Manifestation called.

[klmno]

That reminds me, I think I read in our state regs, which I am SURE would never be more stringent than IDEA/Wrightslaw, that the school has to have a person who understands the disability on board for a manifestation determination. I don't remember the exact wording, but the point and intent is that it takes a person who is familiar with that specific disability to at least provide an opinion on this determination. It stuck out in my mind when I read it because an asst principal at my son's previous school once tried to tell me that since she and the teacher thought difficult child's behavior was not a manifestation than I had no choice but to sign in agreement. Do NOT let them do that to you- and if you sign, you are in agreement. They HAVE to put it in writing in the same report if you do not agree with the determiniation. This is the sort of thing I learned after the fact, when I was seeing a Special Education attny and reading the laws and regs on my own.

I made up my mind that if difficult child ever needed another one of these, I would demand that they have a specialist there or pay for a private one, but it wouldn't be some administrator or teacher who had no specialized training in whatever difficult child was diagnosis'd with- not what the school thought he was on an iep for. IOW, if difficult child has a diagnosis of BiPolar (BP) but he's on an IEP for behavior (because here it's a major fight otherwise), then the specialist would need to understand BiPolar (BP), not "bad behaved" kids. This is just an example, but hopefully it will help prepare you.

 

[crazymama30]

We had to do one of those last year with difficult child. Here the IEP team met, and then they met with me. In their meeting they had already decided that difficult child's action were a manifestion of his disability, so it never went far, thankfully. I was really scared about that one. He almost had police charges, but luckily that did not happen either.

Good luck. I hope they figures something out.

 

[klmno]

I feel sure that in Shari's case, they know this is a manifestation of her wee difficult child's disability, but I'm just concerned that since they don't know how to deal with him sometimes and apparently don't want to get someone in there who can, they will use this as a way out.

 

[susiestar]

Shari - Be SURE to contact Dr. I's office to get his recommendations on this. As well as any written info they can share. They are usually pretty great with this stuff.

 

[SRL]

We had to do one of those last year with difficult child. Here the IEP team met, and then they met with me. In their meeting they had already decided that difficult child's action were a manifestion of his disability, so it never went far, thankfully. I was really scared about that one. He almost had police charges, but luckily that did not happen either.

Good luck. I hope they figures something out.

I thought it was illegal for an IEP team to meet without notifying the parent to invite them to attend. In real life obviously co-workers are going to communicate, but I thought parents had to be informed if the team was meeting.