[blindkid] Justifying a Specialized Environment for aVisually-Impaired Child

Fri Oct 14 20:07:54 UTC 2011

I would add that in meetings school officials often say, "that is not our 
policy" or "that is against our policy" to justify not providing something 
you propose for the IEP.  It can be effective to ask to see a copy of this 
"policy."

Also, we do not sign the IEP at the time of the meeting.  Our district has a 
bad habit of misstating things in the deliberations or forgetting to add 
important details in the body of the IEP.  I set up a time to come back and 
sign after I have had a chance to review the paperwork. Everyone sighs but 
they know that I am diligent about reviewing the paperwork.

Sally Thomas
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chantel Alberhasky" <chantel at alberhaskylaw.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 1:56 PM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Justifying a Specialized Environment for 
aVisually-Impaired Child

Never take legal advice from school personnel. They are often not well 
versed in the law and what they think is the law is often not the case. You 
must educate yourself on the law and your child's rights. The suggestion to 
check out wrightslaw.com is a very good one. It is full of information 
regarding the law, your rights and how to deal with school personnel.

Always make sure you document your requests and conversations. Remember what 
Pete Wright says, if it wasn't written down it wasn't said. If it wasn't 
written down it never happened.

I have a 8 year old son who has some vision. His early education was in a 
small class with 3 or 4 other children who had some vision loss or was 
blind. His last semester in early education we moved into the typical 
pre-school class so he would be exposed to a larger classroom with sighted 
peers. He is currently in 2nd grade and has been in a mainstream classroom 
since K. He receives one-on-one Braille instruction and O&M.from his 
blindness skills teacher. We incorproate his Braille into his classwork as 
he is a dual media learner.

Chantel L. Alberhasky
419 Boonville Avenue
Springfield, MO 65806
417.865.4444

The Missouri Bar Disciplinary Counsel requires all Missouri attorneys
to
notify all recipients of e-mail that (1) e-mail communication is not a
secure method of communication, (2) any e-mail that is sent to you or
by
you may be copied and held by various computers it passes through as it
goes from me to you or vice versa, (3) persons not participating in our
communication may intercept our communications by improperly accessing
your computer or my computer or even some computer unconnected to
either
of us which the e-mail passed through. I am communicating to you via
e-mail because you have consented to receive communications via this
medium. If you change your mind and want future communications to be
sent in a different fashion, please let me know AT ONCE.

From: Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org>
To: empwrn at bellsouth.net; "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of 
blind children)" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Justifying a Specialized Environment for a 
Visually-Impaired Child

Excellent point Marie. That makes me think of one really critical detail as 
well. Hopefully this never happens, but if it comes up-- in case you 
disagree with an IEP-- that is, if a meeting comes to an end and you feel 
the IEP is not right or not complete, simply don't sign it. You have no 
requirement to sign it just to close out the meeting for them.

Further, if you do sign and then you change your mind, you can call for a 
new IEP at any time. They don't have to like it, but they do have to deal 
with it. The problem there is that they end up with a current IEP "in force" 
until you change it in the next IEP, so they are less motivated to act quite 
as quickly to resolve things.

it will probably never come up, but just in case keep it in mind! I will 
mention for example, that in our case the worst we've ever had in an 
official IEP was that it ran really long before things were worked out. I 
think our most grueling meeting ran a little over 4 hours with around a 
dozen people in it. On the other hand, our last one was less than an hour. 
(They aren't all terribly painful!)

There was post fairly recently with a link to some IEP resources I think. If 
I can find it I'll repost or maybe the author of that will recall it.

Richard

On Oct 14, 2011, at 9:25 AM, Marie wrote:

> Hi Mary,
>
> Other people here are much better informed about the specialized 
> environment part of your question so I'll let you hear from them on that 
> one.
>
> As far as the IEP process, I think it's very important that you understand 
> your role and power as your child's first advocate. I highly recommend the 
> Wrightslaw website (google Wrightslaw, sorry I don't have it readily 
> available). There is lots of great information on the site and they have 
> books which explain the IEP process and your role quite well.
>
> Above all, if your child is to remain in public school or under public 
> school services, remember that you need a team and though your team 
> members do not always agree with you, it is best to keep things in a team 
> frame of mind. Then if things get bad and you ever go to court over team 
> squabbles, you are the reasonable person that maintained the cool head and 
> understood the law.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Marie
>
> sent via the Verizon Network from my Blackberry
>
> _______________________________________________
> blindkid mailing list
> blindkid at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> blindkid:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/rholloway%40gopbc.org

_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
blindkid:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/chantel%40alberhaskylaw.com
_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
blindkid:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/seacknit%40gmail.com 