In my experience, the IEPs are a big joke in most (but not all) schools.
They create a great looking “plan” and then completely ignore it. Everybody is supposed to feel good about good intentions.
My daughter had one that was being ignored at her first school. We transfered her to a GT school, they took everything VERY seriously, and she worked through her issues. We also got her some help outside the classroom at our own $$$—now she’s a straight A student.
Colorado offers a few advantages for students and parents. School choice is supported within and between school districts and there are quite a few charter schools.
I’ve wondered what would happen if we had charter or magnet schools for special needs kids. They could bump the per/kid subsidy, provide a great experience that tailored to the kids and still probably come in under what they spend trying to mainstream kids that aren’t ready or able.
What’s a GT school?
"Identify 3 out of 6 colors correctly 60% of the time" and such. She must have frozen during the testing, since she was already 100% on 10+ colors, and shapes, and other things on the IEP.
Some six months later we go in for the new IEP. What do you know, it almost exactly matched the original.
I asked them - what have you been doing the last six months? And how could you not know that she already can do all these things? They didn't like that for some reason.
We eventually pulled her (and our son out of 2nd grade) and have been homeschooling since.
Back in the mid ‘80’s my 3rd grade niece was complaining about her verbally abusive teacher. Nobody believed her, but even if they did, nothing would be done about it. However, this child was no dunce. As she got ready for school one morning, she slipped a tape recorder into her book bag and took it to school with her.
She taped until the tape ran out, and what I recall of it now was the teacher screaming and cussing at the class the entire time, and calling them ‘stupid! stupid! stupid!
My sister and her husband took the tape to the class room and played it to the teacher who said it. The teacher straitened up her attitude PDQ, and never repeated her inappropriate behavior.
I am a home-school advocate, but try as you might, you can’t make others do what you think they should do. I know one woman who was uneducated, barely knew how to read, but she home schooled her daughter from K to graduation using good materials. That student was a TOP student in all evaluative testing, and entered college a top student.
I’m glad this man exposed the system he is using to educate his child. Unfortunately, sometimes the only effective penalty that CAN be imposed is a financial one. The financial winnings COULD be donated to a private institution for autistic children, or to make it possible to privately educate a financially disabled family of an autistic child, if he doesn’t want personal profit, but only principle. Unfortunately, the only ‘god’ these heartless morons value is a dollar.
IEPs are bound by the Americans with Disabilities Act (PL 101-336)[as I’m sure you know] ... being law, you can raise holy h3ll if the IEP is not followed ... then you run the risk of being perceived a *pain-the-neck* parent/guardian or one who is truly on top of things...a lot depends on the teacher/what kind of rapport s/he engages in and the quality of the program at the school.
I’ve observed quality SE teachers have an individualized program for each child...these remarkable teachers put a lot of time and effort into bringing the SE/autistic kids along. Unfortunately, they seem to be in the minority, in most districts.
I know of districts in my state that take SE kids in, just to beef-up the fed dollars they collect. One of the most outrageous things that has happened here is *inclusion*...where SE kids are *mainstreamed* into regular classrooms without plans that are followed or paras.
The saddest case I had was a sweet, very shy little 3rd grade autistic girl going from a self-contained SE/autistic program and some idiot decided that when she went to 4th grade, she should be main-streamed. For two months, she sat in class and sobbed uncontrollably, clutching a little pocketbook she always carried with her. If ever a heart can break, the *system* tried to do that to her. It took a lot of doing to set things right for her.
You have to stay on top of things, advocate and have a hair trigger, at the first hint of something that seems untoward. You are obviously that kind of parent.
We have charter/magnet schools here too...all as a result of the landmark case Sheff v O’Neill. I saw in the paper today, 12K students in one large district were turned down for the *lottery* they had for school choice openings last month. Things are in chaos, to put it mildly.
God Bless your daughter and your wonderful efforts in her behalf. :)