Shari
IsItFridayYet?
the meeting was productive.
We got there and the school's portion of the team was behind closed doors withe the atty. We were invited in about 15 minutes late.
It pretty much went, from there, as one would expect it to go when the school has called in their atty. Attitudes were flying, and tension was high.
We read thru the IEP, making adjustements as we went, and spent a LONG time on present level, parental concerns, etc. Things got really hot when I told him what I wanted added to the parental concerns, and the atty and one of the advocates really got into it.
ExMIL interrupted them and said that we were here to help her grandson, and if they wanted to have a pissing match, to take it outside, and that really calmed both of them down (the adv. and the atty have gone head to head before...) The atty's argument was that he wasn't going to have a lot of extra frivilous stuff in the parental concerns (severe dyslexia, etc) that wasn't supported by a medical diagnosis. So I whipped out my records and showed him in multiple places where those adjectives were used, and that I believed the severity of his disability needed to be addressed in the parental concerns because when the average person hears "adhd, dyslexia, seizure disorder" they do not associate that with a child who's reactions are of the caliber of Wee's.
And the atty did an about face. He and I sat next to each other and I was able to hand him documentation and evaluations and references the school could not, and I really think, ladies and gents, that he walked in there today expecting an irate mom insistent on a lawsuit, and walked out of there understanding the degree of disability this kiddo has and realizing we need a good document.
He shot down more of the school's ideas than he did mine. He supported the FBA from an outside agency and subsequently, training. He supported the recomendations of the school-lead assistive tech evaluations. He supported not throwing him back in the mainstream classroom all day, or 10 flippin transitions, and he supported me in that Wee may not be able to learn in the mainstream setting, so it makes no sense to throw him to wolves entirely by sticking him there for hours on end. He support throwing out the baselines from the end of last year when I showed him Wee's writing from July - in which everything is reversed again.
He was very adversarial when that meeting started, and when I left, he shook exMIL and my hand and said "That was a productive meeting after all. I am pleasantly suprised. It was a pleasure working with you." And I am trepidatiously saying I think he meant it. I think he was expecting 2 screaming banshees and he got a parent desperate to teach her child.
We didn't get anywhere near thru the IEP. There was a LOT of really good, really productive, conversation about realistic goals, how to measure them, how to write them, who was accountable for them. GOOD goals. We meet again in a few days to hopefully finish it up. We haven't addressed the paras yet, or the BIP, but he has made reference to the fact that it needs A LOT of work. But I can't see him supporting 5 paras when he knows transition is one of Wee's triggers, and its in the school's own documentation stating that, and we know the BIP is useless as it is.
So I am, once again, cautiously optimistic. It just may be that the school's own attorney might just hold their feet to the fire on this case. The scarey part is, he seems to get that Wee's problems, at this point, are a chicken and an egg scenario...which do you address first - behavior to make him more conducive to learning, or learning, so the frustrations that lead to the behaviors aren't so much in the foreground.
Very cautiously.
We got there and the school's portion of the team was behind closed doors withe the atty. We were invited in about 15 minutes late.
It pretty much went, from there, as one would expect it to go when the school has called in their atty. Attitudes were flying, and tension was high.
We read thru the IEP, making adjustements as we went, and spent a LONG time on present level, parental concerns, etc. Things got really hot when I told him what I wanted added to the parental concerns, and the atty and one of the advocates really got into it.
ExMIL interrupted them and said that we were here to help her grandson, and if they wanted to have a pissing match, to take it outside, and that really calmed both of them down (the adv. and the atty have gone head to head before...) The atty's argument was that he wasn't going to have a lot of extra frivilous stuff in the parental concerns (severe dyslexia, etc) that wasn't supported by a medical diagnosis. So I whipped out my records and showed him in multiple places where those adjectives were used, and that I believed the severity of his disability needed to be addressed in the parental concerns because when the average person hears "adhd, dyslexia, seizure disorder" they do not associate that with a child who's reactions are of the caliber of Wee's.
And the atty did an about face. He and I sat next to each other and I was able to hand him documentation and evaluations and references the school could not, and I really think, ladies and gents, that he walked in there today expecting an irate mom insistent on a lawsuit, and walked out of there understanding the degree of disability this kiddo has and realizing we need a good document.
He shot down more of the school's ideas than he did mine. He supported the FBA from an outside agency and subsequently, training. He supported the recomendations of the school-lead assistive tech evaluations. He supported not throwing him back in the mainstream classroom all day, or 10 flippin transitions, and he supported me in that Wee may not be able to learn in the mainstream setting, so it makes no sense to throw him to wolves entirely by sticking him there for hours on end. He support throwing out the baselines from the end of last year when I showed him Wee's writing from July - in which everything is reversed again.
He was very adversarial when that meeting started, and when I left, he shook exMIL and my hand and said "That was a productive meeting after all. I am pleasantly suprised. It was a pleasure working with you." And I am trepidatiously saying I think he meant it. I think he was expecting 2 screaming banshees and he got a parent desperate to teach her child.
We didn't get anywhere near thru the IEP. There was a LOT of really good, really productive, conversation about realistic goals, how to measure them, how to write them, who was accountable for them. GOOD goals. We meet again in a few days to hopefully finish it up. We haven't addressed the paras yet, or the BIP, but he has made reference to the fact that it needs A LOT of work. But I can't see him supporting 5 paras when he knows transition is one of Wee's triggers, and its in the school's own documentation stating that, and we know the BIP is useless as it is.
So I am, once again, cautiously optimistic. It just may be that the school's own attorney might just hold their feet to the fire on this case. The scarey part is, he seems to get that Wee's problems, at this point, are a chicken and an egg scenario...which do you address first - behavior to make him more conducive to learning, or learning, so the frustrations that lead to the behaviors aren't so much in the foreground.
Very cautiously.
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