Wee will attend school tomorrow and a meeting is scheduled.

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
Sped Dir cleared previous SpEd teacher's plate so she could tend to Wee until we can meet on Monday.

I met with new principal, and both sped teachers, and we made the aforementioned schedule a target, but not a starting point. Mainstream minutes were slashed to less than half of the proposed schedule's mainstream time.

Miraculously, they suddenly have time to meet on Monday. While not ideal, I think this will get us through until then.

Not fair to other sped kids, but I can't worry about that right now.
 
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Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I spoke with DOE today, also. I happened to get a fellow I've talked to several times before. He offered to call the school and see if he couldn't light a fire under their tail.

I don't need to do that right now. However, I am considering filing a complaint. I should not have to get nasty to get an IEP meeting scheduled, particularly with 3 months advance notice. Really thinking that is my next step.
 
L

Liahona

Guest
Don't worry about the other sp ed kids. The first week of school the sp ed teacher is still trying to get the other teachers to give her their class room schedules. The sp ed teacher should need to know what she is pulling the kids out of before taking kids out of class. (At least I always had in mind what they were missing.)

No, you shouldn't have to get nasty to get an IEP scheduled. You can call for an IEP any time and legally you should get one.

I really hope the change in principals will help.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
Had a different principal every year and its always been the same. So not holding my breath. Although there are things I do like about this one.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Shari, I really really think it is past time to file complaints and at least take everything to a sp ed atty. Check the Wrightslaw website to find one, I bet they at least have suggestions as to how to find one and how to know it is a good one, if not actual lists of sp ed attys. Also the bar association in your state should be able to help. Wee deserves so much more than this. I cannot help but wonder if they are doing this to Wee, with a parent who is so active an advocate for him, what are they doing to the other sp ed kids and their rights? They sure are trying to get you to think that the problem getting what Wee needs is taht it takes away from the other sp ed kids, but they lie about so much and blow so much smoke that it is just not believable.

This shortened day and all the calls for you to come and get him really have had the same result as suspending him formore than 10 days. In fact it has a far greater effect but they don't have to do the due process and change placement, which is expensive.

I did some math to put this into perspective because I wondered exactly how much instruction time he really was missing. MO requires 174 school days and a 1044 hours of instruction time (lunch does not count, nor does recess I think. I know lunch doesn't count.

So a normal kid gets 6 hours of instruction time a day (1044 divided by 174) With the schedule, even if they don't follow it but he is in some class during those hours only and lunch for that long, Wee gets 275min of instruction. This means he is 85 min of instruction short each day. Every 42.4 days of school he misses 10 full days. In a school year of 174 days he is missing a little over 4 times the 10 day suspension limit. This shortened schedule means they can cut his education time by more than 4 times the legal limit before change in placement hearing is required - all without any real paperwork or expense on their part.

40 full days of school they are refusing to give him each year. 40 Think about that. And that number is BEFORE you add in all the times they call you to come get him - but don't suspend him, which shortens his day so much more. In 13 yrs of public school that every child gets - k through grade 12, this schedule each year would mean that Wee only gets a tiny bit over 10 years. Because it adds up to 2.98 years if you multiply 40 days per year times 13 years and divide that number by 174 days in a school year. It comes up to 2.98 YEARS of education.

Sometimes it is easy to let things like this slide with-o going for big guns because it is "only" a little bit here or there and "well, he IS hard to handle if you don't handle him right". But THIS is what they are taking away from him - 3 YEARS of his education overall if this continues. Last year their short schedule cost him 40 days of school - if YOU kept him home that much they would have YOU in court for truancy. But you haven't yanked their tails into court or even discussed it with an attorney.

At one time there was a sp ed school that would have been great for him in a neighboring town or county. there is NO reason that your school can't pay for him to go there AND pay for a taxi ro whatever to take him there and home. They OWE him that. I am very sure that the school's atty would be HORRIFIED if you showed him the numbers that I worked out because this and all the other awful stuff they pull mean that they have violated his rights up one side and down the other and abused him while they did it (the year they locked him in the closet that was to be his "safe" area and punished him if he kicked or yelled in there? THAT is most likely still in the statute of limitation for abuse charges I woudl think and NO ONE is going to think it wasn't abuse but the people running the school who triggered him knowingly over and over and over.

