them we weren’t comfortable with them testing our son again and asked them what tests they had in mind. They said they didn’t know, they would let us know when they did and ended the meeting. We tried to get them to continue the meeting to discuss placement but they refused. By the way, we had a court reporter documenting everything. My husband just now came home with a letter saying that they are having an Assesment Planning Team meeting for our son and that we are welcome to attend. Our relationship is 100% adversarial at this time. Everything is being done on all sides to prepare for litigation. If there was an appropriate private placement for my son I would have him there already but so far I haven’t been able to find one. I thought I had a good relationship with his teacher but now she is acting like a witness for the defense. Any ideas?
I'm in Marin County, California
This is one of the weathiest counties in the world but you wouldn’t know it judging by the special ed preschool. I think that most parents are so in shock and only just beginning to understand the needs and rights of their children at the preschool level, they don’t have a lot of fight in them. The administration of the preschool program seems to have gotten very arrogant about what it can get away with.
Placement
According to the law, service types could drive placement through the goals and objectives that come out of those services Diagnosis drives goals and objectives and services. It isn’t appropriate to skip from diagnosis directly to placement.
Placement is generally not supposed to be discussed until all the diagnostic pieces are together and until goals/objectives are written.
If school tested your child w/out consent to evaluate, you have grounds right there. It is one of the things I was taught never, never to do and I’d think the State of CA would frown on this mucho.
Further, as a full member of the IEP team, you have a right to be informed and to discuss any testing to be done. That testing should be spelled out in the consent to evaluate that you sign and of which you are given a copy.
Placement
According to the law, service types could drive placement through the goals and objectives that come out of those services Diagnosis drives goals and objectives and services. It isn’t appropriate to skip from diagnosis directly to placement.
Placement is generally not supposed to be discussed until all the diagnostic pieces are together and until goals/objectives are written.
If school tested your child w/out consent to evaluate, you have grounds right there. It is one of the things I was taught never, never to do and I’d think the State of CA would frown on this mucho.
Further, as a full member of the IEP team, you have a right to be informed and to discuss any testing to be done. That testing should be spelled out in the consent to evaluate that you sign and of which you are given a copy.
Placement
According to the law, service types could drive placement through the goals and objectives that come out of those services Diagnosis drives goals and objectives and services. It isn’t appropriate to skip from diagnosis directly to placement.
Placement is generally not supposed to be discussed until all the diagnostic pieces are together and until goals/objectives are written.
If school tested your child w/out consent to evaluate, you have grounds right there. It is one of the things I was taught never, never to do and I’d think the State of CA would frown on this mucho.
Further, as a full member of the IEP team, you have a right to be informed and to discuss any testing to be done. That testing should be spelled out in the consent to evaluate that you sign and of which you are given a copy.
Your son’s teacher is a witness for the defense. She has likely been asked to gather evidence on their behalf. If her demeanor has changed toward you, it is likely that she agrees with these actions by the SD.
Re: Placement
My son has been isn special ed twenty hours a week for two years. The school has done evaluations on three separate ocassions. The first was upon entry into the program. His behavior and lack of communication were so serious the age of three that evaluations were “unfruitful” at that time. The second evaluations were done with my consent later that school year. The third evaluation was done without my consent in the second half of his last school year. The only evaluation I did give verbal consent to was those done by his teacher and only with me observing through a one was mirror so I could see how they were administered. I wonder if those test were standardized with the tester knowing the child, breaking for swingset rides and with stickers given as rewards throughout? IEP goals have never come from the test results. What it comes down to is the administration hates giving a child a third year of special ed preschool even though they agreed to it long ago and they are trying to reduce my son’s services to save some money in this years fiscal budget with no concern for the consequences, fiscal or otherwise, in the long run.
Re special ed in marin
I have a friend in marin city that had a son with ld and she kept him at a private school because of the problems with the district. I would suggest you call Community Alliance for Special Education in San Francisco (they work in the whole bay area, I think) and get an advocate. Another resource in the city is Support for Famililes with Children with Disabilities. They have a phone support line, workshops, a good resource library and can direct you to local support services. I am in a long fight with the school district and it is no fun. Good luck
Re: Re special ed in marin
Thank you for your support and recommendations. My husband is a litigator and we’ve been trying to handle things ourselves but I think I will call CASE on monday. Personally, I need all the support I can get. If the school wants to fight… my husband is happy to give them what they’re looking for. He thrives on stress. I personally wish we could all just get along. I don’t think the sides could differ that much on what is appropriate for my son but we’ll never know because they refused to talk about it at the IEP.
Grounds for suit
Not sure, your hub will have to research it, but that infraction may be a FERPA violation: a violation of your child’s right to privacy. A *very* serious infraction. It is a federal law, like 504. Big teeth. No putzin’ around with due process (that is loaded in favor of school districts).
Don’t let on to them. Research the law and strike. They may be very glad to settle if they’ve violated this law… I’m not a lawyer but I’ll tell you that my school district would string me up if I evaluated without consent.
Re: Re special ed in marin
eamail me personally and I could give you my two cents—I have had an advocate for 4 years—every year is a new battle.
Re: Grounds for suit
Thank you. We are looking at the violation of civil rights issue. Another reason is that an advocate told a friend going through mediation that threats they have made about my son’s eligability are civil rights violations. They have made the same threat to every parent I know at my son’s school. It’s all a part of pattern and practice for the administration.
Re: Grounds for suit
Please see my other note about the teacher’s position in all this. They are putting her between a rock and a hard place too, so please attack the people who are the cause; don’t let yourself be distracted by a divide and conquer strategy.
Also true
Did the court reporter get those threats into the report? If so, I think you have a possible suit there, too. The intent part of the threat, however, can be slippery. Also, since it is related to the IEP meeting directly, it falls under IDEA. That law has fewer big, sharp teeth than FERPA and 504. The process alone has school district folks (or retired ones) judging the cases.
Also, watch your husband. He can be razor sharp with other people—but will have some cloudy moments because this is his family people are messing with. OTOH, he’ll work like a trooper and that’s what it takes. These districts have big law firms retained w/many lawyers. They just plead you to death and bury you in paperwork. I’ve seen parents go down in smoke because they couldn’t keep up w/the paperwork. I’ve also seen families w/good lawyers win because they didn’t have the pay for all the jazz.
It’s worth a shot because your family doesn’t have to spend their retirement on legal fees. That’s much better than where most of us are.
In what state are you?