Underestimation

We had our latest IEP this last Tuesday.  It was another example of how our district will use any means they can think of to avoid doing the right thing.  Our daughter has been out of school for several months now, the last couple due to the fact that the district has not done what was promised in our last IEP and so there is no one who is trained to work as an aide for our daughter.  They were supposed to have sent her aid to training with the ABA company, but never did.  I have confirmed this with the ABA company but the district and the SELPA program specialist "didn't know" if the training had occurred.  When they act as if they don't know rather than becoming indignant you can be pretty sure it didn't happen.  But we didn't confront that part of things because it might make us look like shrews when we go to Due Process, if we have to go that far.  The truth is they probably never intended to send her for the training and didn't expect that I would check into it.  I think this because they are just used to pulling the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting parents.  You would think by now they would know we are no longer in that category but then they are champions at underestimation - they underestimate our kids and they underestimate us.  It helps them to underestimate our kids because then they can offer fewer services and if we think they are right in their underestimation then we agree to less than what our kids need.  Underestimating us however, is foolish, because then they don't plan for the responses we are capable of and do offer.  This can be to our benefit however, since throwing them off their game can cause them to make mistakes.

We need to keep in mind that they will try to underestimate our kids, at least those kids who appear to be lower functioning.  They believe this gives them the rationale (which we know is misguided) they need to offer little to nothing, since they don't want to "waste" their money on educating our lower functioning kids, they would rather use that money to litigate against the lower functioning kids than actually trying to give them any educational benefit.  If only I could go back to the days of believing their underestimation of my daughter, but never again.  Never again will they be able to convince me that offering her nothing is logical.  They have to try to educate our kids before they determine it won't work.  And they have to try with more than one type of modality, many times the reason our kids haven't learned is because no one has figured out how to reach them.  It may take effort to figure out what works with our individual kids, but, believe me it is worth the effort.