You even have the chief of police on YOUR side as far as them calling the cops on Wee. That ought to tell you a whole lot - a WHOLE LOT. They are majorly abusing your son and refusing to educate him. I don't think letters from you are going to accomplish much. Whether they are nice or nasty. They are worth a shot while you get an atty lined up, but some major changes need to happen NOW because he is already so far behind and they are not going to change anything unless/until you get a lawyer involved.

I hate your school system for doing this to him and to you. You have bent over backward to help them and all they have done is take advantage and violate the laws and Wee's rights.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
You're absolutely right, Susie, and this is my main goal this year - get him back to full days. That's why I'm having a fit about all the people and mainstream time. If they want to work on mainstream, fine. AFTER he is back at school full days.

I screwed up in not filing due process when this started. Back in 08 when Pretty Boy first shortened his day. That was the illegal part. I needed to file due process then to stop it, but I didn't know that then. Now, it is in his IEP, and according to DOE (I'm on first name basis with them, too), as a sped student, they can reduce the number of hours he attends, so now that its there, I can't get rid of it. There's a time limit on filing due process for it, too, so I can't go back on them for it now. It shouldn't have happened, but it did, and we are stuck with it.

HOWEVER, one of his goals the district's attorney added to the IEP was to require the emergency BIP to be used no more than 2 times per month, and he met that goal that last three months of school. He should have added 45 minutes to his day (15 minutes per month the goal is met - the goal was added at the end of January). It took their bureocatic butts that long to figure out if we needed to meet to make that modification, so they only added 15 minutes, and the last month of school was rough for Wee, so I didn't want it added at that time. On Monday, they OWE him at least another 15, if not 30. That will be addressed then, and that will bring him close to the end of the day. None of us believe he should be in the building when the masses dismiss - it is just too chaotic.

I also have consulted an attorney on some occassions. I have found one fairly close, and although I haven't hired him, he's given me a lot of direction and we will hire him if needed. I have a very win-able case, but it will take A LOT of money to do it (per 2 attornies). I carry his card, and he gave me the ok to throw his name around if I need to. Heck, at their direction, I alerted the school's attorney that I had requested a meeting prior to school starting back in May and we hadn't met...he said he would be making a phone call to the school. Both of these attornies have said if I can use their attorney to get what I want/need, do it. I'm not giving him any more info than that. I called him. I sent my nasty gram. And I got a meeting, probably as soon as is possible at this point. I should have done it last week, but at that time, I was being told we would be meeting before school started.

The sped school in the neighboring district won't take him on contract. I believe there has to be a way around this, but I don't know what it is. Sped teacher's husband is a top person in that school, and through him, I know there are kids from other districts, but we haven't figured out how those districts are making that happen. The good part of this, tho, is that sped teacher talks to her husband about Wee and implements a lot of strategies from his school into her room, which is why she has been so successful with Wee.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
And per the district's attorney, if they send him home early, it MUST BE COUNTED towards that 10 days. He called them out on that before I had a chance to. So they aren't doing that anymore.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
You can ask that the school pay your lawyer fees after you win. Parents did it here and got it. The judge actually added a penalty amt to the families because what happened was so egregious - incl faked sigs on iep changes that I alerted the families to when I found it in Wiz' iep.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
He did fine, which I expected, since the sped teacher (from last year) was with him all day.

They ended up spending almost all of the day in the mainstream classroom. The day was spent entirely doing "get to know you" things, and he maintained, so they stayed there. Which I'm ok with, since she was with him and he did ok. As long as they don't try to use this to prove he can maintain there.

After school, he had forgotten his lunch box, so we stopped to get it, and he wanted to tell the principal about his good day. She was in a meeting, but a woman I didn't know asked Wee what he needed, and he told her. I have no idea who she was. About 10 minutes after we got home, principal called my cell and told me she had a message to call me. lol hm...
 

timer lady

Queen of Hearts
Sigh.....honey, you must be so tired of this "****". You've been fighting for little Wee & his educational rights for so long now. You'd think that SD would get their act together.

