Category Archives: special education strategist

Day 9 ~ more fun than you can shake a taco at.

So I had to stop at our high school to sign some papers for one of my kids special education teachers, and the Superintendent happened to hear my voice.

He came out, asked me if I had a few minutes so he could give me the paperwork for home schooling. Now, if you are following my blog, you already know this.. we are in spirited discussions with our district regarding the return of our youngest to public school. He was in a residential behavior modification program for 7 months. And once he completed their program they discharged him. Now the school doesn’t want him back, they want us to bus him 40 miles one way to another day treatment program. They will pay all expenses.

Our argument is that our son deserves a chance to at least try to be successful in the public school setting. Least Restrictive Environment it is called. Well, they aren’t wanting to do that. So my wife and I toured the facility. It is a nice enough facility, and if our son isn’t successful in public school we would put him there, but we don’t want that to be the only option available to him.

At the conclusion of the tour, we met with the administration of the facility, as well as our superintendent, the reps form the local special education district and a secretary. I asked our superintendent, “If our son completes this program successfully, will the district take him back?”

His response was, “I can’t say that we would.”

I have a huge problem with that. Alarms are going off in my head, my wife is steaming mad. So we told them that we weren’t going to put our son there. So until the school comes to an agreement with us about our son’s education we are home schooling him. My wife is a special education teacher in another district and more than qualified to be our supervising teacher.

Today when I was at the high school the superintendent wanted to talk to me about an email my wife had sent to the elementary school principal telling her how unprofessional she was for trying to schedule an IEP meeting without first contacting either parent, our advocate, or the facility that he was discharged from to determine which dates would work.

The prior written notice (pwn) was delivered via fax and email. A day later I received a copy in the mail. It was handwritten, which in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but have your ever tried to read a handwritten fax? Next to impossible. Only half of the IEP team was included in the notice. So my wife sent a note talking about professionalism, and how we had other obligations the morning in question and wouldn’t be able to make it.

There are a number of options on the pwn that can be chosen from. The one that we received was marked for “permanent placement in a home school setting.”

The only reason we are home schooling him at all is because the district refuses to educate him.

So we are requesting a facilitated IEP.

I apologise for the length of my post tonight. I am just a little angry. This spirited discussion, this polarised communication between us the district, has been going on for over 3 years. It is beyond time for it to end.

I should post a copy of the email my wife sent. 🙂 it was well written.

Day 7 ~ A wake up and PWN from the school

Good morning friends… Well, actually it is afternoon, but I have been up and about for about 6 hours. Cheers to you on this glorious morning.

A couple of things to start our day.

Last night, David had an incredible meltdown, his first since being in the residential facility.  I admit, I did not handle it well.  I apologised to him for my response to his meltdown.  It happened, we are moving forward.

Today, we are working on school work since there is still no apparent movement by the school district to resolve our impasse about David returning to public school.  But, then a short while ago, I got a call from one of our care coordinators for David.  She received a hand written Prior Written Notice (PWN) from the school district.  I called up our advocate to see if she had received one as well.  Never in my life have I seen a handwritten PWN.  The PWN was addressed to my wife and I, and included our advocate, the director of the regional special education unit, our care coordinator, the superintendent, and the appropriate staff from the elementary school.

The PWN did not include any of the staff from the residential facility that my son was discharged from a week ago.  How can we have an IEP meeting without the previous teacher being involved when that teacher is affiliated with agency that our son was a resident of for over 6 months?

I have not yet received the PWN, but have been told about it from three different people already this morning.  I can’t see meeting with the school without our advocate, care coordinator, or the staff from the residential facility.

So that is all the news to report this morning…  Hope your day is filled with sunshine and happiness.

Today the kids want breakfast for supper, so making peanut butter chip pancakes for supper tonight. Really good with grape jelly.

>Staffing session for our Child

>Well, today we had staffing for our son.  As I have posted before he is in a residential facility right now learning behavior management among other things.  The staffing includes such people as myself, the mentor coordinator, the program coordinator, the therapist, psychologist, nurse, partnerships care coordinator, family inclusion therapist, our son, and today we included the principal from he school. We also invited our advocate from Protection and Advocacy.

Surprisingly our son and the principal didn’t have any issues.  Which is good.  During the course of the staffing, which lasts about an hour, everyone present gets input into our sons care.  Including our son.  He didn’t say a whole lot. He talked about responsibility, not pushing or provoking others, and being respectful.

Our son recognizes and indicates that he is frustrated with himself when he misbehaves.  He apparently doesn’t like the person he becomes when he is having a bad day, but is at odds about how to control it.  The psychologist reported that he evaluated our son and determined that he doesn’t have OCD, but has very severe ADHD.  His recommendation is to continue the medication, implement a new one, which I can’t spell.. and work on some other things. 

Our son spends at least 15 minutes before school running and jumping on a trampoline.  The purpose of this exercise is to burn off a bunch of his excess energy.  If our son needs to be redirected, he goes willingly.  There are times when he has to be removed from the class and go on time out, he goes willingly.

I heard a lot of positive things about our son today. 

I mentioned that I thought we should have the classroom teacher come to the next staffing for our son.  I also said that we should have the special education strategist come to that staffing.  The principal promptly said that would entail an IEP meeting that would need to be scheduled.  I agreed with that, and said that I also thought that it would be beneficial for the teacher and strategist to hear some positive things about our son before he gets back to school so that they aren’t just hearing negative things all the time.

The principal did what I called the Bobblehead during the whole meeting.  She had a grin on her face and her head bobbed up and down during the whole meeting.

The rep from the regional special services asked if the facility was just going to discharge our son or if he had to meet certain standards before he was discharged… The case manager said that our son had to meet specific criteria prior to discharge. 

Discharge has been pushed back to mid-December as the staff doesn’t think our son is ready to come home.

On the way out of the meeting the rep from Protection and Advocacy asked me what I thought about certain things from the meeting.  I said that I didn’t think that the principal was willing to accept our son back in the school.  I explained my reasons. One – past behavior from the staff at school.  Two – body language.  I didn’t get any indication from the principal that told me that she was willing to work with us and our son to have positive outcomes.  Ever get that feeling about someone?  Yes, I did.  I thought that she was telling the people things she thought that they wanted to hear.

The strategist from regional special services asked about services in the school. Our son will get help transitioning back to the public setting.  He will have a mentor who will work with him in our community, there will be a staff member from the facility that comes to the school to help our son transition.  In the IEP session they will make more specific recommendations regarding classroom time.

Our son is on a sensory diet so we will be learning about that too.  He uses a weighted vest during the day, as welll as stress balls.  The stress balls give him something to focus on to keep his attention so he pays attention in school.

That is all for now.  Our next staffing is roughly a month from now.  We have family therapy  and inclusion seminar prior to that.  We are also planning some home visits for our son.  It was very good to see him today.