It's IEP Season Part 2

The IEP should not be a confrontation, fight or battle, but rather a collaborative effort between the parent and the school district personnel.  I firmly believe that everyone participating in the IEP’s that I have attended has always had my son’s best interest in mind.  This is not to say that we have always gotten everything we have asked for, but when ever denied or told in a nice way something was not going to be put in the IEP we have always been given a good explanation.  I would love for Zach to receive four hours of speech and occupational therapy per week at school, because this would reduce the amount of private services he would receive outside of school and also reduce our out of pocket expense.  The reality is school districts have limited funds and resources, and the speech and occupational therapist that work for the school districts have a number of students they need to see each week.  Unfortunately, speech and occupational therapists have to limit the amount of time spent with each student in order to meet the minimum standard of service.  In a perfect world each school district would have enough therapists to provide four hours a week of service to each student and everyone would be happy, but as you know a perfect world is an illusion or a figment of our imagination.

One thing we have advocated for over the years to be placed on the IEP is for our son to have homework so we can see what he is doing daily in class and provide reinforcement of the work being done in the classroom at home.  Although Zach does not get much homework, the school has been good about sending home a book for him to practice reading and showing us what he has done in class so we can try and replicate it at home. It would be difficult to replicate what a speech therapist does since Debby and I are not therapist ourselves, but we at least have Zach do sight words as a means to practice his vocabulary and practice handwriting as this is a goal of his occupational therapist.

We recently had Zach’s IEP meeting and it went very well, but again there were moments in which our hearts sank a little though we know the reality of Zach’s ability. Zach is in the sixth grade and the teacher advised us at the IEP that he is reading at a first grade level, which was tough to hear.  Consciously or subconsciously knowing the reality of your child with special needs is hard enough, but hearing someone else verbally tell you or reinforce it to you is a harder pill to swallow.  Needless to say, reading is a priority on the IEP this year along with a host of other things.  Just like last school year we have great hope that Zach will be greatly improved by the end of this school year and we are anxious to see how much improvement he will make.