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

Earlier today I posted on our Special Education Advisor Facebook page that I had written a letter to my son’s School District regarding his upcoming transition meeting. The IEP Team doesn’t feel they have the Authority to consider alternative School sites other than his home school and that the only discussion can be about class type (i.e general education class, resource specialist program, special day class, etc.). My husband and I disagree and we just wanted to make sure the team is aware of our concerns prior to the upcoming meeting. Since posting on Facebook many of you have privately requested a copy of our letter. I have decided to post a sanitized version of the letter below but it is still very specific to my son and the State of California. If you decide to write a similar letter make sure you rework the components of the letter to be specific to your child and State.

March 28, 2012

Re: ____________ Upcoming Transition IEP Meeting

Dear Ms. ______,

As you are aware our son is graduating from _________ Elementary School this year and transitioning into middle school in the fall of 2012. Based on prior conversations with the IEP Team it was brought to our attention that the School Staff only has the authority to offer our home school, ________ Middle School, as the site location for _________ to attend middle school. Please see the language below from the California Education Code 5 CCR 3042 regarding Placement:

3042. Placement.

(a) Specific educational placement means that unique combination of facilities, personnel, location or equipment necessary to provide instructional services to an individual with exceptional needs, as specified in the individualized education program, in any one or a combination of public, private, home and hospital, or residential settings.

(b) The individualized education program team shall document its rationale for placement in other than the pupil’s school and classroom in which the pupil would otherwise attend if the pupil were not handicapped. The documentation shall indicate why the pupil’s handicap prevents his or her needs from being met in a less restrictive environment even with the use of supplementary aids and services.

As you can see from above, specific educational placement includes the following language; “that unique combination of facilities, personnel, location or equipment necessary to provide instructional services to an individual with exceptional needs.” This definition should open the door to discuss not only the type of classroom that _______ should be placed into but which School site is most appropriate for his needs.

______’s eligibility for Special Education is a specific learning disability (SLD) but if the school district allowed for a secondary eligibility on their IEP forms he would also qualify for a Language Disorder. On the Social Language Development Test (SLDT-E) administered on ________ in November 2011 his standard score for the total test was <60. This places him in the 0.1% for children his age or another way to state this is 99.9% of children my son’s age scored higher than him on social language/pragmatics. This is a significant delay that impacts many areas of his education and his ability to receive a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). In the report provided by the District’s Speech Language Pathologist she noted:

As _______ transitions into middle school his inappropriate negotiation skills will be considered immature to his peers. _________’s ability to support his peers is vital to maintain healthy friendships.

With this in mind, we have grave concerns about placing _________ at _________ Middle School or any Middle School of that size. ____________ Middle School has over 2000 students and this is not an appropriate “Specific educational placement” for him to attend middle school in order to receive FAPE.

Even with multiple goals written for social language and the services of both the District’s Recreational Therapist and SLP he is struggling to make progress at the elementary school let alone a much larger middle school. During the months of January and February _________ spent almost every lunch and recess alone playing with a hula hoop and didn’t talk to anyone all day except for saying “hi” to a few children. He has since started playing with the kids again only because we have encouraged him to do so.

Goals drive services and placement in an IEP and ________ has two goals regarding social language and social functioning:

1. ________ will express age appropriate social skills (conflict resolution and supporting peers) in structured language tasks with 80% accuracy;
2. ________ will use presented visual strategies to be able to initiate engagement with a peer or initiate engagement in an activity at least once per day, 4/5 days per week for 6 consecutive weeks with one adult cue or prompt.

We do not feel that a large middle school such as _______ Middle School is conducive to accomplishing these goals and will thus deny my son FAPE. We have done some research and found that the School District will be opening a new K-8 school near us, ___________ Community School. While __________ Community School is not our home school, I would like to discuss this as an option at the upcoming transition IEP meeting. According to the __________ Community School website, “Our school will eventually serve 960 students kindergarten through 8 grade. In our first year, we are anticipating serving K-7th grade with approximately 550 students.”

If the IEP Team has other School Site suggestions, we are open to discussing these at the IEP meeting as well. Otherwise we look forward to discussing all of the viable School site options at the upcoming IEP and not just his home school of ___________.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. If you have any questions or comments feel free to call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Sincerely,

Parents

Cc: Student Support Services

So, you made it halfway through the IEP. The IEP team discussed your child’s academic performance, goals and objectives were identified, and accommodations and/or modifications have been suggested. Now, IEP team moves on to the subject of placement and mentions that there are a continuum of placement options that must be discussed. This is where some parents get confused or feel that they are forced into a box on where and how the school will provide services for their child. Read the rest of this entry →

Many teachers, school administrators, and parents of children in special education are confused about the meaning of “Least Restrictive Environment” (LRE). Often, they erroneously define it as placement in a general education class. Not surprisingly, confusion about the definition can inflame disputes between parents and schools, resulting in costly and emotionally exhausting due process hearings. Adding to the likelihood of disputes is the failure of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) and its predecessors to adequately define LRE. Perhaps this is inevitable as LRE cannot be applied by classification or disability or IQ; it must be applied in an individualistic and personalized manner that focuses solely on the child. Read the rest of this entry →

