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

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 →

For most of us, the drive to change our own behavior emerges on or around on January 1st with the dawn of a new year and new possibilities for self improvement. Loose a little weight, stop smoking, exercise more, and eat leafy greens seem to be among the favorites. Most of us are pretty conservative and only select 1 (maybe 2) goals to tackle each year. After all, we are only human and it takes a lot of thinking to change a pattern or ingrained routine. If you’re diligent and work hard, you might see a change but for most of us….it’s an exercise in futility somewhere around March 1st. Why does that happen? How do we lose our “oomph” and why do we slip back into our old, familiar ways. Why can’t we learn to change our ways? These are all questions that we ought to be asking, but rarely do. Instead, we wait until the following year and begin the process all over again. Why? Because changing a behavior is REALLY hard, even when highly motivated to do so.  Read the rest of this entry →

It has come to be my belief that IEPs are used far too infrequently. We have limited ourselves by only applying IEP’s to children. There are so many other places in life where they might be appropriate. I would like to suggest that some schools might benefit from having an IEP that sets in place goals that assist them in helping special needs children. I’m not suggesting that all schools need such a document, solely the ones who present some significant disorder or impairment that inhibits their ability to correctly and adequately teach the special education children that are a part of their community.

While the more angry and embittered in advocacy circles might argue that such schools could be qualified under the emotional disturbance category; I believe the correct qualifying condition would be to place such schools under the visually impaired category. The federal definition of “Visual impairment including blindness means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.” 34 CFR 300.7 (c)(13). If a student is found to have an impairment, the Individualized Education Program (IEP) team must also determine whether the student has a need for special education.  Read the rest of this entry →

When I pick my son up from school I always ask him the same question, “How was school today?” This is always answered the same way, “It was good.” When I ask him to expand on his answer he will tell me about all of the academics he worked on, what therapies he went to, and whether they had PE, computer lab or went to the library that day. It’s a fine answer, but not really what I’m looking for. My follow up question is always, “Who did you talk to today?” For the last few months this has been answered with, “Nobody.” Really, you went the entire day without speaking to anyone? “Well, a couple of kids said hi to me, so I said hi back,” he would reply. That’s it!!! Read the rest of this entry →

Consider this your call to action! The Common Core Standards are coming to your State and every Teacher and Parent of a child with special needs MUST have this free app on their phone, tablet or iPad. As a parent of a child with special needs I don’t go to my son’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting without a copy of California’s State Standards for his grade level. I use these standards to write goals for my son’s IEP based on his individualized needs. Check out Ten Steps for Writing Effective IEP Goals for more information. With this app I will always have the information at my finger tips and I get to save a tree as well (the standards for each grade level are quite long). Since, 45 States have adopted the Common Core Standards this change effects the majority of the United States. To double check if you State has adopted these Standards click here. Read the rest of this entry →

The following is a list of the most viewed special education advisor blogs from 2011. This doesn’t include any of our guest articles which will be published separately. 2011 was Special Education Advisor’s first full year of operation and we have grown more quickly that we could ever imagine. We currently have over 21,000 visitors a month and over 50,000 page views per month. We continue to grow every month and it’s all because of our members and visitors. Thank you for your continued support and without further adieu here is the list: Read the rest of this entry →

Last Friday was my son’s 3 year review. It lasted three hours, which is not uncommon for a 3 year review; ours last that long even when we don’t have assessments to review. As I stated in my previous blog, my son is now in the 5th grade….yes, preparing for that wonderful time called “Middle School.” Our concerns for middle school are with his Academics, Speech/Language and Social Skills. My son’s Woodcock Johnson Achievement scores were quite surprising to us. He is now in the high average range in spelling and math calculation. However, he is still in the low average range in reading comprehension, story recall-delayed and applied problems with regards to math. He has a lot of strengths as well as many needs. Read the rest of this entry →

This morning I hosted my monthly tweet chat for the Coffee Klatch. The subject was Present Levels of Performance and writing IEP Goals. It was a great chat with input from parents and educators. We even ended up delving into the concept of Parent – Teacher Partnerships in Schools. Instead of writing about it, I have posted the transcript from the chat below. I think I might have missed some comments but recreated it as best I could. Although my twitter handle is @SpecialEdAdvice I was driving the ship below as @TheCoffeeKlatch. I hope you enjoy reading the transcript as much as I enjoyed hosting the tweet chat. Read the rest of this entry →

Pete Wright, the Godfather of Special Education law, has often been quoted saying, “Unless you are prepared to remove your child from public school forever, you need to view your relationship with the school as a marriage without the possibility of divorce.” While this may be true regarding the School relationship, this isn’t the case for individual members of the IEP Team. IEP Team members change frequently and it’s amazing how adding or removing one person from the IEP Team can make a huge difference in the quality and implementation of an IEP. While the Parents are not normally in control of the IEP team members from the School, there are methods the Parents can use to add or remove members. Read the rest of this entry →

Those of us with younger children have spent the past several years worrying about getting them through elementary school, but there comes a time when we have to think about the next phase…..Middle School! I’m sure I’m not the only parent who is concerned about whether my child is adequately prepared to handle the Middle School environment. As we all remember from our own experience, it’s a whole new world! The campus is larger, the class sizes are bigger and teachers expect students to be able to be responsible for their homework assignments and work independently without constant adult supervision. However, for the student who has organization, planning, or off task behavior problems, they might have difficulty functioning in their new environment. For those parents who have children still in elementary school and are already struggling in these areas, it’s a good idea to add Pre-Vocational Goals to their IEP’s. The purpose of Pre-Vocational Goals is to help train children in specific measurable skill building tasks. For some, the ability to organize, plan or stay on task in class does not come naturally to them. Pre-Vocational Goals can help a student learn how to master these skills so that when they enter middle school, they will be prepared to deal with an environment that no longer holds their hand and tells them what to do every minute in class. Read the rest of this entry →