Frustrated after IEP

Yes every time. I feel so intimitated. No matter what I said the odds are that someone in that room will disagree with me.

I do better with one on ones. We do our check list on Modifications and Accomidations. Defend my son. Then later that day I come back after thinking about everything and have many more one on one meeting with everyone I feel I need to express more concerns. Be careful these one on one meeting are not documented but I at least I have said it.

My head goes into over drive and overload in these meetings. I am so afraid of hurting someones feeling if I say something about them. I have to get over this because it is hurting my son. I have lost patience with his current teacher and I reported her. I have to put it in writing but I have not found the courage yet. -I will offend her I know. She is cruel to my son and it has to stop.

You are not alone here.

On e thing that I have come to the conclussion on with myself is that the IEP et MDT aren’t meant for encouragement they are meant to focus on what to do to help your child overcome his/her weaknesses. The thing that I think is easy for teachers to do is to not understand how it feels to have a child with a LD. Truthfully unless you can relate I think it is a little easier to judge. Maybe I’m wrong but that is how it feels.

Two things you can do that will greatly improve the overall climate of the IEP meeting are:

1) bring a friend

&

2) tape ALL meetings.

When faced with a frustrating and seemingly insurmountable objective (i.e. helping a child with extraordinary needs achieve IEP goals), a very common tactic to divert attention from your own failure is to blame someone else. I believe this is a spin-off from the classic “sour grapes” scenario outlined so long ago in Classical Greece.

The teachers didn’t care…but now that I have been on both sides of the fence I realize that isn’t totally true. The teachers do care and sometimes looking back at my own anger at the IEP process with my kid who has special needs I realized that I did a lot of blaming the teachers when I was part of the problem too. Now I see this same phenomemon happening when I work with parents and create IEP’s, some parents don’t trust, they blame people and the are in denial. Many times I will share my own journey with them which helps them develop trust as they realize I truly understand and have their child’s best interests at heart.

Blame. It is a strong word. It makes me think. Blame what am I blaming his teacher for? My son having LD. No. For not understanding or not realizing that her reward system is setting my son up for more failed experiences. Yes.

I know he has to realize that he has to earn things in life but at the same it is in his IEP that he will be given opportuntity to feel success. Ok it was not happening educational, and he is losing social rewards given by the teacher.

Where is the line and how do we know how much effort in his work is acceptable and rewardable and when is he trying to get a free ride.

My son goes to the resource room for 2.5 hours a day in small group setting, he also has CM and speech. He has less down time than most kids in his class. In the resource room He is called on more often to answer more questions.because of the small groups. He works very hard during these times and the teachers here are great. He is happy here.

Then he goes back to class for social studies. The children have just had snack time(My son does not get snack time) They had 1.5 hours of center time. Free individual learning time.

To sum it up they had down time and food. Then my son comes back and socail studies starts and he did not just come from down time and he gets in trouble for not working fast enough or for just sitting there. No reward stickers because of this.

Who is to blame? Is anyone at fault here?

His teacher says she has to do what is best for the class. MY son is in her class and she does not seem to mind that it is not best for him because no modifications are made for him. Yes it is written in his IEP.

Please tell me, help me understand what I can do differently to lessen my role in his feeling failure in these reward methods. Or anything else. This is all new to me. I do not want to make things worse. But I have had enough of these reward methods when my son is not in class enough to receive the winning goal number.

I do not want to blame anyone for something I am doing. Is she intensionaly out to fail my son. NO I do not feel that. Is she doing the things to help my son feel success. No. I do not feel that she is doing this either. I think she is indifferent because she has handed me over to the resource room and feels his needs are being met there.

She has washed her hands. Have I talked to her. Yes. She cries and says she wants to help him. And then she does it again. I do not get it. I know it is a hard job but this is my son.

Any advise on what I can do would be great.

Willful disregard for IEP provisions on the part of a teacher sets the stage for civil redress under the tort system. Professionals who take it upon themselves to seectively impliment the IEP can find themselves without the benefit of District counsel and can be found liable for monetary damages for both compensatory services as well as pain and suffering. See the Withers Decision.

I can guarantee you she does not think she is disregarding him.

She feels she that as long as the majority are benefiting than it is ok.

She ensure me in the beginning of the year that she knew how to handle my son because she minored in psych. She is not a new year. Just took 8 years off and this is her first year back.

She insist she knows what she is doing.

