The law says that the district has to provide an "appropriate" education so they fall back on that. But who is to say what is appropriate? I am currently trying to get my hands on the list put out for Speech and Language Therapists (SLP's) of what is recommended for different speech diagnoses. I believe that will help us in settling what is appropriate, at least getting us closer for what appropriate services are for speech. I doubt we will ever get what they suggest without attorneys and due process which is quite frankly very difficult emotionally to go through, not to mention expensive if you use an attorney. It seems that having an actual therapist there to advocate for what their report says carries a lot more weight, and we have had ours done as IEE's (paid for by the district) and they have insisted on the person who writes the report attending the meeting. Even if the district doesn't insist and therefore will not pay for them to come, I would highly recommend paying them to come to the meeting. You can request that you go over their area first and let them leave as soon as their portion is done to save some money.
I try to avoid any SLP who will just write in whatever the district tells them to give as far as what type and amount of services, this is unethical and tells me that the person is really there just for the paycheck. We currently are fighting for continued speech while in "Stay-put", but we have two different speech evaluations by the same person, one dated the day before the districts "pre IEP meeting" that they aren't supposed to have recommending staying with what she already has and one dated the day after their "pre IEP meeting" that isn't supposed to happen that cuts their recommended services to 33% of what was recommended before that meeting they weren't supposed to have. Everything else stayed the same. I always look for this kind of thing or for the therapist to say something like, "they really need more, but we can't take them out of class for so many hours a week" because then we have them. Then they must provide a Non-Public Agency to cover what the child actually needs. Surprisingly these mistakes happen all the time. Especially when you get the teacher and/or the SLP (or whatever area you looking at) to work with you. I love to give them little thank yous at Christmas and at the end of the school year and offer to help with a party or two or three a year. My daughter's teacher isn't crafty, so I always do a winter craft for her. These kinds of things can get you the help you need in the IEP meetings (or at least little hints outside of meetings of what is coming). I really am not excessive, I give them $10 gift cards and some homemade cookies or candy.
Right now, our daughter is in Home and Hospital Instruction or HHI (due to recent surgery) and we are probably going to keep her there until we can get some real progress made. Her doctors have agreed to sign the necessary documentation and that way a teacher comes to the house for 1 hour per day of school for the week. That way we can do all the other therapies as needed and not interrupt her school day. It means that I have no time to myself, but it's worth it. I'm sure it's not a lot different for the home-schooling moms except that I get help in teaching her the academic things. They can be in HHI for many reasons, including difficulty with fluorescent lights setting off seizures, psychological needs, physical needs, severe sensory-motor issues that make the classroom too frightening or intense for the child to learn, really any reason. Our daughter learns much better in the home environment so why not use that to help her for the time being?
Creativity is the key in our quest for the proper education.
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