My heart hurts

Be careful what you ask for.

I asked for my son's cumulative file from the school to prepare for this Friday's IEP meeting. :-( I feel like I have been stabbed repeatedly. Gosh, I know that the teachers make these notes assuming the parent will never read them. But YIKES! The negativity! The sickening, judgmental comments! They repeat stuff the mean kids in class say about him. It is truly horrible. I wouldn't wish this on any parent.

The reason I endure the torture is that these negative statements are ammunition for me to use in upcoming meetings. He will be undergoing a speech and language therapy assessment soon to evaluate for socialization, and the negative comments and criticisms about him will help to qualify him.

I also went through the IEP form, twenty pages, to glean the accommodations out, so that I could help the teacher to not "forget" to do the things they promised. Here is a copy of the email.

I am going over the IEP carefully, and I have retyped the listed accommodations, so that nothing gets lost in the shuffle. Here is the list I typed from what was written into the IEP things in parentheses are my own comments, question marks are things not clear to me:

Accommodations listed P. 6 of IEP 6/13/2008
Preferred seating
Small group setting for district-wide assessments
Opportunities to recheck work and correct for higher grade
Visual supports?
Verbal and non-verbal prompting
Access to multiplication chart
Graph paper
List of key words?
Color coded graphic organizers?
Access to a dictionary or thesaurus
Chunked assignments and tests (with break times?)
Untimed tests
Fidget object (sensory object)
Out of grade level testing for writing prompt
Opportunities to get up and move
Teacher to check reminder binder
Reduced assignments
Oral responses for tests or assignments (should read oral administration of tests?)
Front-loading (prior warning?) for changes in schedule

Supervised breaks during CST English and Math testing sections within a section of the test, and also for district wide assessments

Additional accommodations listed on IEP page 19 in meeting comments:

Visual checklists
Signatures to reminder binder daily
Minimize materials at desk
Instruction for use of sensory object w/o drawing attention to himself
STAR testing and also multiple district measures in small group
Spelling words provided in advance
Long-term project information be communicated directly to parent, with expectations and due date
Peer mentor program
Lunch bunch group


Also, I saw a couple of items that were proposed on the 5/1/08 504 plan that were perhaps inadvertantly left out of the IEP:

Accommodations on proposed 504 plan from 5/1/2008

Use of Alpha Smarts or computer in class for lengthy writing assignments
Teacher to check that R*** has all the necessary materials in his back pack to go home

I have made sure R*** has had extra sections of keyboarding tutoring at Score this past month, and his typing skills have improved markedly, so I think he will be ready to take advantage of computer/Alpha Smarts accommodations. I will make sure to bring this up at the IEP meeting to see if we can include that in his present list of accommodations.

I also want to follow up on your comment on back-to-school night that R***'s classroom behavior is a problem. The next step as I see it would be to request an in-class behavioral aide for him, as Dr. *** noted that R*** does respond to redirection, "it should be noted that he could easily be redirected back to task demands when his concentration drifted." I'm also wondering, given the fact that you have 6 RSP students in your room, would not the presence of a classroom aide be of benefit to the overall situation for the class?

I am cc-ing Mrs. M, as a lot of this is in her area. I am trying to make sure I communicate to the IEP team in advance of our meeting what is on my mind so that we can have a more effective meeting.