A
agee
Guest
So -
a while back I posted something about being nervous for our upcoming discussion about whether or not difficult child would get an IEP, and it turned out that I had reason to be worried.
Here's how it went down:
My son has (diagnosed) ADHD and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) and has been having serious behavioral problems all year in his classroom. It has not been uncommon for us to get notes home 50 -75% of the days of the month about his behavior. Most days his behavior (as logged by his teacher) has been below the acceptable range, and his teacher even allows them to move "up" as they redeem themselves throughout the day so it's not like he screwed up once or twice and then was stuck for the day.
My son is also on, or just below grade level for all his subjects.
I requested a meeting to determine whether or not kiddo should have an IEP based on his behavior. I had outside evaluations done - we also had them done last summer - and we all met. Both last year's assessments and this year's assessments noticed significant attentional problems with my son. This is WITH medication.
At the meeting the narrative the teacher provided said that my son had no attentional or behavioral problems in the classroom. We asked if the evaluation. was for RIGHT NOW - because the past month we've gone up on his stimulant and his behavior at school has definitely improved although mood at home has been low - and the teacher said it was for the entire year.
2 people observed kiddo for 1/2 hour each and both observed that he was perfectly well behaved. No problems at all.
I've been in the classroom 2 hours every week and I've seen my son crawl under tables, kick people's science projects, shove kids, talk out, talk incessantly, ignore the teacher...and get consequences for all these behaviors.
I showed them a sampling of the notes that have been sent home, and I even showed them a calendar for March as a sample of the past couple of months where I color-coded the days his behavior was reported unacceptable. I told them that the assistant told me some days she had to sit with my child all day to keep him calm, and the teacher also told me that some days he couldn't teach the class because of dealing with-my son's behavior. difficult child has hurt 3 children, as well as doing inappropriate things in the bathroom. The teacher reported these verbally to me.
They just looked blankly at me.
Now - I realize that getting an IEP is hard to get based on behavior, especially since my son is "accessing the curriculum." I kind of expected we'd be turned down...but I didn't expect that the teacher would lie about my child's behavior. The teacher also said that my son did his homework...which was another blatent lie because I have to sit and do the homework with my child and if we're lucky we get 2 of the 8 or so homework sheets completed for the week and from about Nov- March, which is when we were adjusting medications, he did no homework at all.
So the teacher lied. And I had proof he lied, but no one cared.
My husband said that when they were reading the report he was wondering: whose kid are they talking about?
I am not sure what to do now.
I was thinking of writing a letter to go with the report so I can at least have it on record that we feel the report is incorrect.
And obviously from here on out I am going to take copious notes after every single interaction with school. I've taken some notes and kept some records, but I made a mistake in trusting the teacher to report correctly.
Thoughts?????
a while back I posted something about being nervous for our upcoming discussion about whether or not difficult child would get an IEP, and it turned out that I had reason to be worried.
Here's how it went down:
My son has (diagnosed) ADHD and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) and has been having serious behavioral problems all year in his classroom. It has not been uncommon for us to get notes home 50 -75% of the days of the month about his behavior. Most days his behavior (as logged by his teacher) has been below the acceptable range, and his teacher even allows them to move "up" as they redeem themselves throughout the day so it's not like he screwed up once or twice and then was stuck for the day.
My son is also on, or just below grade level for all his subjects.
I requested a meeting to determine whether or not kiddo should have an IEP based on his behavior. I had outside evaluations done - we also had them done last summer - and we all met. Both last year's assessments and this year's assessments noticed significant attentional problems with my son. This is WITH medication.
At the meeting the narrative the teacher provided said that my son had no attentional or behavioral problems in the classroom. We asked if the evaluation. was for RIGHT NOW - because the past month we've gone up on his stimulant and his behavior at school has definitely improved although mood at home has been low - and the teacher said it was for the entire year.
2 people observed kiddo for 1/2 hour each and both observed that he was perfectly well behaved. No problems at all.
I've been in the classroom 2 hours every week and I've seen my son crawl under tables, kick people's science projects, shove kids, talk out, talk incessantly, ignore the teacher...and get consequences for all these behaviors.
I showed them a sampling of the notes that have been sent home, and I even showed them a calendar for March as a sample of the past couple of months where I color-coded the days his behavior was reported unacceptable. I told them that the assistant told me some days she had to sit with my child all day to keep him calm, and the teacher also told me that some days he couldn't teach the class because of dealing with-my son's behavior. difficult child has hurt 3 children, as well as doing inappropriate things in the bathroom. The teacher reported these verbally to me.
They just looked blankly at me.
Now - I realize that getting an IEP is hard to get based on behavior, especially since my son is "accessing the curriculum." I kind of expected we'd be turned down...but I didn't expect that the teacher would lie about my child's behavior. The teacher also said that my son did his homework...which was another blatent lie because I have to sit and do the homework with my child and if we're lucky we get 2 of the 8 or so homework sheets completed for the week and from about Nov- March, which is when we were adjusting medications, he did no homework at all.
So the teacher lied. And I had proof he lied, but no one cared.
My husband said that when they were reading the report he was wondering: whose kid are they talking about?
I am not sure what to do now.
I was thinking of writing a letter to go with the report so I can at least have it on record that we feel the report is incorrect.
And obviously from here on out I am going to take copious notes after every single interaction with school. I've taken some notes and kept some records, but I made a mistake in trusting the teacher to report correctly.
Thoughts?????