If your child has an IPRC and/or IEP do you think the school follows it?

[kathymuggle]

My DD started school in Sept.  She had been HSed for 4.5 years.  My DD has an IEP and is IPRC'd.  I do not really think the teachers are following the plan.  I would like them to - she may be more motivated if they did follow it.  She is getting C and B's - and the work is not accelerated; she is certainly capable of far more.  I doubt they will give her more until she demonstrates higher ability - I doubt she will give them higher marks until they give her stuff worth working for.  Bit of a nasty circle.

I am not sure if I should talk to her teachers  (yup, plural)- C's and B's are hardly awful.  DD is adamant that she does not want me to talk to her teachers (she will be 12 in December) as she does not want the teachers talking to her about it.

Sigh.

Edited by kathymuggle - 12/6/10 at 10:23am

[yarngoddess]

I think you should be talking to her teachers. Part of their job is to follow an IEP- and if they aren't then it has negative impacts on your child.  I would be in to talk asap. IMO that is :)

[Geofizz]

We have two different Written Education Plans, one general and one specifically for math.  The general one is a joke (cookie cutter, and services cannot be rendered in pullout if no one pulls her out!), the math WEP is being followed to a T.  I'm thrilled to death about the math situation this year.  I'm in the process of starting the friendly conversations about the other one, getting my ducks in a row.  Thankfully, DD is quite happy with the state of things, so it relieves some urgency.  If she weren't happy, I'd be pursuing it more aggressively.

There are issues I give DD the choice to address with her teachers herself or to have us do it for her.  Some things are up to her to address with her teachers.  (And as she gets older, the balance is shifting there.)  There are other things where we're the parents and her teachers are the teachers, and she does not have the choice to have us not communicate.  I will often cast it as an issue of communication and doing what's right and best, even if it makes us uncomfortable.  Following an IEP is one of those things where it is part of my role as parent to oversee.  Period.

IEPs are legally binding.  You have the right and responsibility to bring it to the school's attention if teachers are not following the plan.  Start with the teachers -- do they understand the IEP and do they have the appropriate support to implement it?

[kathymuggle]

Off the top of my head (I will get the document later and see if I am missing something):

She is supposed to have in class differentiation across the board (harder, deeper questions) -  she does not.

She is supposed to not have to write out the answers to every little thing  -  alternate methods of assessment, writing out the complete answers to several questions to show mastery but not having to write them all out, etc, are supposed to be in place but I have seen little evidence of this.

As per the teachers understanding the IEP...I think they understand it, but my suspicion is they are overly focused on her and her issues to implement it.  She underachieves and is disorganised.  I think they want her to prove herself, so to speak, before they implement it.  Maybe it is an excuse because so they do not have to do extra work, or maybe it comes down to undervaluing giftedness in the first place.  

As per if the teachers have support - the learning resource person was great in terms of writing the IEP and understanding giftedness, but I am not sure how much this translates into helping teachers deliver the type of education DD needs. 

[orangecanoe]

We're a few weeks away from figuring out what my dd's GIEP will contain, but given that she's younger I would have no qualms about reconvening the team if emails or phone calls didn't satisfy my question.

Geofizz--can you say a little more about what her math plan contains that is working out well? That is the area I'm most concerned about them trying to address in a less direct (i.e. enrichment instead of acceleration) manner.

[Geofizz]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle 

As per the teachers understanding the IEP...I think they understand it, but my suspicion is they are overly focused on her and her issues to implement it.  She underachieves and is disorganised.  I think they want her to prove herself, so to speak, before they implement it.  Maybe it is an excuse because so they do not have to do extra work, or maybe it comes down to undervaluing giftedness in the first place.  

But that's not their place.  You have an IEP in place that has specifics in it.  They need to follow it. 

Originally Posted by orangecanoe 

Geofizz--can you say a little more about what her math plan contains that is working out well? That is the area I'm most concerned about them trying to address in a less direct (i.e. enrichment instead of acceleration) manner.

