My posting has been a bit scarce of late, I know. But I have a good excuse. Really.
For the last month, I've been knee-deep in all things IEP. Big Brother, Twin Sister and the Little Stinker all have had their share in the fun.
For starters, Twin Sister has been having ongoing struggles at school. She is supposedly being monitored under RtI, but given the lack of data available from the school, I'm not sure this would be an entirely truthful statement.
Given her lack of progress we asked for a meeting to once again request an IEP. This was met by the usual,
Well-We're-Not-Sure-If-She'll-Qualify response.
It literally blows my mind away that we have a child that, according to the district's own testing in many cases, is of above average intelligence, is a hard worker, has visual perception issues, organizational issues, anxiety issues and multiple diagnoses, but still the school contends it is not affecting her in the educational environment. Go figure.
On the positive side, we're making progress, albeit progress at a snail's pace. So far we've had two meetings and are just now determining what areas to test her in. Next comes the laborious process of the testing itself, then yet another meeting to determine eligibility. Then and only then can we start the process of coming up with goals and accommodations. If we're lucky, we'll have her on an IEP by Christmas.
And in the meantime? She's left to fend for herself in all the classes that are so tough for her because of her disability.
In the midst of all this, we just happened to take a close look at Big Brother's achievement scores. The school has always told us he's doing great and making progress. What they failed to mention is that his progress happens to be two grade levels behind everyone else. Pesky details, I guess.
After digging a little deeper, I also found out that they have been failing to give him most of the accommodations outlined in his IEP. Who needs a computer, oral testing, a calculator, shortened assignments and and help with organization when you can just fall further behind instead? As his special education teacher so proudly reported, he gets along great with the other kids in class and doesn't stand out. What more can a parent ask for?
As for the little guy, he's just in preschool, but after his evaluation and diagnosis, it was recommended we go through ChildFind to see what services he might qualify for. Not much, I'm afraid. I was amazed at how this team of professionals took the time to do some highly sophisticated screening tests (where they gave him most of the answers or do-overs if he didn't get it right the first one or two times). To their credit, they went to the school to observe. Too bad they rationalized away every concern the teacher noted.
As I look back over the last month of school dealings I came to a bit of a realization. It was an epiphany of sorts after my fourth consecutive meeting. All of a sudden I discovered a way to fix our ailing educational system. As with many good solutions, it is deceptively simple.
You see, in any given meeting, we've had a slew of professionals staring at us from across the table. Principals, teachers, school psychologists and district SPED supervisors -- all with the same goal.
You'd think it was to educate our children, but you'd be sorely mistaken. Many school districts are so afraid of what it would cost to commit to services that instead they spend countless hours (not to mention a good deal of taxpayer dollars) looking for ways to deny the needs exist.
So my proposal is this: Redistribute responsibilities.
Call me crazy, but wouldn't it be refreshing to redirect the seemingly boundless amount of energy of the teaching staff, administrators and lawyers to finding ways to best teach our children. Just think of a world where these professionals no longer had to devote their time to new and creative ways to push kids through. Or a place where legal teams were replaced with classroom aides or other support staff. Wow! The only word I could use for a mythical place like this would be
Nirvana.
Putting this into action may be a radical idea. But given what we've got right now, what do we have to lose?
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