Parent input statements are one of the cornerstones of parental advocacy, but too often parents fail to bring one to an IEP meeting or do not include necessary information. The following will provide some guidance based upon my experiences as a parent and an attorney for developing parent input statements that will drive your advocacy efforts. Remember in real estate the three main principles are location, location, and location, and in the realm of special education advocacy it is– documentation, documentation and documentation of which the parent input statement is the centerpiece.
NCLB As A Means of Military Recruitment
NCLB contains language pertaining to military recruitment. Most parents regard NCLB as being about high stakes testing, annual yearly progress, reading standards, and teacher qualifications. However, it is also about the military acquiring "directory" information on students attending public school for purposes of military recruitment. Although the Department of Defense and Department of Education characterize the desire to obtain this information as an opportunity "for informing young people of scholarship opportunities."[ Download Rumsfeld_Paige_on_military_recruiters_Ltr.pdf
] Obviously these claims are disingenuous, as the real purpose is simply for recruitment of more young people to enter the military.
Schools Behaving Badly: San Jose, California
It is hard to establish a claim for physical abuse in schools. Schools often have both legal protections and community reluctance that help insulate them from liability. A recent case in San Jose California surmounted these obstacles and resulted in a jury verdict of $700,000 for the parents of a child with Aspergers syndrome, who was 7 years old at the time of the incident, against Eisenhower Elementary School and the classroom teacher, Karen Miller .
New Bus Safety Device
Bus transportation is one of the many areas of special education which causes anxiety for parents of children with special needs. In one instance, my son was dropped off at our old house on the other side of town, when he had been picked up in the morning at our present house. The bus company manager excused this error stating "It is not as if we dropped him off at the wrong house, we simply dropped him off at your old house." Who could argue with such profound illogic like that, especially when we had never lived in the old house during the time our son was receiving special education; how they even got that address remains a mystery.
The more common scenario which I receive several telephone calls throughout the year is "my child fell asleep on the bus, he/she did not come home, and after much panic and confusion I retrieved my child from the bus depot." The next question is usually can I sue for the years taken off my life during the period my child was missing. There is a new system in place on many buses in New York that may make this situation a thing of the past.
Prepare to Advocate for Extended School Year (“ESY”) Now
Even though in Illinois it is the dead of winter with snow on the ground, this is the time to gather the data to advocate for Extended School Year ("ESY") services for the summer. Most school districts rigidly apply a regression-recoupment analysis to determine eligibility for ESY services. Regression-recoupment looks at whether a child will regress to a significant degree over the summer, and then whether the child will require significant periods of time to recoup the skills lost.
Autism Program Quality Indicators
Autism is not a low incidence disability. The irony is that school districts frequently are unable or unwilling to implement quality programs for children with autism. Too often programs lack intensity, structure, low teacher to student ratios, a systematic curriculum, or supports like communication systems, behavioral reinforcers or visual schedules. None of these program components are novel, but when I bring them up at meetings I get a lot of blank stares as if I just invented these ideas.
High Stakes Testing Wrongly Marked
In Ohio it was recently revealed that nearly 925 student’s tests were mismarked. The result of this mistake was that some of these students were denied graduation from high school. The State officials in Ohio apparently graded the tests correctly but Measurement Inc., a North Carolina company that helped create the test, mistakenly assigned failing labels to hundreds of passing grades. Local school officials acknowledged that such the errors have caused "emotional distress" and "it also plants a little bit of doubt in your mind." For the full text of this story–Download Tests Wrongly_Marked.doc
Classroom Observations A Matter of Right ?
Parents have a need to observe in their child’s classroom especially when issues arise in school. Observations of candidate programs are crucial to making informed decisions on placement. It also can be important that private therapist or evaluators observe current and potential classrooms. Schools have, in my experience, thrown up a variety of obstacles to impede or prevent these observations. The one that appears to be in vogue at the moment is that the classroom observation would "violate the confidentiality of the other children in the classroom." When pressed for the underlying State or Federal law or even local school policy that they believe supports this claim, I have yet to see anything other than administrators posturing and pounding the table. This position usually unravels when it is pointed out that there is no confidentiality concerns when parents visit to assist in a room, read a book to the classroom or present on career day.
Special Education Guide Emphasizes Understanding of Psychological Testing
The new book entitled A Parent’s Guide to Special Education by Dr. Linda Wilmhurst and Dr. Alan Brue represents itself as an "insider’s" guide to the system. I am happy to report that the book lives up to this claim especially regarding the process of psychological testing.
Bullying at the Hands of Staff is a Problem in Schools
In too many districts, the notion that staff bully students is scoffed at and simply dismissed. There are psychological reports that bare out that bullying is not a mere fiction of overzealous parents and their advocates.
