FYI - 900 lunches ordered sounds like a lot of people

Paying it forward:


Friends,

This is your last reminder (yeah!) that SPARC 2007 is only three days away!!! If you are one of the many who pre-registered, we’ll see you shortly before 8:00am.

For those who waited and procrastinated, we’ll see you bright and early at 7:00am! Registration doors will open at 7:00am….. you may still register the day of the conference. There will be plenty of room to attend the conference, but there may not be conference bags, shirts or lunches. The day of registration form is on the website, so you can print the form, and bring it with you to save yourself some time. www.standadvocates.org

We ordered a total of 900 lunches from Capogna’s Dugout of Clearwater! (Spaghetti w/meat sauce (or butter sauce), salad & dressing, bread and a drink.)

Pre-registrants are guaranteed their bag, shirt, and lunch. The day of registrants will be on a first come – first serve basis until they are gone.

Dr. Barbara Bateman, Educator-Advocate-Author will begin her Keynote address promptly at 8:00am. Followed by Mrs. MaryEllen Elia, Hillsborough County Superintendent. The first breakout session will begin promptly at 9:00am!!!

There will be plenty of time to visit the over 150 exhibitors, sign up for a 15 minute IEP Review, and network among friends and new friends. The IEP Review sign up sheets will be at the STAND display and in the cafeteria available beginning at 7:45am…. Don’t forget to sign up early as there are only 64 spaces available.

We will have Wrightslaw books on sale for $25.00 each….. and Barbara Bateman’s three books on sale for $30.00 each. STAND Bracelets will be available at the price of 2 for $5.00. All of these can be found at the STAND display/exhibit.

There will be plenty of parking. Attendees will park across the street in the Pinellas Park High School Parking lot. There will be a Pinellas Park Police officer on duty to assure your safety crossing the street. Volunteers park on the West side of the school, and Exhibitors and Presenters on the East side of the school.

Remember to leave the kids at home today, come and enjoy a day of fun, learning, networking and winning one of the MANY door prizes we have to offer.

See you Saturday!!!

Melissa & Kim

Public Administrative Placement vs. Private Profitability

Another isolated incident and broad brush attack. The incident's keep happening and the brush isn't wide enough.

It's all about the money and ignorance on how to educate kids. No wonder the good teachers are leaving the public school system- their hard work is undone by an ignorance.


Click here: The News-Press, news-press.com, Education, Lee’s special ed program fails girl, and family

"Andrea Barrett would wake up at 4:30 every morning. She'd bathe, put on a golf shirt and slacks, and pour herself a bowl of cereal with milk.After breakfast, she'd make lunch, slathering peanut butter and jelly on bread that had the crust cut off.Then, she would wait up to an hour for the bus to come to take her Villas Elementary.
Andrea loved school. It's where her friends were and where she learned basic math, including simple multiplication and division, how to read at a second-grade level, and expanded her American Sign Language vocabulary.Now the 11-year-old south Fort Myers girl has a panic attack at the mere mention of the word school.
Andrea is autistic. She has trouble seeing and can barely hear. She communicates through sign language.

Her outlook on school changed after she was taken out of a class for autistic children and placed in another class all day, without her parents knowing or consenting, in violation of federal law. A Villas employee conceded in the minutes of a meeting held with Andrea's parents that the school was "out of compliance" with her education plan.When the class change happened, Andrea began having serious problems. She withdrew from her family and friends, stopped eating, and no longer bathed, brushed her teeth or dressed herself for school. As a result, her parents, Rebecca and Patrick Barrett, have been unable to hold down full-time jobs. "

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Click here: Business: Private company turns a profit with special education students

"ESA schools offer instruction for students with many kinds of disabilities, from mental retardation to high-functioning autism. One of its rapidly growing programs helps high school special-education graduates who want college degrees.
"The idea was that there are a lot of young adults with learning disabilities, and the expectation wasn't there that they were going to go to college," Claypool said. "And it should have been, because they're often quite bright"

"We are the Experts" equals "We are the ones in Control"

There is a cost to arrogance that is boistered by ignorance.


