[blindkid] Rough Draft IEP

DrV icdx at earthlink.net
Fri Oct 30 06:39:15 UTC 2009


A few more thoughts.

My experience has been that "case managers" come & go after a year or 2 or 
3. They are usually just Special Ed trained & few truly have experience or 
understand blindness issues.

Those that have blindness/VI experience, often have misperceptions.

I think that the functionally the true "case manager" role is fulfilled by 
the parents.

Everyone has their own approach to IEPs.

We always ask for proposed goals ahead of time, try to meet & speak with 
each of the service providers ahead of time to get of sense of where they 
are coming from, & when our kids were younger, both of us would take time to 
go in & observe each class or specific service (ie O&M, OT, PT) a week or so 
before the IEP meeting. That allowed us to informally touch bases, showed 
our interest & allowed us to speak from experience.

We still prepare a formal handout of "parent comments & concerns" for each 
IEP Meeting where we list out our short & long-term goals, any ongoing 
medical issues, outside activities, issues in each subject or service area, 
any specific goals we want worked on. We include a picture on the first page 
& the last few pages are pictures of our son doing various activities. The 
pictures make it real & I think tap into the emotional bonding sense you 
want to create in the IEP team, & also importantly show what we the 
parents/family unit are doing. We pick pictures in which they are happily 
enjoying the activities & choose ones that show them doing both everyday 
normal things & things that challenge their perceptions of what our child is 
capable of doing if the appropriate high expectation is there. We have found 
that the pictures serve as great ice-breakers & spur pre-meeting 
conversation that changes the mood in a good positive cooperative way. 
Everyone looks forward to the pictures at this point.

We insist that our handout be included & numbered as part of the formal IEP 
meeting documents. Each handout finishes with the phrase "Please record in 
the IEP Team Meeting Comments section that this 'X' page parent-provided 
Parent Comments & Concerns Document is to be included in its entirety as 
part of the official numbered IEP meeting document."

I follow this up by emailing a PDF of the entire handout so that it can be 
uploaded into the electronic IEP system.

The following year's teachers may look at the file. I think the pictures 
draw them in & help remove some of the potential anxiety because they 
immediately see an image of a happy kid excitedly doing normal or even 
challenging activities. This already challenges preconceptions of what a 
blind child is capable of before the teacher starts to work with out kids.

Again, just a few thoughts.

Sincerely,

Eric V



----- Original Message ----- 

From: "mark feliz" <felizfamily5 at msn.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 19:22
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Rough Draft IEP


> Hello,
>
> First of all your child's case manager and you should be in constant 
> contact so that you know what will be written prior to the meeting. 
> Secondly, after I discuss with the parent I write a "draft" IEP. The team 
> will review the "draft" IEP. during the meeting. Any team agreed upon 
> modifications/changes can be made after the meeting and sent home.
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "L" <lburns24 at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 5:45 PM
> To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Rough Draft IEP
>
>> Absolutely you can!
>>
>> Sent from my iPod
>>
>> On Oct 29, 2009, at 8:30 PM, vicki magee <maxi93bradon at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Can you ask to look at the rough draft  IEP prior to the final meeting, 
>> to see what the school district is proposing.
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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