A little Van Halen to jump start the day:
"Some say money is bad for the soul
Bad for the rock, bad for the roll
Bad for the heart , bad for the brain
Bad for the damn near everything oh yeah
It must be good for something"
I have reason to remind the readers of this event from the recent past:
Old news is still bad news
Go to the link and read finding of fact by the State. Not just a complaining parent.
IEP's are contracts for service. A Matrix of Service is filled out based on what was written in the IEP, submitted to the State, and the State sends money to the District based on the funding number.
If the services that are written in the IEP are not provided to the student, there is a multitude of problems. Ethics would be one of them. Destruction of trust from the parents may be one of them. Fraud may be one of them. An appropriate education for the student is so far down the list, it is lost in the fog of war when the parent finally demands some accountability.
Recent dialog on this blog and posts by this blogger on other blogs has dealt with parents and teachers needing to work together.
Some parents want to audiotape their IEP meetings. How many of you get to a point in your life where you want to go the hassle of taping a meeting? One would reasonably assume that the need to tape something is because one has become wary of false assurances, parsing of words, repeated delays, repeated "misunderstandings" and "clarifications" that are far from what was previously stated or written.
Under the current culture, the burden of proof of compliance is left to the parent to somehow prove that not only did a host of people who say they are educators hear what was said and see what is written, but they are not honoring what they said and wrote.
I have been in many, many IEP meetings. I know the game. If an elephant came into the IEP meeting, dropped a load right in the middle of the table, no one could ever prove it if it wasn't written in the IEP form or the conference notes. Even when there are teachers, ESE specialists, related service personnel, principals, directors and parents that see the elephant, moved their papers out of the way of the big dump, and smelled the aroma that stunk up the whole room. If it wasn't written, it didn't happen.
If the system continues to leave it to the parents to enforce compliance, I will continue to mock those who hide behind this strategy. And I am counting the days. To steal a concept from Goader - tick, tick, tick.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Big Fat Money
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4 comments:
I agree that there is a problem with compliance and the Individual Education Plan (IEP), but I think there are multiple causes. I believe teachers, administrators, and parents have all gone a little nutty when it comes to the implementation of an IEP. The fact that an IEP is about as straightforward as trying to bake a cake from a recipe written by a nuclear chemist is no small concern as well.
As someone new to it only four years ago, to this day I can ask four different people the same question about an IEP and get four different answers. The IEP is a process rather than a form, as you know. It lives and must be cared for by all concerned. Some aspects of it require considerable thought before deciding on the best course of action. In other words, it is complicated, but most case managers have twenty to twenty-five or more students to manage in a year. That is on top of teaching many more ESE students that one must become familiar with even though they are not one of that teacher's caseload.
Four years ago when I started I taught four classes and had three periods to plan lessons, conference with parents, teachers, and students, and finally a period to work on IEPs, which often meant visiting the files room, teachers and calling parents. Regular education teachers during that year taught five classes and had two periods without teaching; one was to plan lessons and the other to conference with parents, teachers, and students. In other words, for every so many periods any teacher instructs students there needs to be a certain number of periods without instruction to get the myriad of other chores done in a timely manner.
As you know, I started teaching regular education this year. I am struggling with having only one planning/conference period. I do not know how special education teachers can possibly accomplish all they need to do with only one period without instruction. There are many reasons why these various problems exist, not the least of which teachers in Hillsborough County today are run-ragged, bladder-bloated, and strung as tight as a snare drum.
I fully agree with your statement about the work load of a teacher.
The District has a multi-layer system responsible for special education. While the responsibility of allocating District resources is supposed to be attributed to the person that signs as the LEA Rep (Local Education Agency Representative), to think that only one person knows what an IEP requires to be provided to an individual student is incorrect.
An IEP meeting, to meet the requirements of same, requires more than just the teacher to be present. For the purposes of this discussion, I will choose one of the requirements:
§300.321 IEP Team.
(a)
(4) A representative of the public agency who--
(i) Is qualified to provide, or supervise the provision of, specially designed instruction to meet the unique needs of
children with disabilities;
(ii) Is knowledgeable about the general education curriculum; and
(iii) Is knowledgeable about the availability of resources of the public agency.
For the sake of discussion, let's assume that a student has an IEP that states that a certain amount of Occupational Therapy (or perhaps an assistive technology device that is supposed to meet the needs of the student) will be provided weekly by the District. The whole team was there to discuss this need, and everyone present knows it was written in the IEP.
IDEA speaks to how soon these services should be initiated:
§300.323 When IEPs must be in effect.
(a) General. At the beginning of each school year, each public agency must have in effect, for each child with a disability
within its jurisdiction, an IEP, as defined in §300.320.
........
(c) Initial IEPs; provision of services. Each public agency must ensure that--
(1) A meeting to develop an IEP for a child is conducted within 30 days of a determination that the child needs special
education and related services; and
(2) As soon as possible following development of the IEP, special education and related services are made available to the
child in accordance with the child’s IEP.
