Our IEP meeting for Pookie has come and gone. We still don’t have any idea what school or even what kind of class he is going to be in next year. Our school district kind of sucks at getting that kind of information out since they generally have no idea as a district what they are planning to do until late in the summer.
Anyway, I’ve been reading about other people’s experiences with their own IEP meetings.
It seems that a common thread of IEP meetings is that parents leave the meetings wishing they had said more or asked for more or demanded more.
I have felt like that myself after each IEP meeting that I’ve ever been to.
The reason for this feeling is that the meeting ends with them passing the IEP around and getting everybody to sign off on it. All of the administrators, teachers, aides and parents. And once you sign off, you are fairly set in stone unless you really start to get funky with addendums and such.
It really does have the feel of trying to buy a new car at times. “What can we do to get you into this IEP today?”
One of the things that I have learned in the last couple months (or been reminded – it seems like I knew it at one point) is that there is no requirement for the parents to actually sign the IEP right then and there. Actually, signing it then and there is pretty stupid because you really don’t have time to read it over and properly process everything it contains.
Since the IEP determines exactly what educational plans and assistance your child will get for the following year, it is pretty important to get it right. The school has plenty of time to prepare the document before the meeting but then the IEP meeting only gives the parents about one hour to go over everything. That is a major disadvantage for the parents and a major advantage for the school district that might be trying to squeeze a few dollars out of their budget.
From now on, I’m going into each IEP meeting with the plan that I will not be signing the document until I get the chance to take it home and pick it apart for a day or two in the privacy of my own world.
I’m not one for starting big internet groups to “Fight for the…” or “Fight against the…” but I think a “Don’t Sign The IEP” campaign would be a great one to get started (even though it probably already exists – you can find everything on this internet). It just needs a catchier name and some banners.
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We didn’t sign our IEP, either. Went in the next week and signed it.
In our state, you can actually request a new IEP at any time. It is done once a year, but you can have it redone or added to or updated whenever you want. Of course, I’m sure it would take a bit of time to get an appointment, etc. Just might be something you might want to look into.
That’s a good reminder, too. You can call an impromptu meeting at any point. The stuff that I normally think about is little stuff that I don’t really care about but wish I would have said. Stuff that is not important enough to need a new meeting but if something like that ever comes up, I will definitely be giving the district a call.
I have been in some great IEP meetings and some horrible ones – depending which special educator was running it. The good ones always remind the parents that they can take it home, see if they want anything added to it, etc. I am lucky enough to co-teach with and be good friends with an excellent special educator. And I could write a whole page on the bad IEP meetings I’ve been in. I was humiliated as the regular educator that the specialist was so inept. One actually said, “I don’t know what this means…” about something in the IEP that she should have known! This year, as the classroom teacher, I haven’t had to sign anything like before, and I don’t remember the parents signing anything either. The best thing parents can be is an advocate for their child- whether it be at an IEP meeting or trying to get gifted/talented services or anything else. Okay, I’ll get off my soap box now.
It’s kind of funny sometimes to be the parent and wonder what the teachers and administrators are thinking during the meetings.
We’ve been pretty fortunate to have some pretty good teachers so far and all of them were clearly very interested in working with us to get what is best for Pookie. The teachers in the special ed programs have a definite advantage because so much of their job is focused on working with IEPs since all of their students have them.
I’m really not looking forward to an IEP meeting where the teacher doesn’t get it.
I’m a special ed teacher..and also an IVF veteran. You have good insight into taking the IEP home. I try to talk to the parents about the IEP long before the meeting. If you have good contact with the teachers, signing the paperwork becomes less of an issue. The issue is really do you trust that the people who are working with your child? If not, your less likely to want to sign the papers that legally tie them. I consider the IEP meeting the least important part of my job. What’s more important..showing someone you love them all year long, or remembering to send them a card once a year on their birthday? If you miss the relationship part-the card because ULTRA important because it’s the only basis for the relationship. What’s MOST important is the rapport with the family, and my relationships with the students. If those are in tact, the IEP is just a stack of papers. It reminds me of my focus, but that’s all. I find that I talk to the parents on my caseload so often that the IEP becomes more of a time for us to talk about the child in general, not so much about hours, LRE, accommodations….
Take care!
If you ever have an IEP questions, feel free to send them my way. I’m kind of a Special Ed IEP nerd
I would join that club if you formed it. I still haven’t signed anything and our IEP meeting was in April. Ours was a transition meeting, though, so it might have been different – there wasn’t actually anything to be signed.
Today, after much debate (after the IEP meeting) amongst parents and current therapists, we the parents went over the heads of everyone and met with the sped director. Now I think they are scared of us. Thankfully we live in a very good school district and I am almost embarrassed to tell you what we got for our kid.
Squeaky wheel, you know? Squeak, squeak, squeak.
You realize, signing the IEP (in any state) in NO WAY means you agree with it, it simply means you attended. In fact, IEPs do not need to be signed to be implented, only the placement page needs signatures.
In any state you may request a new IEP at any time.
The IEP Is not about what you can get or what they can get, it’s about finding out a way to meet the needs of your child so that there educational experience is as similar as possible to what it would be like if they were non disabled.
Cricket—
The problem with that mentality, “I’m almost embarrassed to tell you what we got for our kid,” is that there is not an infinite pool of money. What you take away from the budget directly affects what another child receives. Would it feel good to get a new laptop to know another kid who more deserved it was given a hard time because you were so pushy?
It’s important to realize that teachers do not go in the field to give you a hard time. In general, teachers could do more with students if they were not so busy trying to calm down ’squeaky’ parents.
Get what your child needs, but don’t try to get things just because you can.
Anne, just for the record the types of things that I’m normally asking about in the IEP meetings are things like when will our son be ready to spend a few minutes a day in a normal classroom and what things are in place to help the kids in the special ed program keep up on normal school room curriculum while also getting the social development that they need. I also like to have some time to really think about what X minutes of OT and Y minutes of speech a week really mean in the schedule. We also have a lot of concerns about what school our son will be at since he has now spent two years of preschool, one year of kindergarten and just started 1st grade and has attended 4 different school and only the very first year of preschool was at our home school. The other ones are have been on complete opposite sides of a big district.
Taking home the IEP would give me time to think about my concerns and see how the IEP actually addresses them or not and then add comments to the IEP that reflect any concerns I might have.
If I brought in a list of requests to the IEP meeting, I wouldn’t expect the school district to say, “OK” to them without having a few days to think them over. Since the IEP is the student’s individual education plan it seems like a good idea to get all of the information in the IEP that needs to be there.
I agree with you that we needed to bring the IEP home to review because they went over so quick and did not allow us a chance to talk about what we disagree with.