Learn Your Special Education Laws, Special Education Rights, and Share IEP Goal Ideas

We have started a weekly feature here on Special Education Advisor called the “Inspirational Teacher Series“. Our goal is to help SEA readers understand the hard work and dedication educators put forth every day. We also want to highlight the positive experiences of educating our students with a disability

Today we profile Jennifer Fuller James. Jennifer has been contributing articles to Special Education Advisor over the past few months and she is fast becoming one of my favorite guest authors. I hope you enjoy her profile: Read the rest of this entry →

Winning isn’t everything!!!! Let me say that again, winning isn’t everything. Your child IS everything, they are your world, and they are your “everything.” Sometimes we get so caught up in the chess game between Schools and Parents we all forget that there is a beautiful child who needs our help, is asking for our help and is screaming for our help. Negative behaviors mean something, not that the child is bad but that the child is trying to make us listen to them. Maybe that negative behavior is the only way the child knows how to communicate their needs and wants. It’s up to us as the adults to listen and not spend our time trying to outmaneuver each other in the IEP meeting.

As you can tell I’m a little emotional right now. This IEP season has been a difficult one because many of our clients have children with varying degrees of mental health issues. The mind is a complicated place that has very little predictability when mental health issues are involved. Whether you are talking about a 7 year old boy with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an 8 year old boy with an anxiety disorder or a teenager who spent her toddler years in foster care and was born addicted to drugs; writing an IEP for these children is a difficult, ongoing process. Difficult might actually be an understatement, I’m not even sure an appropriate word exists in the English language for this monumental task. So why do we spend our precious time trying to outmaneuver each other rather than spend the necessary time writing an IEP that will shape a better future for that child. Read the rest of this entry →

As of 2004, the definition of ‘least restrictive environment’ as written in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): “To the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public or private institutions or other care facilities, are educated with children who are not disabled, and special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability of a child is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily.”

Essentially what that means is that the law views public schools as the “least restrictive environment.” But we have to remember the majority of laws that were passed have been written by hearing people, with little or no input from Deaf people. To hearing people, public schools are least restrictive in the sense that hearing people do not need to worry about accessibility issues or accommodations. Can we say the same about Deaf students? Are public schools truly “least restrictive environment” for Deaf students? Many hearing legislators, hearing administrators, and the hearing society want to believe that Deaf students can attend a public school and do just fine, as long as the Deaf student has cochlear implant and is hearized to the fullest extent possible. Bills have been proposed with this belief in mind, such as House Bill 1367 in Indiana and Assembly Bill 2072 in California, for example. If schools for the deaf can be closed down as result of such bills, it’s a nice benefit in eyes of most legislators, administrators and society. Why waste money on schools for the deaf when it can be funneled toward public schools? Read the rest of this entry →

As a Parent the first reaction you have when someone is bullying your child is to emulate your best Al Capone impression from the Untouchabales.

I want you to get this guy where he breathes! I want you to find this Eliot Ness, I want him dead! I want his family dead! I want his house burned to the ground! (I have edited this quote for language and shortened it but you get the idea)

While this might be your first reaction, this also happens to be the worst possible course of action. When your child is being bullied the number one issue should be your child, not the other child’s punishment. This is an extremely hard pill to swallow but is necessary for your child’s safety and well-being. Children with disabilities are very often the target of bullying but these same children will most likely have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) which can be used as an effective way to address the bullying. Before addressing the issue in an IEP the following steps should be taken in writing: Read the rest of this entry →

The other day I read a blog by Phillip Hain, the West Region Director of Autism Speaks, called Why Awareness Matters that deeply disturbed me. In this blog Phillip shared a letter so ignorant, so abhorrent it made my skin crawl. It also made me angry, not only with the people who wrote the letter, but with the School this child attends. As you are all aware I am a Special Education Advocate and I spend my days championing for every child’s needs and writing Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) to meet those needs. Before we get into exactly why I am angry with the school and what IEP’s have to do with my anger I think it’s important for you to read the letter: Read the rest of this entry →

About a month ago I posted a blog about my son’s upcoming transition IEP meeting. He will be graduating from elementary school this year and moving to middle school in the fall. My husband and I had concerns about our neighborhood middle school but we were told by our IEP Team, they did not have the authority to discuss alternative school options only alternative classroom types. We disagreed and sent a letter to the School District. You can find a sanitized copy of that letter here. Many of you commented how this is an invalid IEP if there is no one at the IEP meeting that has the authority to bind the District. You are correct but how do you prove that.

At the same time we sent the letter, we also opened a complaint with the School District’s Parent Complaint Unit. We really didn’t expect anything to come from it but we wanted to cover all of our bases prior to filing for due process. Over the last month both the Parent Complaint Unit and my Son’s current school started communicating and emailing with the District about my Son’s upcoming IEP. I know this because they both told me. The Parent Complaint Unit would call me every few days and ask me if I had heard from the School District yet. Every time I said no, they were surprised because they had communication from the School District acknowledging our concerns and that the School District would call us. Read the rest of this entry →

As second semester nears completion many high school seniors are getting ready to graduate. Included in that group are many students in special education that might be receiving a regular diploma or some other form of alternative diploma. The number of alternatives are mind numbing. I started to do research and found that some States, like Nevada, have as many as 7 different types of diplomas. According to the Diploma Options, Graduation Requirements, and Exit Exams for Youth with Disabilities: 2011 National Study:

The alternative diploma options include a standard diploma, honors diploma, IEP or Special Education diploma, certificate of attendance, certificate of achievement, occupational diploma, and others. All 51 respondents (including DC) indicated that they offer a standard diploma. Of these, 13 offer an honors diploma, 11 offer an IEP or Special Education diploma, 19 offer a certificate of attendance, 15 offer a certificate of achievement, 3 offer an occupational diploma, and 8 offer other options. Read the rest of this entry →

Special education is a highly regulated process with some stringent requirements of which most parents are not aware. Sadly, many educators are not aware of these requirements, either, and our institutions of higher learning don’t do the best job of communicating these requirements to credential program students, whether they are future teachers, administrators, or specialists.

Tying the science of educational psychology and related disciplines to the legal requirements of special education is a delicate art. There are plenty of people trained in the science of educating people with handicapping conditions and there are a fair number of attorneys who understand special education and related civil rights law, but there is little expertise in tying these two domains together. Read the rest of this entry →

1.  What is the special education law that can help my child with a disability?

The foundation of today’s special education law was passed in 1975 and enacted in 1977.  This was Public Law 94-142, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975.  In 1990 EHA was renamed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA.  IDEA was most recently reauthorized in 2004.  The Purpose of IDEA is to ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education or FAPE that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment and independent living.

It’s important to note that the law only guarantees an appropriate education and not the best education.  Best is a four letter word and Parents should learn to replace it with the word appropriate when discussing their child’s special education needs Read the rest of this entry →

When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was reauthorized in 2004 the U. S. Department of Education through the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) required states to develop State Performance Plans based on 20 indicators. The data would be submitted annually, by each State, in Annual Performance Reports. The 13th Indicator, or Indicator 13, relates to transition services for students.

The National Technical Assistance and Dissemination Center (NSTTAC) which is funded by OSEP helps States achieve compliance with indicator 13 and have put together a checklist and a checklist frequently asked questions to help in their efforts. Read the rest of this entry →