How long is soon as possible?
Again, for the sake of argument, let’s say the OT services (or a non-functional assistive technology device) have not occurred for a month. Is the teacher the only one that knows this? Where are the ESE Specialists, the ESE Liaisons, the Director of Occupational Therapy (or Assistive Technology), the Principal, the Area Director, the Director of Special Education, or the Director of ESE Compliance?
At some point the trusting parent figures out that the promised services are not being provided.
The teacher is the first contact person the parent has. The teacher is left to deal with the increasing agitation of the parent because the parent trusts that the teacher is supposed to be following the IEP.
What happens to teachers when they ask for help getting the OT services?
Can a teacher actually straight forwardly tell a parent that the District has not provided the services, much less put that in writing?
Denial of services is an orchestrated event by more than one person. Until teachers overcome the aversions to speaking up, they will continued to be dumped on because the allies they need, the parents, are being lied to and spun in circles.
I volunteered to work with a student who exhibited almost no communication skills. The only thing that resembled communication was some minimal responses to requests, e.g. if I said, "let's go," the student would go attempt to open the door to leave the room. She was unable to use a key even with direct instruction and modeling. She would only respond to basic living requests such as let's eat, let's go, get your coat (provided it was in sight), go to the restroom, etc. The student could go to the restroom but did not know what to do after relieving herself, i.e. pull up her pants and button up, etc., rather, she just stood there.
Nothing in her file showed evidence of behavior over the age of a toddler, but she was 20 years old at the time. It was clear to me after a couple of weeks working with her for an hour a day that this was, in fact, the case. She and I would go sit under the Oak trees and I would talk to her and fiddle with twigs and such. She never would reciprocate the fiddling behavior, although, she expressed delight at my antics. I was convinced that she was functioning at a very low level.
The problem was that her parents insisted she be taken to regular classes. We were to communicate with using a typing board or small typing apparatus. She never once convinced me she was actually communicating. When others worked with her, I suspected whoever was, assisting her was actually moving her hands on the typing board, as if one would on a Quiji Board.
After many years of the mother, insisting the student be treated as if she were learning, the teachers, ESE Specialist, and administrators all the way to the district level acquiesced and did as the mother demanded.
I refused to so. I spoke with the mother in a most diplomatic and empathetic way, but I spoke plainly. I informed her that I thought the student was not getting the education she needed. First, she needed intensive functional instruction to do things like use the restroom on her own, etc. After several years of this, I thought perhaps she might learn some basic education like reading, writing, and arithmetic. Another thing I said was that she needed more sophisticated technological apparatuses and accompanying software. The mother respected my frankness about my disagreeing with her daughter's education, and we continued to be friendly. The mother continued to request my presence in the meeting with her daughter.
Several district-level administrators came to my school and began to chastise me for telling the mother I thought her daughter needed better computer technology and that is was too expensive. Besides, her daughter was not even capable of using it. I shot back in an agitated manner that I thought they, the district people, were not doing what was right for the child and should never have given in to the mother. I told them I very much disagreed with how they were handling things and that I would not be a part of it. I left the room never to be involved with the student again. Although, I her mother and I continued on good terms even though the mother knew that I thought she, the mother, was not doing right by her daughter. We both agreed to disagree and all was well. It was the district people that were pampas asses around me not the mother or other members of the family.
In response to Goader:
There are so many unknown aspects to this discussion that I know better than to make any assumptions regarding what could or should have happen.
My first comment would be that the windows of opportunity to learn effective communication were probably long closed. Anyone who has had the opportunity to watch very young children easily learn more than one language as compared to the effort needed to learn other languages when older would attest to that.
There are many forms of communication. It would have been an interesting study to reverse the process by allowing her to teach us her language instead of trying to teach her ours. We can find examples of this type of communication in over doting parents who respond to cues without requiring the child to speak.
I would agree with your position that the student’s functional life skills may well have been a priority. Again, I am wary of assumptions. All too often parents and educators focus on academics and lose focus on functional needs. The reverse also happens where functional daily skills are taught with the exclusion of any attempt at basic academics that the student could benefit from. I have seen both.
I will also comment on the parent’s desire to have the student in a regular education setting. I believe that IDEA recognizes that educators should address four distinct areas, those being behavior, academic, social and emotional. For the sake of argument, if the social and emotional benefits derived from a low functioning person in a regular education setting met their individual needs or added value to their “education“, there may be some merit to that placement. Again, I am not saying this case would fit that.
The psychology of where we are placed, especially when we have little or no control over it, is extremely powerful. If someone doesn’t want to be somewhere, no matter what, it will not work. Again, who knows what the student wanted.
I am fully aware of your recount of the attitude of the District-level administrators. Again, not a blanket condemnation, but most of them fit the ticket. I liken it to a poker player that plays their money instead of their cards. Complete with posturing and scripted language to limit their costs. Someone with the ability to survey the district to ascertain the level of support and guidance provided by the system may need to address that issue.
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