Even under the best of circumstances, there is always a bit of trepidation when starting something new. Think about the first time you rode a bike, drove a car, your first kiss, or really anytime you have ever taken a risk. The thrill and terror of it all can be overwhelming. I liken this feeling to the first time I took one of my students (a boy with severe autism and challenging behaviors) and put him in a 4th grade general education classroom. It was my first teaching job, in a self-contained classroom for students with autism in California and I was challenged by one of my professors at Cal State University Fullerton to begin the process of including my students in general education. At this time, there was little support for inclusion at my school (not even for Art, Music or PE – mainly because we did not have those programs due to budget constraints). Even so, I believed it was the right thing to do and began trying to change the hearts and minds of my colleagues. It was not easy at first, but after explaining that I was not simply going to “dump” my students off in their class, they were definitely more receptive.

This tends to be the biggest fear of people who are opposed to a “full inclusion” model. There are different definitions of “full inclusion” but one I prefer is apparent when we talk about the idea of Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). What is the environment that will least hinder the student from being educated with their typically-developing peers while still accessing the general curriculum (what everyone is being taught) in a meaningful way? There is no one-size-fits-all approach to inclusion just like there is no one-size-fits-all approach to general education (no matter how hard we want there to be). But…I am getting ahead of myself. In regards to my 4th grader who was now going to be included into a Math block in general education, I began to feel the anxiety creep up in me as the day approached. Would he keep his challenging behaviors in check? Would the class accept him when he started to script movie lines? Would the general education teacher think I was crazy for putting her up to this?

Diffusing and answering the inevitable questions was the big key into alleviating everyone’s fear. I spoke to the class before we started and explained my student, while having some differences in the way he experienced the world, was still a 4th grade boy who liked movies, music and playing on the computer. He liked Math, which is why we decided this was the best time for him to join his peers. It was also important to take the uncomfortable questions of “why does he do this,” or “why does he do that,” and answer them with the utmost respect and dignity to their new classmate. Perhaps honest communication is the best way to gain his peers’ trust…kids are too smart and usually know when you are trying to put one over on them. Once we got that out of the way, acceptance was the easy part.

Next, was giving him adequate support. I had already promised the teacher he would not be flying solo, so we used one of my paraprofessionals for the time he was in the class. We also collaborated on adapting any materials we thought he would benefit from (larger number cards, color coding, etc). He sat in front of the class and by the door in case the classroom was over-stimulating and needed to make a quick escape for relief. Knowing what the class was working on beforehand helped us to pre-teach or prepare him for accessing the general curriculum when he went into the classroom.

We were consistently surprised at what our 4th grader could do, in terms of keeping his behaviors under control and accessing the content. By giving him the opportunity to interact with his peers we opened up another door for communication and camaraderie. Even now, years removed from that first grand adventure of inclusion, fear is present in the back of my mind as we move to include more students with the most significant cognitive disabilities in general education. Though this time, it reminds me that it is not something to be terrified of…but revered. Inclusion, at its very heart is a noble cause because it brings dignity to human beings when it otherwise would separate those who need love the most. Fear may be an obstacle but it certainly is not an excuse.

Timothy Villegas lives with his fetching wife and adorable children in Marietta, GA by way of Pasadena, CA. He has been a special educator for eight years and enjoys every bit of the drama of inclusive education (and is an obsessive user of parenthetical expression). Follow him on Twitter: @think_inclusive or to peek inside his brain…peruse his Tumblr: http://thinkinclusive.tumblr.com/ He promises to be nice.

As an advocate for children with special needs, I spend a lot of time discussing the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). As a parent of a child with special needs, I spend a lot of time thinking about inclusion. My hope is Schools are thinking about both inclusion and the Least Restrictive Environment. Why am I hoping this? Terms like inclusion, mainstreaming and full inclusion are philosophies while Least Restrictive Environment is a legal term created by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). All schools need to provide children with IEP’s special education and related services that meet their unique needs in the Least Restrictive Environment. Being placed in the LRE, in my opinion, is in no way the same as inclusion although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. I can understand why these terms are sometimes used interchangeably by looking below at what have become the common definitions: Read the rest of this entry →

The lazy days of summer will soon be over and whether your child goes back to school in August or September; you should pull your child’s most recent Individualized Education program (IEP) and take the time to read it from cover to cover.  Now is a good time to familiarize yourself with all of your child’s disability, goals, accommodations, class placement, etc….in order to make sure your child’s IEP is implemented correctly in the upcoming fall semester.  It’s important to be familiar in advance so that you are able to begin tracking your child’s services at the beginning of the first semester, instead of finding out sometime in December your school is out of compliance with your child’s IEP.  Also, if you have an IEP meeting coming up in the first semester to discuss amending the current one, now is a good time to write a list of concerns that you have.  You can always add to it when the school year begins, this way you are prepared to have a productive meeting when the time comes.  Read the rest of this entry →

There are numerous factors that contribute to a good classroom for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). First and foremost, the teacher and the aides are essential to the quality of the class. Read the rest of this entry →

The term Least Restrictive Environment is thrown around a lot in special education but what does it really mean.  Read the rest of this entry →