I'm so very grateful with all the tweedles issues I didn't have to continually fight the SD.

Hang in there & glad to hear that Wee had a good first day.
 
from where i sit, (some) of the solutions seem SO easy to rectify. i cant figure out why your district is willing to risk having possible adverse action taken against them over some of this.

---he needs a dedicated para. one person. one RELIABLE, WELL TRAINED person. (not random aides who rotate in and out by the hour).

---there is zero reason for this modified day. if the end of the day chaos is of concern, his dedicated para walks him *OUT* of the building roughly 3 minutes before the rest of the building leaves, puts him on the bus that is already waiting for the rest of the population to be dismissed. the end.

---he needs considerably less transitions in his schedule. as in, morning placement, lunch break, afternoon placement. if it needs to be in a self contained room, so be it. enough already with the insane amount of movement throughout the day....

and then everyone involved needs to move on and address the dyslexia/Learning Disability (LD) and behavioral issues in a clear and consistent manner.

honestly.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
Gee, confuzzled, can I give them your number and just defer them to you when they don't get it???

I was picking him up 2-3-4 times a week in 2009-2010. Until they moved him to self contained. And for the last 4 months of school, I think I picked him up maybe twice. And once was because he told the teacher he didn't think he could handle it that day.

This past year, I picked him up 5 or 6 times in the first 6 weeks when they were pushing the whole mainstream thing. When they hired a dedicated aid and kept him self contained, guess what? I'm not sure I had to pick him up ANY for his behavior the rest of the year. There was behavior, and we had to have little "talks", but if I picked him up early, it wasn't more than a time or two.

The bulk of the issues could be resolved with such a simple fix - keep on keeping on with what was working!
 

cubsgirl

Well-Known Member
I'm glad Wee did ok his first day. I was thinking about him this morning and wondering how he did.

You would think that by now the SD would "get" it. Sigh.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I thought maybe they were, too. They knew the right things to say at the meetings. They beat me to the punch on most things by bringing it up first.

He had a good day today, also, but my gaurd is up now. They kept him mainstream all day again today (with sped teacher). And she's nervous or stressed. Any time I've seen her like that before, she knew something was coming down the pike... The principal practically kissed my butt last night, and I got an acknowledgement email from the sped dir saying she got my nasty-gram, and we can talk about it all on Monday.

I wonder if they aren't going to use this to say he can maintain in mainstream...I dunno.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I SOOOOOOOO Want to go and give them and old fashioned attitude adjustment. The one that is delivered via 2X4. I cannot figure out how mainstream is going to accomplish anything toward the goal of educating him when he is so far behind. Having the sped teach be nervous like that is a bad thing.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I can make an argument for letting him stay in mainstream right now, too. He was alienated from his class last year, and the classroom is not doing academics yet. They are doing "get to know you" things. I agreed during my conversation with the sped teachers that he did need to rebuild those relationships and feel like he "belonged" again with his own peers. So I can see value in doing it. I can also see devious intents behind it, too. I hope that's not the case.

Sped 1 (last year's sped teacher), tho, being nervous, is what is getting my attention. She's only like this when something is going on. When she was leaving last year, but the board hadn't accepted her resignation yet. When her dad's cancer came back before he passed away. When she accepted their offer to stay on, but it wasn't public knowledge yet... it wasn't always things related to school, but everytime she got like this, there was something behind it.

She recently suffered a miscarriage, so that could be it, too, but coupled with the other people's behavior, its making me nervous.

No, Wee can't learn in mainstream. Their own data and test results will support that.

Will see what Monday brings...
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Wee is so far behind in his reading that he simply cannot learn in mainstream. It is possible that he could learn if he wasnt required to do any reading or writing but are they going to do that? Are they going to let the entire class not read or write this year? If not, mainstream isnt the place for him. He will stick out like a sore thumb and it will tick him off.

I hope there is nothing up but I think you are right to have your antenna up.
 
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