I have found that when our attorney comes to our IEP meetings there is a lot of time wasted. We really try to have him come to as few as possible, but there are still times when we feel it is important for him to come. I can just as easily tape the meeting, send him a copy, and let him listen without having to pay his travel time. Additionally, if there are only a few minutes that he needs to hear I can cue that up for him or tell him where on the recording he needs to listen thus reducing our attorney fees significantly. At first we had him come to all of the meetings, this was important so that he could get a feel for what we were dealing with and so he know where to go with our case. He needed to know the players and their personalities just in case we had to go to Due Process. Once I was able to catch on to what was important and what should or should not be said we felt safe with informing him of what occurred after the fact.
We also found that when he was coming the district tended to start meetings last and take many breaks. That didn't happen at our most recent meeting, but when we were going to take a five minute break the district people all left for over 20 minutes. If they can use up your attorney money in those meetings then you my not have enough left to fight them later on when it comes to going to Due Process.
Another way of wasting our money has been for the district people to read their reports to the whole group. We do our best to avoid this. For one thing it's insulting. My daughter is the one with the learning handicaps, I and supposedly all of the district people in the room should have been capable of reading any reports and having the presenter highlight parts they feel are especially important. Therefore it is important to ask for copies of their reports prior to any IEP meetings and then read them, write down questions, or problems you have with what you find. They are supposed to give them to you once they are done and prior to the meeting but this rarely happens unless you request it in writing. Even then, it often doesn't happen unless you write a reminder a few days before the meeting. I also ask for copies of proposed goals prior to the meeting, and that way I don't feel under pressure to take in any important information at the meeting. IEP meetings are pressure situations for us parents, and the less pressure we can feel, the better we will be able to participate in discussions. I try to write down any questions or concerns I have ahead of the meeting. I have also learned that some people will try to include written statements in the IEP that were prepared ahead of time and paint our child in an unfavorable light without our knowledge. Our request for information ahead of time makes this kind of trick less likely to happen, but still we are careful to check the documentation when we sign so that nothing gets added in that we weren’t expecting.
I found this to be especially true at our first IEP meeting. We had no time left to discuss goals or services so these were skimmed over and we had no input into what was written. We have learned since then, we would simply call for the meeting to reconvene on another day so that we could properly finish, but as neophytes we went along with their program of stifling any input we may have had.
I am also learning to do lots of research on every topic to be discussed at the meeting coming up. Our last meeting was about Speech and Placement. So, I looked all over to learn as much as I could about what our experts were discussing - the diagnosis, her suggested therapy, what the district SLP had previously suggested, looking for suggested goals online. Everything I could find. I went on the ASHA (American Speech and Hearing Association) web site. I found a web site called Apraxia-Kids (my daughter's diagnosis) and I became as much of an expert as I could on her issues and how it is recommended that therapists work with kids like her. I also went on the OAH (Office of Administrative Hearings) website to see how they have come down on cases similar to my daughter's. Come to find that most parents are trying to get their kids into a lower level of care when they have my daughter's issues, and here we are trying to get her into a more restrictive environment. What this tells me, is that our district is going in the opposite direction of how the judges come down most of the time and so we have a pretty good chance of winning if we go to Due Process. I may not need all of this information now, but it gives me a sense of power going into the room that I have the judges on my side. I am more confident and can argue more persuasively on my daughter's behalf. I also believe that if I know what I'm talking about and have research to back me up, the district is less likely to push things to Due Process since they know I am more likely to win if I know what I am talking about.
The only problem with research is that there is often research that says otherwise too. You want to try to know what they will have backing up what they say. You want to check out where the preponderance of the research leads. If there is only one research project that says X will work and you find 25 that say Y will work, you want to know this. Then you should not be suggesting X and if they suggest X you can say, yes but there is only one project that supports your suggestions and 25 that back up my recommendation.
I don't know how people who work full time can get all of this done, but if you can't do it maybe you can get a friend or family member to help you. Once you find one research study you can find more by looking at their footnotes. And on and on. Thanks to the internet we can do a lot more of this from home than we used to, we often have to test different search words and different search engines to find what will work best for us. Finding professional organizations is great too, since they will generally include information about the latest research and about ethical guidelines that can help us in our quest for appropriate services.
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