Disclaimer: there are a lot of great special ed teachers, guidance counselors, and school psychologists out there. This article is not about them, or directed at them. It IS about the schmucks who too often find jobs in the school system wherein their ability to keep the school for paying for providing services is what keeps them employed. I am tired of pretending that they don't exist in large numbers.
Here is an incomplete list of some of the myths and just plain falsehoods used by school districts to avoid compliance with IDEA or 34 CFR for children with special needs and disabilities.
Myth #1: "We know more about your child's disability than you do."
This is pervasive--we're special educators so we've been trained to deal with this sort of thing, and you are just a parent who couldn't be expected to understand.
The counter (with or without an advocate): be an expert and ask them politely to put up or shut up about the issue.
Example: representing a child with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome I was told by a guidance counselor that, despite her doctor's diagnosis, she could still come to school for full days because she could rest in the nurse's office, and--after all--said counselor had worked with a number of these children and knew what she was talking about.
So I asked her, "Then, of course, you have calculated this child's Recovery Index, and you are aware of the CDC protocols for dealing with Pulmonary Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, right?"
Long silence.
You can beat them at this game, but you have to learn to talk to them with exactly the same jargon-filled disdain they use on you. Not easy to switch roles, and again that's why you NEED an advocate to do it for you.
Note: I do advocacy all over the region, and I still have someone else advocate for me at IEP meetings.
Myth #2: "To get services you need the right vocabulary, and we're not going to explain it to you."
There are certain magic words that, if you get them into the record of the proceedings, with literally FORCE the school district to give you all or at least most of what you need because they know that having those words on the record will kill them if you ever take it to the State or the Feds.
Example: a friend has a young child with developmental delays receiving speech therapy. The school district told her that therapy would stop in May and not resume until mid-September because they hadn't approved the kid for Extended School Year services (see that entry below). The parent was devastated because she knew that (a) her family couldn't afford to pay for the services over the summer, and (b) the last time this happened her son lost nearly a year's worth of progress.
The counter: with a little coaching, she went into the 504 meeting and told them that the child needed the summertime therapy to "avoid regression" and because he was "on the verge of a breakthrough." The psychologist looked at the administrator and said, "That's it. We have to provide the services." End of conversation.
But if you don't know the right terminology and where it is applied to have legal impact, you're screwed.
Myth #3: "Your child does not qualify for Extended School Year [ESY] services. See you next fall."
Schools hate ESY because it puts them, whether the parents know it or not, potentially on the hook for a whole bunch of services they don't want to pay for. So most schools will try like the plague to avoid authorizing it. And, in reality, unless you can entrap them into saying something blatantly illegal, the law and resulting court decisions are so ambiguous they will probably get away with it.
However, there are some things you can do. First, if you really want and need ESL, force them to specify a reason on the IEP/504 why they are turning you down. That's really hard to do.
But the best way is to bargain away ESY in exchange for the services you really need for your child over the summer. Districts will do this if you let them avoid the ESY designation. I've gotten tutors, special courses, speech therapy (above), and lots of other goodies by distinguishing between formal ESY status and services this child needs over the summer.
Myth #4: "You really don't want to appeal our decisions, because we'll win and it will cost you money."
This does differ from State to State, but here is one basic universal thanks to IDEA and 34 CFR: when you appeal--especially a change of program or change of designation--not only is the burden of proof on the school district, but it lays all of those procedural issues that the school had been dodging in front of a third party. Unfortunately, the appeals or mediation process is usually so slow paced that you can see your child's education slipping away.
That's why the threat of an appeal, carefully worded and supported by documentation, can often get you what you want. The school district will make a cold calculation regarding how much of their time you can tie up, how much its going to cost them both in time and bad Federal reporting [which they fear more than anything], and will often quickly cave on your requests to keep you from initiating the process.
The problem: the letter has to be written by someone with expertise enough to scare them with an understanding of the law and the basis for the appeal. Again: that's why you need an advocate.
Myth #5: "We will take you to the authorities if you don't comply with our demands."
I guess this isn't really a myth, because school districts attempt it all the time, in order to keep you on the defensive. Have a kid with a serious medical condition that requires him/her to stay home much of the time: they will threaten you with truancy charges. Have a diagnosis that the district doesn't like or understand: they've been known to call protective services to have the parents investigated. Are the parents divorced: school districts will sometimes even seek out the non-custodial parent and trick him/her into trashing the ex, which they will then use to make you look like a bitter, deluded nutcase.
Myth #6: "We can ignore what your physician says if we don't like it."
You'd be amazed. I have watched special education teachers with BA degrees and school psychologists with very little academic credit sit in meetings and totally disregard the diagnoses and recommendations of experts in the field. I once watched a school pyschologist determined to prove a child was depressed and acting out rather that suffering from Myalagic Encephalitis tell me that his opinion was more significant than that of the doctor who currently headed the CDC Task Force and CFS/ME, and who had personally sent in the diagnosis.
And the bastard was smiling.
The counter: (1) come armed with your physician's credentials; (2) disdainfully ask the person to provide their own credentials regarding expertise with the disease in question (and accept only academic publication or formal training); and--most important--(3) make them put it in writing.
Literally, make them put in writing on the IEP/504 plan that the school is rejecting the diagnosis by Dr. so and so, with credentials such and such, and is doing so based on the expertise of guidance counselor of school nurse X, on the basis of exactly what tests and what differential diagnosis. They won't do it. They can't do it. They will drop back to insisting on more information, or insisting that the doctor may know disease but either doesn't know kids or doesn't know education.
Again: you really need an advocate to do this for you.
OK, that's enough for today, and enough to get started.
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