Re: What can Parents do/Funding?

[Guest guest]

Dear Eve,

You would be horrifed to see the district's proposed IEP. The goals and

objectives, mind you I understand was a mock IEP and would be worked on,

blah, blah, blah, however the entire format is ordained to place him where

they want, something that is supposed to be determined AFTER the IEP needs

are discussed, and they are not measurable, and they have made many

procedural violations. I have a feeling we're going to battle again. God,

am I sick of it, and it's not the first time.

Until we can sue school districts for educational malpractice and hold the

SCHOOL they are in accountable, not a lot will change, but that is my

opinion. One by one we might win, and of course when we settle, which is

what I did last time, nobody else gets the benefit of the suit.

SIGHING DEEPLY.

I am interested in how you did the ABA/DTT/VB in every goal and objective.

Can you share some examples. I did this in our last IEP and I am getting

endless crap about how it must be based on the grade level curriculum and

so forth. I think I found a loophole on my own, but not sure yet. Anyhow, I

am very angry that they have propossed, and listen to this one: NO KIDDING -

" Given practical experiences, when asked, shown and helped, and with prompt

feedback student will use a variety of telephones correctly as demonstrated

by applications to real life situations 80% of the time. "

By the way, he is fourteen years old, not four years old. However, for one

I have never seen such a long sentence that was so lacking in content and

meaning.

Pleazzzzze! First of all practical experiences? By the time they ask, show,

help and give prompt feedback, they might as well make the phone call for

him, because if you can tell me how in the world that focuses on teaching

any skill at all, let alone a particular step in the process, I will pay

you ten dollars. Then note he will use a variety of telephones. Wow, I had

no idea the middle school was so stocked with phones, or that he was going

to use a phone every last field trip and community trip he's on. What is

even more fascinating is he does not know how to dial. Can't find numbers

in a field past four at best, can't push small things without complete

help, because of fine motor difficulties, has no clue what the symbols are

on a phone, and oh, just as aside can not say more than HI reliably. And I

was wondering the other 20% of the time what would he be doing, especially

since he's been asked,shown, helped and given such feeback????

The whole damn proposed IEP looks like this garbage. And that was not the

worst one!!!!!!!

Jennie

[Guest guest]

When I read this I could have shed a thousand tears, for all you have been

through several times over. As a result of my daughters lawsuit, the county here

is making changes, but I suspect it will be more of the same. The county is

supposedly using " experts " from Nova University for everything, to defend the

crap they call a program and to fix the crap they call a program. The experts

have even been on the seminar circuit on " How to make your school district have

a defensible program " for school board lawyers. They have been so half hearted I

don't know if the court ordered mediation will make me happy. I look forward to

the federal trial as we have great data and documentation, video's ect... My

lawyer is working something out, (financially) I went this route as my son who

is a high functioning autistic was able to benefit from the little they did.

Speech therapy only, and he was NEVER in an autistic classroom. He had some good

teachers who loved him and he had no real bad behavior problems like my daughter

presented with. I have had to be very firm in order to get him out of special ed

and on a regular diploma track Thank God for Bailet!! The people involved with

my daughter just couldn't be bothered with her till I showed up with the Lawyer.

I think to he is still amazed at the lack of programs and lack of trained

personnel. He has several other kids as clients and we wait and continue to

watch nothing happen for these children. Its like being 9-10 years old, not

being able to talk or wipe your own fanny. They just haven't figured out they

have screwed many of these kids up for life and they do not have any competent

people working for them. ( Its all about drugs as far as they are concerned) I

wish every night they rot in hell. I know I don't have to tell you, but in our

profession, (medical) this is Neglect pure and simple. I patiently watch my

daughter do better and better everyday and wait for her day in court. Thanks for

writing, It is worth talking about. Best to you lyn Popp RN., BSN PS. I

have been working in the Oncology ICU here at Baptist PRN for last ten years,

have only been able to work friday and saturday nites 12's and I Have to since

we refinanced our house for Liz.

" E. Bisard " wrote:

> HI Listers,

> I am usually a lurker, but decided to chime in on this one. Sorry this is a

> long one. I have " been there, done that " in regards to making tough

> decisions to get what my children need in terms of appropriate educations

> and services. Also, in response to from NC who just lost her husband,

> plan for the future! make out your wills, tell anyone and everyone not to

> leave a penny to your kids as it could jeopardize their qualifying for much

> needed financial assistance down the road (medicaid,SSI, etc). I hope my

> input can help, as I am grateful to many who have helped my family

> throughout our " autism journey " . I have 3 boys, 2 dx. with autism. I

> have filed for due process 3 times!! in 2 different states (2 in GA, 1 in

> RI).

> DUE PROCESS #1: The first due process for our middle son (age 4 at the

> time - he's now 8) to secure ABA services in the public school (we requested

> a CBA be hired, ALL staff who came in contact with my son were to be trained

> and receive ONGOING training and oversight, ongoing parent training and a

> minimum of 20 hours a week for my son of 1:1 DTT at school and 10 hours at

> home), we used the GA advocacy agency attorney, who is FREE. It was a rough

> road, as she had some preconceived ideas about ABA and was initially weary

> of taking our case. But she was FREE, and I was willing to put in the time

> to educate her, as we had no money, and an awesome case - data, objective

> evals, video documentation, scientific researc, etc. But, now this is

> KEY!!! Our son's data,data, data,independent evals, the documented

> scientific reseach and video documentation of our sons progress in ABA won

> her over. She is now a strong proponent of ABA. We had tried the districts

> " eclectic,mulimodality,TEACCH class " and our son regressed, per their own

> evals. but after 3 months during the summer of nothing but ABA, our son

> made 1 years of gains in only 3 months of receiving ABA! We never made it to

> court as the district settled out of court with us, ending up hiring a

> Certified Behav. Analyst, providing oversight and training ALL staff who

> worked with my son, even training backup staff - as I always say, " what if

> his 1:1, God forbid, is hit by a bus today, who would teach my child??? " ,

> and provided ongoing oversight, and we had all of this WRITTEN into the IEP.