My son's first three years in the HCDS were great. The problems started when we switched schools in 1990. As the year progressed, I experienced a few of the below, I just didn't know it. As the months went by, and meeting after meeting (increasing in both number of attendees and distance from my house) brought no results, we brought in a real expert on my kid's disability from Florida State University. This real expert spent two days observing my kid at school. This real expert then wrote a very comprehensive report. She included many anecdotal incidents to explain what should be changed. We were so excited because here was a professional saying what we had been trying to say, but we were never "understood".

As the people at FSU were not used to the culture of HCDS, they sent us a copy of the report also. (It is a common practice for schools to influence independent evaluations and control what information parents receive.) I did not know then what I know now, but the HCDS people were quite surprised when they gave us their copy of the report and we told them we already had a copy. Had I known then what I know now, I would have compared the two reports to see if anything had been changed. As the IEP team go through the report, I kept seeing that the "team" is not incorporating the recommendations of the report into the IEP. At some point I finally confront this. The answer was "well these are just recommendations, we don't have to do them.".

The last time I looked, the same person who said that is still in the same position now as she was then.

How many times do we hear in an IEP meeting :"well, that is the recommendation of the District's evaluation and it is a consensus of the IEP team that we......." while the parent is still trying to argue the information. It is interesting how the phrase "consensus of the IEP team" has so much more power than "The IEP Team, of which the parent is an integral member, is responsible for determining the services that are necessary for the child to receive FAPE." Spare me the interpretation that the District is ultimately responsible for the decision of FAPE. While I understand that premise under the law, if that is the mindset of the "district IEP Team", then why not say it out loud in the meeting and say "we (the District) recognize that you (the parent) are an integral member of the IEP team, but we are exercising our right to enforce FAPE, so it really doesn't matter what you or your independent evaluations say."


Mistakes People Make - School Districts by Robert K. Crabtree, Esq. Print this page Anything a school system does that undermines parents' trust creates a climate that is costly in dollars, time, peace of mind, and the quality and success of services given to the child. Here are the most significant school system mistakes, according to persons at every level of the system: 1. Refusing to let parents or parents' experts see programs, either within or outside of the school system. When school systems tightly restrict the parents' access to their own programs, the parents wonder what they are hiding and assume the worst; when they refuse to clear the way for parents to see an outside program, the parents will assume that the grass is greener over there; 2. Failing or refusing to communicate and actively coordinate with outside experts working with the child, such as the child's therapist or a tutor; 3. Ignoring reports from independent evaluators; failing to speak to those evaluators to clarify ambiguous information or recommendations; failing to add the evaluator's recommendations to the IEP when reasonable; 4. Failing to respond to parents in writing or at a meeting when a problem arises; 5. Taking a patronizing and/or antagonistic and/or insulting attitude toward parents; personalizing issues between school and parents; attempting to blame parents for their children's educational failures rather than looking for solutions (school system professionals need to treat parents with respect even if those parents are insulting and belligerent themselves); 6. Sweating the small stuff (e.g., spending twenty minutes at a team meeting arguing about whether the meeting can be tape-recorded); 7. Failing to observe procedural timelines and notice requirements (e.g., scheduling timely meetings, getting evaluations to the parents before the team meeting, notifying the parents who will attend the meeting, providing clear written explanations of parent rights); 8. Writing careless and sloppy IEPs. Parents, evaluators, and hearing officers all look first at the extent to which the written IEP reflects a thorough and logically coherent view of the child, the goals and objectives for that child's program, and a clear and understandable description of what will be provided, how, by whom, and when; and how the child's program will be evaluated; 9. Failing to implement an IEP and, worse, trying to cover up that failure; 10. Failing to modify an IEP that is not working and waiting, instead, for the program - and the child - to collapse; 11. Failing to provide additional or different services as a way to avoid having to make more restrictive (and expensive) outside placements; 12. Failing to call in expert consultants from outside the school system with good reputations among both school and parent communities who can help develop or monitor a program for a child with unusual needs; 13. Losing contact with families who have placed their child unilaterally. Some school systems forget or ignore their continuing responsibility to evaluate, review, and propose IEPs for children when they are attending outside placements at their parents' expense; 14. Botching the required procedures around suspension or expulsion of students with identified or suspected special education needs (e.g., failing to convene the team, failing to make a manifestation determination, failing to re-examine the IEP to see if services are appropriate and have actually been provided, failure to provide FAPE to suspended or expelled students with special education needs; 15. Failing to ensure that non-special education administrators - particularly building principals - are fully informed about and are following the required special education policies and procedures. http://www.fetaweb.com/02/mistakes.school.crabtree.htm

