Monday, March 03, 2008

Law day

The all-day seminar I went to on Saturday for special education law was really informative, interesting, and jam-packed with stuff I'm putting to use right away. I'm writing a more descriptive post about it on my autism blog, but some of the main points I walked away with are
  • don't let the school district try to fit Nate into one of their existing programs. He is to have an individualized program that is most appropriate for him.
  • keep everything in writing. If I do make a phone call, follow it up with an e-mail detailing all agreements, so I have record of them.
  • tape record the IEP meeting (and give written notice first).
  • have the district explain everything. If it's written Nate will have an hour of speech, then with whom? One on one? In a group? If in a group, how many other children? And what types of abilities will those other children have? etc.
  • think beyond what is currently available at the school.
  • get independent assessments for Nate if possible.
  • remember: in these proceedings, my goal is the successful and appropriate education of my child.

Yesterday (Sunday), I wrote an e-mail to our district's special ed director, explaining how we had Nate's transition meeting over 3 weeks ago but have yet to hear anything about his assessments or IEP, etc., and I had a message first thing this morning from the district with dates for his assessments. Sometimes it just takes a little prodding, I guess.

On my autism blog, I'll also detail some of the actual law (IDEA) we went over.

1 comment:

Ricci said...

Glad you learned a lot. Sad that we have to be our kids only real advocates in this world but I guess that's what comes with being a parent!!