Re: preparing for mediation with school - long sorry!

[Guest guest]

yeah at mediation - and in general - don't use the

words best or maximal - only " appropriate " otherwise

they close their ears

the hearing officers are another strange matter. I

did not go through the hearing. Basically - if the

school offers a settlement on any of the issues you're

likely to win on, you are expected to take it or it

looks like you were uncooperative. so schools will

often settle those, and only those, issues just before

the hearing. they'll only give you enough to keep

them out of trouble. not everything.

My understanding of the hearing officers is this.

they are assigned by the Office of ADministrative

Hearings (at least here in NC - might be called

something else where you are). There is a process of

who gets to be on the list of available hearing

officers eligible to hear those cases. The person

your case is assigned to may be someone who has no

idea what special ed is. It might be teachers, or

administrators, who work in your school, your school

district or the system or somewhere in the state. It

might be someone who really knows what they are doing,

who is not in the school.

I read www.wrightslaw.com almost in its entirety over

the summer. I read cases, read the Policies and

Procedures manual, read all about diagnoses, cases,

pulled federal and state laws... local materials, and

I was ready. I got settlement on 14 out of 17 issues.

(those all arose from March 17 to May 14)

The problem is, I am still trying to get it enforced.

DPI is responsible for enforcing it, but, as you can

guess they don't want complaints to be adjudicated

against the schools. Insanity. The DPI found against

me on the issue of providing an evaluation of apraxia

by a developmental neurologist (was agreed to by the

school in the mediation agreement) because " parent

went through with an evaluation " despite the

involvement of a resident. It was a teaching hospital

- UNC-CH (where I would not go for any reason other

than being compelled legally to do so), their expert,

their set up, etc. So the DPI said the school could

not be held responsible for sending me to an expert

who wasted my time... he diagnosed my son with autism

and refused to address the issue of apraxia, which is

why we were there in the first place - and the school

won't implement his recommendations anyway. He's

THEIR expert. I'm getting ready to request an IEE

since I disagree with him on the speech. More than

one way to approach this I suppose. Another issue,

school agreed to do a speech evaluation. Still

have'nt done it. They haven't made one move to doing

it. It's been 7 months. Out of frustration I went

and got one myself out of my own pocket - the schools

won't accept it, and now they say they don't have to

provide me with a speech evaluation since I already

paid for one. Huh? That's a new one, and clearly an

unacceptable reading of whatever law they're looking

at. They haven't completed an evaluation of their own

addressing his apraxia, so I can't disagree with it

and request an IEE. So, now we're in " limbo " - trying

to get the school to do what they agreed to back in

mid-June (seven months ago). I think the next step is

suing them under contracts law since they haven't

complied with the mediation agreement. They are

really on my last nerve. I can go on and on, if I'm

allowed to, so I'll just stop now. I'm still at work

and have a meeting with my boss

Amy O

________________________________________________________________________________\

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[Guest guest]

thank you for all of the information. wow, how frustrating. I hope you resolve

this soon. We have been so pleased with the school, IEP team, teachers etc. all

along. Its just this one issue so I hope they work with us on this too. I am a

stay at home mom so its not like I cant give them to him each day, (of course

this means my day is split in half and can't go anywhere where I can't be back

in time to hand him his pills) its that he is going to middle school next year

and what a critical time in his development to have to have mommy come give him

his pills each day to further point out he is different than his peers. Makes

you wonder if all of these schools have watched any of the news on the increase

in Autism or the success of biomedical treatment? Again, thanks for the info.

Email me direct at any time if you think of anything else. tjdoran5@...

Re: preparing for mediation with school - long sorry!

yeah at mediation - and in general - don't use the

words best or maximal - only " appropriate " otherwise

they close their ears

the hearing officers are another strange matter. I

did not go through the hearing. Basically - if the

school offers a settlement on any of the issues you're

likely to win on, you are expected to take it or it

looks like you were uncooperative. so schools will

often settle those, and only those, issues just before

the hearing. they'll only give you enough to keep

them out of trouble. not everything.

My understanding of the hearing officers is this.

they are assigned by the Office of ADministrative

Hearings (at least here in NC - might be called

something else where you are). There is a process of

who gets to be on the list of available hearing

officers eligible to hear those cases. The person

your case is assigned to may be someone who has no

idea what special ed is. It might be teachers, or

administrators, who work in your school, your school

district or the system or somewhere in the state. It

might be someone who really knows what they are doing,

who is not in the school.

I read www.wrightslaw.com almost in its entirety over

the summer. I read cases, read the Policies and

Procedures manual, read all about diagnoses, cases,

pulled federal and state laws... local materials, and

I was ready. I got settlement on 14 out of 17 issues.

(those all arose from March 17 to May 14)

The problem is, I am still trying to get it enforced.

DPI is responsible for enforcing it, but, as you can

guess they don't want complaints to be adjudicated

against the schools. Insanity. The DPI found against

me on the issue of providing an evaluation of apraxia

by a developmental neurologist (was agreed to by the

school in the mediation agreement) because " parent

went through with an evaluation " despite the

involvement of a resident. It was a teaching hospital

- UNC-CH (where I would not go for any reason other

than being compelled legally to do so), their expert,

their set up, etc. So the DPI said the school could

not be held responsible for sending me to an expert

who wasted my time... he diagnosed my son with autism

and refused to address the issue of apraxia, which is

why we were there in the first place - and the school

won't implement his recommendations anyway. He's

THEIR expert. I'm getting ready to request an IEE

since I disagree with him on the speech. More than

one way to approach this I suppose. Another issue,

school agreed to do a speech evaluation. Still

have'nt done it. They haven't made one move to doing

it. It's been 7 months. Out of frustration I went

and got one myself out of my own pocket - the schools

won't accept it, and now they say they don't have to

provide me with a speech evaluation since I already

paid for one. Huh? That's a new one, and clearly an

unacceptable reading of whatever law they're looking

at. They haven't completed an evaluation of their own

addressing his apraxia, so I can't disagree with it

and request an IEE. So, now we're in " limbo " - trying

to get the school to do what they agreed to back in

mid-June (seven months ago). I think the next step is

suing them under contracts law since they haven't

complied with the mediation agreement. They are

really on my last nerve. I can go on and on, if I'm

allowed to, so I'll just stop now. I'm still at work

and have a meeting with my boss

Amy O

__________________________________________________________

Looking for last minute shopping deals?

Find them fast with Search.

http://tools.search./newsearch/category.php?category=shopping<http://to\

ols.search./newsearch/category.php?category=shopping>