When a Supervisor Becomes An Advocate

3 Consultant: Schools Short On Nurses

2 Click here: New Strategies For School Health Care

1 School Nurses Alarmed Over Shrinking Staff, Rising Needs

"Luis, the district's general director for student support and federal programs, said Monday morning that there is a health professional at every school. On Tuesday morning, he produced a list showing at least one person's name beside each school. Luis said the list was valid as of last week, although subject to change.
The first name The Tampa Tribune checked out was Tanski. The list shows her as the sole health care provider assigned to the South County Career Center.
"I don't even know where that is," Tanski said Tuesday. Her assigned schools are Dowdell Middle and Clair-Mel and Palm River elementary schools, with Summerfield Elementary added this year, she said.
Gallogly said late Wednesday that the list remains "fluid" and is being revised. Tanski's name was listed next to the career center as a "placeholder." There is a nurse at the school, Gallogly said, but she teaches there and is not employed by her department.
The health assistant listed for Riverview High School is Shelly Olsson, who Gallogly confirmed has been doing paperwork and compiling records in her office until this week. She has worked as a health assistant and will work in that capacity to fill in where needed, Gallogly said.
"They're placeholders," Gallogly said of the assignments that don't match what nurses said is reality. "The list is probably 96 percent accurate."

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I must say that in the last 16 years I do not recall so many critical stories regarding the HCDS. The stories have been there, but it seemed the slant always favored the District. Maybe it's just me.

We now have a publicly made line drawn in the sand. I can only assume that the person that is challenging the system is doing so because she is no longer an employee. Hopefully someone will track the future employment status of the two current employees that have now been shown to publicly challenge the District's information.

What is interesting to me is the apparent advocacy that is now being demonstrated by the Supervisor of Health Services. It seems she is willing to come out and say that what is going on is not right. It seems that the reduced numbers of nurses may have something to do with the way the concerns of those on the line are not being respected.

As a self appointed Concierge for the Motel Special Ed, it would be most interesting to see a similar inquiry into the status of the many different areas that have supervisors in the HCDS Special Education Division.

As an example, let's revisit some documented statistics:

"According to a HCDS state complaint dated July 18th, 2005, “82% of the students surveyed by the state had not received the amount of OT services as stated on their 2004-05 IEP. 64% of the students had not received the amount of PT services required by their 2004-05 IEPs." The report states: "The student records reviewed by the Bureau indicated a systemic violation regarding the provision of OT and PT services to students with disabilities during the 2004-05 school years.”http://www.standadvocates.org/2005_OT-PT_State_Complaint_Response.doc, "

As a result of the findings, the District developed a committee to address the issues. The members included district personnel and parents. Sub-committees were set up, including the apparent obligatory sub committee of teacher retention and recruitment. Month's of meetings and documentation. At the end, there was a unanimous recommendation made, despite voiced disagreements by some, mostly parents. This was the second committee I had the priviledge of attending where it appeared that the outcome was pre-determined, despite the input of the parents.

Apparently, since it had not happened before, the parent's that were able to make a complaint that stuck were able to bring about some type of action for the District to supposedly address the problem. While people are snooping around about the nurses, maybe some one could find out how many OT/PT's there are really (not a check box answer) available for the number of kids that are supposed to get the servicies.

But why would parents be involved in the District's operations. If there is a problem, such as documented above, one would think that the people responsible for Supervising their area would be jumping up and down with data that shows there is a problem and demanding responsible support from the District that has a national reputation. Apparently that is not how it works.