Heh.  It took a lot to get it into place.  We got it into place at the end of second grade for this year in third after a year of gently pushing the teacher, and another 4 months of forcing the school's hand.  It's a subject acceleration to 4th grade math into a gifted, accelerated math class.  The classroom teacher was unable to differentiate in the classroom sufficiently.  The teacher didn't have the skills or time to do it properly.  She'd either undershoot (DD wouldn't even notice) or overshoot (DD would end up in tears with no emotional or practical tools for coping with some frustration or new material).

She's with a gifted ed teacher in a room with 8 4th graders doing 4th and 5th grade math this year.  She'll do compressed 6th grade and pre algebra next year with the same group and the same teacher, putting her into pre algebra or algebra (depending on test scores) in 5th grade at the jr high.  Most of what's working out so well is that the gifted ed teacher is a rock star.  The other gifted ed teacher (the one for the other WEP) does not have much of a connection to DD, with additional problems arising from that teacher being only 20% time at our school.
 

Getting this math placement required she hit the ceiling on the cognitive abilities test, the ceiling on the Terra Nova (including language arts and reading!), and the ceiling on math specific test administered individually (KeyMath) and pass the third grade achievement test.  Those last two tests were administered on our formal petition for a subject acceleration, and they were administered in good faith only after DD impressed the pants off the intervention specialist.  It also required that I know the law inside out and backwards as to how age and maturity are to be considered in a subject acceleration.

Goodness help any kid who is simply bored to tears with math in early elementary.  It turns out you have to completely blow away every test to get this placement in our district.  We do have a new principal this year, and I'm hoping that DD giving a good show of what it can do for a child will smooth the road for kids in coming years. 

Edited by Geofizz - 12/6/10 at 12:09pm

[orangecanoe]

Thank you for sharing that. I get the sense that they are pretty much only initially wanting to offer enrichment. DD is just in first this year and I might have gotten a concession to do EPGY from where DD left off w/ that in September, but that might depend on if they can get her computer access in the classroom. Not glad to hear that your advocacy had to be quite so involved, but glad she is getting what she needs now!

[St. Margaret]

I only skimmed responses but I want to agree that they need to follow her plan.  Even I know that there are "brilliant but failing" kids-- the kids who could blow my honors course away but have Fs because they won't complete assignments.  Perfectionism or just beyond the whole school thing :)  their grades don't reflect their abilities.  Which is the very definition, HELLO!, of special needs warranting accomodations/an IEP.  I would never presume that the kid needed to prove to me that they deserved accomodations.  I'd be excited about seeing what they could do and how they learn, though! 

I also know that it's my LEGAL responsiblitiy to follow IEPs.  Seriously, IEP kids get the first attention in my classes of 40 kids because I know a parent could sue me for my house if I fail to follow the plan.  Of course it would start with redoing tests or whatever, fixing grades, but that's at the back of my mind when I'm meeting the kids and getting all the IEPs (the district training tells us this, because they don't want to get sued, either, and they point out teachers can be personally sued, at least in CA I guess)-- I keep their names highlighted in my planner to remind me, too.  That's TERRIBLE that they're not following the plan.  I hope your advocating works out for your DD!

[loraxc]

Though we have yet to sit down for our GIEP meeting, I am pretty sure that the school is going to wave their hands and say that DD is getting "adequate in-class enrichment" (by which they mean...I don't even know, but maybe the advanced workbooks I sent in?) when little is being done. Their attitude seems to be that they are magically addressing her needs through psychic powers or something--like, "Well, we know she's gifted, so we look at her that way, so there you are." But I suppose I shouldn't say anything yet since I don't have the plan in hand.
Edited by loraxc - 12/10/10 at 9:38am

[orangecanoe]

Originally Posted by loraxc 

Though we have yet to sit down for our GIEP meeting, I am pretty sure that the school is going to wave their hands and say that DD is getting "adequate in-class enrichment" (by which they mean...I don't even know, but maybe the advanced workbooks I sent in?) when little is being done. Their attitude seems to be that they are magically addressing her needs through psychic powers or something--like, "Well, we know she's gifted, so we look at her that way, so there you are." But I suppose I shouldn't say anything yet since I don't have the plan in hand.