Sometimes there are simple small interventions that can make a big difference. He needs snack time — small kids have fast metabolisms and need to replenish energy often. So, tell (don’t ask) the resource toom teacher that you hugely appreciate all the work she is doing with your son, but he is experiencing fatigue and hunger, so either he needs to start resource fifteen minutes earlier, or he needs to be given the last ten minutes for his snack.
Then try that IEP meeting, but please do recognize that classroom teachers are often caught between a rock and a hard place — the curriculum says they must do certain things, and the IEP says they must not, so they are always in the wrong, and nobody can work well like that.

I understand her position which is why he is still in her classroom but her inconsistant demands of performance are damaging.

The snack is not the problem. The resource would do it in a minute. Problem is the class has down time while he is resource working mentally hard. He comes back and if there is a reward he has to work twice as hard to get points needed to get this reward. No modifications. He never succeeds. There is only 50 min left in the day. 30 min if he has speech. The rest of the class has had 2 or more hours.

I have asked if she could make accommondations for him to get the rewards. I get - it will be fine. Its not bothering him. So not true.

It is getting worse as the year goes on.

there is so much involved here that I can not put it all down in words

It sounds like you need to get the resource room teacher and the regular teacher communicating about your child. You might suggest that since he is working hard with the resource room teachers that they give him points for being there and the regular teacher can count them in with her points and hopefully he will gain enough points to get his reward. Or the resource room teacher can talk to the regular teacher and they can come up with recommendations on accomodations that they think will benefit your child to get his points. I would definately let them know it is bothering him and you want him to have a positive attitude about school. You might want to talk to the school psychologist about what he/she would recommend and get them involved if you are getting nowhere.

[quote:c69ad60c06=”AnneV”]I can guarantee you she does not think she is disregarding him.

She feels she that as long as the majority are benefiting than it is ok.

She ensure me in the beginning of the year that she knew how to handle my son because she minored in psych. She is not a new year. Just took 8 years off and this is her first year back.

She insist she knows what she is doing.[/quote]

Whether SHE thinks she is disregarding him is irrelevant. If she is selectively implimenting a valid IEP she is in the wrong - period. The classroom teacher does NOT have the authority to override the IEP team’s program (see the Withers Decision). If SHE feels she knows a better approach for your child, she can either bring it up at the NEXT IEP meeting for consideration, or if she feels strongly enough (and can convince her Prince or Sped Dir) she can have the IEP team convene ASAP to discuss the issue.

Sped services have nothing to do with “what benefits the majority”, and any “professional” who would make such as statement is displaying either a profound misunderstanding of what IDEA meant by FAPE or else is simply arrogantly ignorant of what the entire process is about.

The fact that your child is suffering more and more under this person’s mishandling speaks volumes about what she knows and does not know. The fact she had a couple psyche classes doesn’t cut it. We see this sometimes in medicine, when nurses who do not understand their true value as service providers and over-emphasize their limited medical knowledge act like they know better than the doctors.

Bottom line, YOU are the only person who tuly cares about the well-being of your child, and the system is set up so YOU are the only watchdog for the process. Time to stop playing nice and turn up the heat.

Dad is right about IEP’s and all that. But looking at what you write, that doesn’t seem to be the root of the problem. I am seeing an active demonstration of why it is a very bad thing to run classrooms on the basis of bribes. It’s worst if they are food rewards, but the whole idea that you are in the running for prizes subverts cooperation and in-depth learning. It isn’t good for the kids who are “winning” either — they are learning that the subject is of no importance in itself, that you only put out an effort if a prize is dangled under your nose, and this is not going to help them in the future either.

We just had a long weekend and have been back at school now for two days. We have been avoiding each other. If we do talk it is to the point and brief.

I did suggest watching the video FAT City. She emailed me saying that she had heard the video is good and asked if I would go get it for her. First thing today I went to the public library for her and rented it. Our guidance also asked to see it and will consider showing it to all the teachers.

She knows I am not happy and it involves the lunch situation but I do not know if she knows what went wrong. The assistance principle sided with her so I do not know what was said to the teacher. If she was wrong or right, indifferent? The assistant principle was politically correct but I could tell she was not agreeing with the teacher’s decision.

The teacher said she would like to discuss how she can help my son in the classroom better after watching the video. Should I do this alone with her or should I ask his resource teacher to attend or his speech teacher who is his special ed advisor- also his teachers very good friend- their children also play together.

His speech teacher is great. She is the one that got my son into the resource program. The good friendship between the teacher and the speech teacher grew after the year started. They helped eachother through some personal rough times. I would like to think this would not matter but I do not know?

Any advise? Thank you