What do you do when school officials refuse to acknowledge your child's disability or compensate for it? I asked for your IEP horror stories, and reader sastefanik recently submitted this one, under the title "Outrageous happenings at our IEP":
"My daughter has been dyslexic since kindergarten but I wasn't able to convince the Director of Special Education until I had the school psychologist in the room and I had to directly ask him in front of her 'Is my child dyslexic?' He responded 'Yes, that is part of her reading disability.' This finally occurred in 7th grade. I still haven't been able to get her a multisensory reading program and she is at the end of her 9th grade. I had to hire a lawyer. During a mediation hearing the mediator completely removed the learning support teacher because I never received a copy of her most recent IEP and the teacher stated 'I sent it home with her to give to you.' I responded 'My daughter wouldn't remember her homework to bring home. Why would you expect her to bring home this important document?'"
If you've got a terrible tale to tell, please add it to the Readers Respond page for Stupid IEP Tricks. On the other hand, if you've had a great experience, give those professionals a pat on the back on the page for positive school experiences.
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No district should ever be sending home IEP paperwork home with a student! It’s not only a matter of responsibility, but also privacy. A couple years ago I was working with in a district that still did that. But when the student was going home on the (regular ed.) bus, somehow another student got hold of the IEP papers, which listed the student’s learning level, what grade level he was reading at, blah blah blah. He was harassed by the other students for several days because of what they’d learned about him! Needless to say, that district immediately changed their policy!