Help - high school IEP

[Guest guest]

Hi all. I am wondering two things. Do you generally have an autism specialist

at your IEP meetings? And do you request all the teachers come to the IEP

meetings, or at least as many as can--at least more than the prescribed one

special ed teacher, one general ed teacher?

Some history. We are going from jr high to sr high, and nobody from the high

school came to the spring IEP meeting. The high school doesn't like the IEP the

jr high set up or the placement level. I don't have any problems with the

placement change, but I am nervous about the details of the IEP.

I know we all go through the same thing where autism is not well understood by

either special ed, regular classroom teachers or school administrators, so

switching schools and getting everybody up to speed is always a huge deal. I'm

just thinking that this transition might go a lot faster and my son might end up

with a much more effective IEP if an autism specialist came to the IEP meeting

to help explain the rough spots.

And I'm in a school district big enough to have autism specialists available--if

they would just do it. I don't think they are used to coming to IEP

meetings--for the most part, I think they just do evaluations. I really don't

feel like I should have to pay for an advocate/attorney and/or specialist when

the school district has people available that can explain all these issues.

My son is high-IQ, so I also have legal issues that many of the regular school

administrators are not familiar with, but the higher level special ed people

are. So, there is also the issue of whether an administrator higher level than

one of the usual assistant principals needs to come to the IEP meeting.

I would just really like to know how other people handle this. Am I asking too

much for these " extra " people to attend? How do you ask without offending

people when they are not offering such people attend. The high school SPED

chair has made it clear she wants to handle things within the high school. But

she has said things that make me think we have all the usual problems of lack of

understanding. I'm trying to decide if I should give her a chance to do things

her way. Of course, we all know the wait and see thing usually gets way out of

hand and is not good--I really don't want to wait.

Thoughts? Help!