So recently I had another ETR meeting as my son transitions out of Preschool and into School Aged Standards
(or in this case they were going to try to say he "didn't qualify for an IEP"- raise you hand if you've ever been told something similar. This is the name of this ridiculous game in a district that cares more about money than about taking care of the needs of children with learning differences).
Anyhow a warning flag as we walked into the room was the following:
6 people from the district showed up:
1. The person who recently tested him (again) for OT.
2. The person who recently tested him (again) for Speech.
3. The Special Needs Preschool Director (who is fairly clueless about how the district habit of disqualifying children is having a negative impact on society, why should she care as long as she looks good to her boss?)
4. The Itinerant Preschool coorindator if I didn't mention before they all wanted her to handle my son's OT only we insisted on an actual OT to do his remediation (since he is severe in this area and this is a decision I did not regret).
5. The School Psychologist (have yet to meet one I think is ethical, this may be the closest I've come to tolerating someone in this position but in her final words she attempted to discredit all our private testing etc. This job is so low it makes used car sales looks like an honorable profession in comparison).
6. The Special Needs Advisor who oversees all special needs in the entire district. I have a history with her. I knew her from before when she and the Jerk who tried to disqualify (read: step on all the legal rights of) my dyslexic daughter by guiding her Catholic school teacher to make sure her latest report card to suddenly read straight A's (a common trick according to my Advocate). Plus the other tactic was to pull a record of every book she had (attempted with my help) read by saying she had read all of these books and using that against her in order to disqualify her for the IEP that her diagnosis and needs so clearly deserve.
Part of this was the Catholic school we were in (horrible) and the other part was this guidance by the district (who knew these tricks now didn't they.)
At first, it was just me and (Thank God) the Child Advocate. I quickly went into the hall to call my husband to come from work to the meeting if he possibly could which he did. Remember from an earlier post I advised parents to NEVER go alone to any ETR or IEP meetings (I almost broke my own rule in a sense - how foolish). You need all the brain power, support etc for your child you can get in a room full of hostile people with an agenda. These people are truly not at all interested in what is best for your child (unless you are incredibly lucky and I highly doubt that happens often).
Once again I had gone in with a naive notion that things were somehow going to be smooth, on the up and up, honorable and easy. This seemed to me like a no brainer. We had a diagnosis from the top pediatric neuropsychologist saying clearly he has dyslexia. Easy right?
Ridiculous to have to say this but still a resounding NO.
In fact they even tried to use the fact that I said that my daughter is having success in school against me. Saying my child would "outgrow" his needs (because we have caught this exceptionally early (thanks to his sister and uncle I might remind everyone). My husband shot back that the only reason my daughter is having the success she is was because of $60K worth of the appropriate methodology (which they are utterly unable to provide). Thanks Honey - my husband can be very direct, I love that about him.
The OT was fine, there was no way to say he is anywhere near average on this part, he isn't. No way to scootch around this issue. Too cut and dried. Still, OT alone would not qualify him for an IEP at the school aged level.
Speech: he didn't qualify for any school district assistance. The bar here is set so low that I'd hate to see how bad off a child is that they would qualify would be. Speech issues are an early indicator of dyslexia but they love to use these tests that barely anyone could fail. Utter nonsense. So I guess we will have to continue to pay privately for speech therapy since one day he will have to sound out words. (And we already know this). (Parents be warned that it is common for a district to try to disqualify a child for anything based on speech, not okay but this has happened to us twice now).
Thank goodness our Child Advocate hammered on the details of the ETR, pointed out places I would have missed, insisted on percentages for part of the report which gave none (really now folks I was a grant writer back when I worked, not an educator, how would I know these sort of nuances, yet this is the sneaky tricky way this game is played all the time by all involved).
I don't think many normal people make it through this process successfully. It is almost essential that one have a Child Advocate.
I spent the rest of the day feeling I had been in the presence of creepiness that bordered on evil.
Until, that is I was talking to a teacher friend of mine. A teacher friend who really cares, who had helped many many children over the years. A person who speaks up, says when things aren't right and works on the side of some very needy children.
Bless her, she told me some stories that made me remember that I am so very lucky. We have caught my children's dyslexia early, we are able to get them what they need, we have resources and I don't have to be around school politics and district nonsense except on these IEP type occasions.
In her case, she has to deal with this stuff professionally every single day she is at work.
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