> and we ended up having a fairly nice working relationship (It was a long

> road of the professionals taking our battle for our sons life as a personal

> attack on them, which it wasn't. I could care less about their feelings,

> about them " Liking " me, etc. My sons life is at stake. But as another

> lister stated, I think they secretly admired my determination to educate

> myself and fight for what was effective for my son. And also, they couldn't

> argue with their own eval results - he regressed with their approach, and

> made tremendous progress with a scientifically supported intervention) So,

> please, check with your state advocacy agency and get in touch with their

> attorney. your school district would have their number. Contact your sped

> dept. and ask if they can provide you with the #. I am not sure if each

> state has one, but it's worth looking into, just my opinion.

> DUE PROCESS #2: Our youngest son, at 15 months began showing signs of

> autism (Just FYI -he is now 4 yrs old, in a regular preschool class with no

> supports - graduated this past Christmas from a private ABA school - is

> testing in most areas as age approrpiate - ABA/VB works!!). This time we

> knew what to look for and jumped on him like flies to cow dung! we began ABA

> with him, (we were still in GA), after a few months of great progress,

> enrolled him in EI and requested ABA from them. Of course they had NO CLUE

> as to what applied behav analysis was and they refused our request. We

> filed for Due Process using the same GA advocacy attorney (FREE), and they

> settled with us before going to hearing - hired MY staff as early

> interventionists to do his ABA (so that helped tremendously with our debt)

> as no one in this EI knew what ABA was, let alone had trained staff to work

> with my son. Again, data and objective evals from autism professionals - we

> used Nemours childrens clinic in Jax, Fla. and the Marcus Center in Atlanta,

> GA to do the evals which all demonstrated phenomenal progress and the only

> intervention being provided was ABA). When he turned 3, the district was

> using the Behav analyst hired for my older son, so that worked out nice, she

> worked with my younger son also, and we had a great IEP written up).

> DUE PROCESS #3: We have since moved to RI due to my husbands Naval

> military commitment. We came here with AWESOME IEP's, every section for both

> children basically identified ABA/DTT as their learning style and written

> into EVERY goal,also documented the need for ONGOING TRAINING AND OVERSIGHT

> BY A CBA of both my children's education, etc. I had no battle for my 3

> year old. the new state agreed to place him in a private ABA school in the

> district, as they do not provide ABA/DTT, refused to provide it, and so we

> requested placement into a private ABA school since they refused to provide

> in in the public school. For my 7 year old (now 8) it was clear from his GA

> IEP that he required ABA/DTT to address his learning style. They were aware

> of our sons year spent in an " eclectic/teacch " class and his severe

> regression with that intervention, yet they proposed the exact

> " eclectic/teacch " classroom for him. they refused to consider ABA/DTT,

> would not even discuss it. Had decided his placement even before we met at

> the IEP. Needless to say, we filed for DP. the advocacy agency here would

> not assist us, as their mission is for augmented communication

> assistence/inclusion issues, and I understood that since I was fighting for

> a more " restrictive " environment, so we had to hire an attorney. Long story

> short (ha), we won our case based on Procedural violations, it wasn't even

> an aba/teacch case - they just outright violated my sons right to FAPE by

> not including us/parents as equal team members, not considering our input,

> etc. The distrtict has appealed our case so the saga continues. Our

> attorney wasn't cheap as we had to pay a few retainers, but it was worth it!

> The district is responsible for his bill now. but that's under appeal as

> well. We went to this attorney for an intial review, to see if we had a

> case that could win. That really helped.

> I guess to sum it up. No it's not an easy battle, especially like us

> and many parents, we don't have the funds to fight. but we had a great

> case - the data made the case. Keep good DATA, get good independent evals,

> and document with video your child's progress. Check with your state for

> advocacy agency attorney. Find a good attorney through other parents. Some

> attoneys, from my conversations with other parents, will " work something

> out " with you in regards to payment of fees. From our experience, it was

> helpful just to have that intial meeting to see if we could win our fight

> for services in the new state, which I knew we would. Pay that initial fee

> just to have an attorney review your records, data, etc. Believe me, they

> won't want to waste theirs, or your time if you don't have a case.

>

> Keep up the good fight. It's long, brutal and cruel, but because of our

> fight, one of our sons is in a regular class, learining incidentally, can

> have a conversation with you, and our older son- he isn't institutionalized

> and probably would be right now if we hadn't learned about ABA 5 years ago,

> he's reading, doing simple arithmatic, can dress himself, brush his teeth,

> tie his shoes!! and that's worth every minute passed, every penny spent,

> every dollar borrowed and tear every shed. God Bless You. Thanks for

> letting me share.

> Eve in RI, also an RN, BSN, but hasn't worked since Autism entered our

> lives.

>

>

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