Q for teachers in IEP meetings...?

Question

What are your experiences? I have heard too many times that teachers have their hands tied, are intimidated by their administrators, to be in meetings and lie and make sure children dont' get help in special ed.
Lots of times, the teachers don't even know WHY they are made to do this. My childs teacher has been thru hell having to do this at our school.

To Mister 2-1, see this is part of what I'm talking about. Federal special ed law states ALL schools are suppose to 'find' and 'evaluate' ALL children with suspected problems to see if they qualify for special ed. Your comment just proves your school is violating federal law in not doing this. This is happening all over the country.

Answer 1

?? I'm not sure about what school district you are in, but IEP meetings are mainly to make sure that the child, who has already been determined to need an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) gets the help that he/she needs. This means that the child has already been evaluated with the school psychologist, as well as any other tests that might be needed (speech pathologist, etc.). and it has been determined to measure successes on certain goals, which are then put into the IEP.

Teachers have to think about the child's strengths to his/her areas of weakness/disabilty (for example, strong in math, but weak in reading/writing/language). Goals then would be that math would be evaluated as the rest of the class is evaluated, but language activities would have specific goals that must be accomplished in order to be evaluated. Depends on your district.

Please see the following website for more information, if you haven't already been given it for a resource.

Answer 2

I am a teacher and have never experienced what you are talking about.

However, as a parent I have a slightly different story. I requested an evaluation for my son who was attacking us at home. He had been badly abused prior to us adopting him and had a very bad history. The teacher told me that because he was not acting out at school she could not do anything.

After a few weeks he attacked her. Twice. At that point they moved him to a special ed room without an evaluation and left him there pending the results of the evaluation.

I knew he needed help. He particularly needed social skills help. I found out later that given my child's history the teacher legally could not tell me no. But even as a teacher myself, I did not know this.

The principal actually asked me if I could "unadopt" him. We did not get much help at that school at all.

Fortunately at my school we work hard to make sure that students get the services that they need. It is a shame that not all schools have that goal.

Answer 3

See if you can get this book at library The Complete IEP Guide How to advocate for Your Special Ed Child, by Attorney Lawerence M Siegal 20001 Consolidated Printers, Inc. Your lucky to get IEP Meeting in my area. Only know about IEP's in theory so far, so can't coment of school politics involved.