Where are you in the process? We're in PA and the state's DOE website has a LOT of good information about interventions and accommodations they suggest to the districts. Our girls are about the same age. My meeting is coming up shortly, so please DM me if you want me to send you copies or input on what we were able to hash out. The school did a decent job w/ her testing and PLEP, so I feel like we have a good starting point for asking for specific things. I am not intending to accept their enrichment only plan as it seemed they were suggesting and they clearly know this in advance of the meeting.

[loraxc]

orangecanoe, DD was finally tested, which was an endeavor in and of itself, and she did indeed score as gifted. And that's all we know. I have no results, no IEP, nada (we are in a state that mandates gifted IEPs). I just found out from my beloved but occasionally dense husband that he "signed some papers" about this one day at pick-up recently. He does not know what they said. (Picture me trying not to yell at him here.) I hope and pray this was not the IEP--if it was, they are breaking all kinds of rules about how the IEP is supposed to be presented and approved, but I really would not be surprised, unfortunately. The school does have a pull-out program starting in second grade (DD is in first). Right now the only accommodation that she is getting that I'm aware of is the advanced workbooks and math problems I sent in with her to put in her independent work folder. There is at least one other advanced reader in her class, and they're in the same reading group, but due to logistics (I think) her group also has a couple kids who are reading above grade level, but more like grade 2. So she's reading upper-level easy readers in class, I think (at home she just finished the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator), or possibly early chapter books like Junie B. Jones.

Her school is small and has very limited staff. They have an arts focus that is wonderful that DD really enjoys, but in some ways academics are not the focus. Her teacher is sympathetic, however, and I think does what she can, but she has not been mandated to do anything and I think she has bigger fish to fry in that class, YK? I know the teacher has been encouraging her to write long journal entries and has worked with her on her writing mechanics, which have improved immensely since starting school (in September she was still forgetting capitals and periods; now she correctly uses apostrophes, commas, quotation marks, and sometimes colons and semicolons).

I'm rambling. Yes, I would love to hear about what you have put in yours, but I'm afraid we have to aim low. We are considering whether to switch her to the gifted magnet.

[loraxc]

So I am updating now that we have seen DD's IEP. I am shocked and dismayed to report that the school wrote it completely without our input and that DH was cornered to sign it at school pick-up without knowing what it was or being given a copy. (We only got a copy after we called a meeting.) Our district has a boilerplate gifted EP with 5 different goal areas and about 10 "objectives" per goal. We are told it is "procedure" to choose only 4 objectives to work on. ALL of DD's objectives are squishy socioemotional goals. Paraphrasing, they are things like "respect the opinions of others," "work well in groups," and "learn to accept failure."

Does anyone have a BS IEP like this? To be clear, the school selected prewritten objectives...the district has chosen to include socioemotional things on their standard gifted IEPs. While I don't necessarily disagree with this, in practice it means that DD's gifted IEP resembles a behavior plan for a child with an emotional problem. FWIW, DD is certainly not an easy child, but she consistently comes home with glowing behavior reports and her teacher has expressed no concerns.

[kathymuggle]

DD IEP is not quite as BS as yours, but it does seem more heavily weighted towards her weaknesses as opposed to her strength.

 I will admit (bag over head here) I was present for the IEP meeting, I agreed with what they are saying, it was only afterwards (and I had signed it) that I had time to process that it was heavily weighted in one direction.

We reconvene sometime in the Spring  - I will ask for more stuff then.  I would actually like a pull out or subject grade skip - but there is no way the school will go for that (and her marks can be fairly low - we are struggling with undermotivation here - I will know more when i get her report card in a few weeks) and I am not sure DD will go for it because she wants to be  just like the rest of her classmates.  The school has done a horrible job of following her IEP, flawed as it is.  

[SleeplessMommy]

in this state, the iep or giep is a contract. if the school does not follow it, the parents can (eventually) sue.

when our giep was being ignored, we requested a giep review meeting. suddenly schedules were rearranged, the services were provided, and everyone was apologetic to us. If "iep review meeting" does not work, your next steps are to check your states dept. of education web site and to mention "parent advocacy".

Your child WILL get what she/he needs, just you may need to keep pushing for it.