[blindkid] IEP questions

Richard Holloway rholloway at gopbc.org
Wed Feb 6 19:16:56 UTC 2013


As previously discussed, you may or may not want to "call out" anyone for not following the IEP, but in any case, I would have no hesitation to mention in a request memo for an IEP that you have concerns that your current IEP is not being followed. There's no point in pretending there is no  concern-- this is your child's education. The fact of the matter is, anyone involved will pretty quickly determine that if a child has only one primary teacher and the IEP isn't being followed, that teacher is pretty likely a key person not following the IEP. Your place may not be to officially point blame, but you have every right to point out shortcomings in your child's education and IEP process.

I agree that all the teachers should have been given (and should have read and followed) the IEP. Compliance isn't optional on their part. The teacher ought to know this and certainly the principle and administration should be well aware of this. If she really wasn't given the IEP, it might not be "her fault", except that I suspect we're dealing with a child with an obvious special need, so I would think it would go without saying, that the child almost certainly has an IEP. Why would she not ask the administration?

In other words, I can see how a child with, say, mild autism, might not jump out to a teacher as a student for whom they should absolutely have an IEP. On the other hand, a student who is in a wheelchair, for example, is very like to have an IEP, and a teacher would be quite likely ask about a "missing" IEP for such a child. Same thing, I would suggest, for a blind child.

I don't know-- the more I think about it, the more I can't really grasp how any teacher would't ask about a blind student they were teaching-- "doesn't this child have an IEP?" Does your child have some functional vision which they are trying to over-use?

In any case, we too always have at least two meetings with the "IEP Team" every year. The big one is early in the CALENDAR year, for the following school year. The second one is a few weeks into school-- just as soon as "the dust settles" from the start of the year. If things aren't going smoothly we have more as needed. 

Have as many as you need to get things running smoothly. If things are going pretty well, you may be able to solve the odd small issue with a unofficial meeting with just a person or two, or even a phone call or memo (emails work great for us), but if quick unofficial attempts don't quickly resolve things? Call an official IEP without hesitation.

I suspect that generally, (as in our case) after a while things will become more routine and you may require fewer extra meetings (beyond just the two a year) but I would expect to have a couple of meeting every year. Use the regular parent conferences as well-- use them as informal IEP's to the degree that you can gauge when you need an official meeting, etc. We find that a casual rapport with the teachers can be developed with many brief meetings at events and activities. After a while, this tends to head certain issues off before they become significant enough to require formal meetings.

I would underscore however, that we find that the extra "early IEP meeting" in the school year helps get everything organized and flowing for the entire school year, so it can be pretty important. Yet, it cannot replace the winter/spring meeting because that's when they have to get prepped and organized to order books and other materials for the next school year...

Good luck!

Richard



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