Years ago an Administrator made it clear to me that the District did not need policing. I always wonder if the many different Supervisors within the Special Education Division of HCDS aren't jumping up and down about their lack of resources is because there is no police to go to.

How Much Does A Pilot License Cost?

Click here: Dangerously Irrelevant: Why is staff development so bad?

"We have known for a long time (decades!) about what constitutes effective staff development. As the latest version of the National Staff Development Council Standards for Staff Development notes, effective staff development has small groups of educators working together over time in professional learning communities; is based on principles of effective adult learning; and deepens educators’ content knowledge.Yet what does staff development look like in most school districts? Typically it involves three or four one-shot “sit and get” (or “spray and pray”) sessions spread across the year, each on a different topic than the one before, that are attended by most or all educators in the organization. A “one size fits all” model is used, meaning that there is relatively little differentiation between, say, music teachers and math teachers and industrial arts teachers. Sometimes schools spice it up a bit and have a buffet day where educators can pick from multiple choices throughout the day, much like a professional conference."

and from the comment section, I chose this:

"The one area that has frustrated me as a consultant is that there is little to no funding to provide executive coaching services to principals. If a principal needs help, they often can't speak up or they are admitting weakness"

I posted the above to say this:

As those who should know the rules, transition plans (school to post school) can start as early as the age of 14. I was aware that the common practice in HCDS was to wait until the last two years of the student's stay, and that out of these last two years, "work training" was usually no more than half a year per year out of the last two. (It always amazes me how the system on one hand thinks special ed kids can assimilate and internalize knowledge with a brief exposure (don't let 'em see the test protocol, it will give them an unfair advantage) and on the other hand lower the bar of expectations so that making 4 months progress in a year is considered success).

One could understand the difficulties that arose when I insisted on my son obtaining work experience starting at the age of 15.

While there is so much information that should be provided leading up to the following point, suffice it to say that my son became involved in a "pilot program" in HCDS. He was one of three students in the program. The District paid money for an outside consultant to demonstrate how to set up "school to work" situations for even the most "challanged" students. I thought it was a great program and it provided support and guidance to my son's team.

The program consisted of 3 teams for each of the students. My understanding was that the information and strategies of the "pilot program", once developed, would be shared to others and become integrated within the system. In one of the early meetings one of the teachers of one of the teams said" Why am I here? I have a bunch of student's in my class room that need me - I don't have time for this."

I am sure it baffles the administrators that know how much my son received from HCDS to hear me be critical about the system. My previous post Click here: PRO on HCPS: A Piece of the Dysfunctional Puzzle speaks to the difficulty of challanging a mindset as opposed to what is perceived as an isolated incident. An illustration of this may be revealed by a comment another teacher made to me one day. She said to me "it is unfair that your son get's more than the other students in the class."

I recently heard that the "pilot program" and the systems that were in place at the school my son was at the time are no longer there. As far as I can tell, the key players of the successful program are gone from the school. Some have "moved up the ladder", one to be an Area Director and one was recently seen speaking at the school board meeting, and some transferred out.

I can only assume that when the next parent comes along that insists on following the rules, another "pilot program" will be invested in.

One of those "adversary" groups I talk about

www.standadvocates.org

STAND-Pinellas Accessing Resources Conference
3 Days and counting!!! You have until Sunday, September 16, 2007 to register on-line for $25.00 to attend SPARC 2007!!!!

This is your final chance to be part of one of the best conferences this year! If you pre-register before September 16th, you don’t need to show up until 8:00am! We have folks driving in from Jacksonville, Tallahassee down to Cape Coral and Boynton Beach… this conference is well worth the drive!!!!

Dr. Barbara Bateman (google her name and read about her!!! She is awesome.) will begin at 8:00am, MaryEllen Elia will begin at 8:40am, and the first breakout session begins sharply at 9:00am! Exhibitor hall will be open at 8:00am.

There will be a hot lunch catered by Capogna’s Dugout of Clearwater, while Cindy Bania of Pinellas Co. Schools speaks to the group.

Three more breakout sessions in the afternoon, followed by over 50 door prizes that will be given away that day!!!!! The Exhibitor Hall will be open until 3:00pm!!!

Don’t forget to sign up that morning for a one on one IEP review with STAND Board members and/or Pinellas County Administrators.

Check out the website for who can earn component points, trade days, and CEU’s!!!!! This conference is for families, grandparents, social workers, counselors, teachers, therapists, principals, support coordinators! There will be something for everyone in one place for one day only!!!!

Please forward this e-mail to all your contacts….. after Sunday the 16th, you will be registering at the door that morning beginning at 7:00am for $35.00! Bags, shirts, and lunches will be on a first come – first serve basis. We are only ordering a number of extra lunches… when they are gone, they are gone!!!!

Go to www.standadvocates.org today and register!!!!

Low Expectations vs Presumption of Entitlement

Click here: YouTube - Patrick Henry Hughes - Inspirational Story

This is a short video about a kid who is doing things because his parents and teachers did not accept what seemed so real to every one else. Pay attention to the infant picture and ask yourself what are your expectations.

It is not just me that talks about low expectations. It is written by congress in the IDEA re-authorizations and has been referred to as the "soft bigotry" towards people with a disability.

"Avoid Methodology Disputes
From Pete: Excellent strategy! If the parent insists that the school use a specific method, this insures that the school will NEVER use this method, come hell or high water. If a particular method needs to be used, I have the outside expert make this recommendation, not the parent.
From Pam: This is the power of "school culture." Many school personnel believe that because parents are emotionally attached to their children, they cannot be knowledgeable about the educational services their children need. According to a study of 5,000 school psychological evaluations, most school personnel believe that children's learning and behavior problems are due to family and child factors, and have absolutely nothing to do with inadequately trained teachers, improper curriculum, and over-crowded classrooms. Read article"

http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/ieps.tactics.session.htm

A Missed Point By Any Other Name is Still a Missed Point

Dot 1 Click here: Motel Special Ed: Voucher Fraud - Imagine that

"Fraud is wrong. They were given money by the state to provide a service. The money was to pay for the services they were to provide. But they took the money and used it for something else. In other words, they accepted the money but did not provide the service.

I wonder if the fact that it was a voucher program is why they were arrested."


Dot 2 Click here: Motel Special Ed: Old news is still bad news, but how many know it?

"According to a HCDS state complaint dated July 18th, 2005, “82% of the students surveyed by the state had not received the amount of OT services as stated on their 2004-05 IEP. 64% of the students had not received the amount of PT services required by their 2004-05 IEPs." The report states: "The student records reviewed by the Bureau indicated a systemic violation regarding the provision of OT and PT services to students with disabilities during the 2004-05 school years.”

"What Happened to the money?" .......

Dot 3-Click here: Motel Special Ed: A Teacher who knows the reality.

...."what choice does a teacher have when they know ......... is incorrect based on the needs of the child?"


....."In the same above case, what choice does the teacher have when the parent is or becomes knowledgeable about the issues of....."

"Does the teacher have more of an ethical dilemma for one of the two scenarios, or is the ethical dilemma the same for both, or is there no ethical dilemma at all?"


Connecting the dots. Are we retaining teachers by providing them an honest work environment or are we driving them away because we are clever in ways we save money?

Read my related post on Click here: PRO on HCPS: Sacred Cows and Unwritten SP&P's.

Keeping it Real

I watched with interest the recent Board meeting and how there was consternation about effective communication not reaching out to the intended target. I realize this is a large District and it is difficult to get information out to everyone, and that the laws or policies change frequently. In anticipation of an answer that it was due to the summer break and availability of staff etc. , I noted that there were issues for months or quarters last year that didn't happen this year.


"Watch your school mail for each monthly issue of"The Exceptional Communicator"and the

quarterly issues of"The ESE Administrative Communicator"Exceptional News for Exceptional People.

Also check out the "Parent Press" and

"Parent E-Press Brief" Newsletters for parents of students in Exceptional Student Education Programs and the

"Support for Families Calendar"to keep you connected to what's happening in the community. (click the titles to view links to online versions and supplements)