Can The Happy Dance & IEP Meetings Coexist? This is a question that has baffled the most astute scholars for ages…okay, maybe not but I enjoyed writing this and I like my snowman graphic.
We are numb from ten years of IEP Meetings for both of our children who have specific learning disabilities, that is why there was little reaction as we sat through the latest IEP Meeting and listened to another educator try to explain away our son's dyslexia by calling him a “nervous” reader who is fine once he gets rolling. I did start to wind up a little as I was listening to the educator speak about how important context clues are to reading and how they didn't care for evaluations on “nonsense” words because there was nothing for the student to gauge off of to understand what the words were, but my reaction may have just been out of habit. I did share that “nonsense” words are important because it allows you to see if your student is understanding the sounds of the letters and applying rules to be able to read a word, but I let it go at that because our son is finished with all the battling we've done in previous IEP Meetings, he understands how sometimes battling in those meetings means that frustrations are carried right out into the classroom and I could tell by his body language and could feel his, “let's move on stare” burning into the side of my face. So, we moved on because it's his IEP and at seventeen he knows what he needs in terms of goals and accommodations.
We've worked hard through the years to understand what our children's special education rights and needs are and have tweaked our son's accommodations during that time to help make him successful. We've been told at times that some of his accommodations are unique, making it hard for some educators to understand how to implement them, but it's hard for us to understand how having: extra time, not grading on spelling, having tests read aloud, testing in a less distracting space, copies of notes and having a set of textbooks for home are unique, but that's subjective, I guess. I would like to share that he has had many teachers who, once they understood his learning style would go above and beyond what was written in the IEP to help him succeed in their class. Then, you have the few educators who make you scratch your head and wonder what in the world is making them so angry about a requested accommodation and they are unfortunately the memorable ones because they have caused your child angst and frustration. For example, the educator who was visibly angry at an IEP meeting when we asked for an accommodation of receiving a copy of the class notes. They were angry that they would have to walk to the office and make the copies. During the meeting, the principal offered to get them a printer to avoid the trip to the office and they did receive one in the classroom, but apparently had trouble operating it so it disappeared from the class and our son was then sent to the office to make his own copy of the notes.
So, Can The Happy Dance and IEP Meetings Coexist? That’s probably a question best answered by someone more scholarly than myself. We haven’t had the fortune of having a wonderful experience during our time of IEP Meetings but I believe we have just one meeting left during our son's school career barring any unforeseen issues, so we are doing the happy dance because we see the end approaching, but there's an anxiety cloud looming that I keep pushing away for now, it's our daughter's first high school IEP Meeting on the horizon. She has dyscalculia and has been fortunate enough to have supportive school staff in the past, because with her, we've heard things in meetings like, how lucky she is to just have an issue with math and not reading because at least she can read and that's more important.
We're hoping for the best.
We are numb from ten years of IEP Meetings for both of our children who have specific learning disabilities, that is why there was little reaction as we sat through the latest IEP Meeting and listened to another educator try to explain away our son's dyslexia by calling him a “nervous” reader who is fine once he gets rolling. I did start to wind up a little as I was listening to the educator speak about how important context clues are to reading and how they didn't care for evaluations on “nonsense” words because there was nothing for the student to gauge off of to understand what the words were, but my reaction may have just been out of habit. I did share that “nonsense” words are important because it allows you to see if your student is understanding the sounds of the letters and applying rules to be able to read a word, but I let it go at that because our son is finished with all the battling we've done in previous IEP Meetings, he understands how sometimes battling in those meetings means that frustrations are carried right out into the classroom and I could tell by his body language and could feel his, “let's move on stare” burning into the side of my face. So, we moved on because it's his IEP and at seventeen he knows what he needs in terms of goals and accommodations.
We've worked hard through the years to understand what our children's special education rights and needs are and have tweaked our son's accommodations during that time to help make him successful. We've been told at times that some of his accommodations are unique, making it hard for some educators to understand how to implement them, but it's hard for us to understand how having: extra time, not grading on spelling, having tests read aloud, testing in a less distracting space, copies of notes and having a set of textbooks for home are unique, but that's subjective, I guess. I would like to share that he has had many teachers who, once they understood his learning style would go above and beyond what was written in the IEP to help him succeed in their class. Then, you have the few educators who make you scratch your head and wonder what in the world is making them so angry about a requested accommodation and they are unfortunately the memorable ones because they have caused your child angst and frustration. For example, the educator who was visibly angry at an IEP meeting when we asked for an accommodation of receiving a copy of the class notes. They were angry that they would have to walk to the office and make the copies. During the meeting, the principal offered to get them a printer to avoid the trip to the office and they did receive one in the classroom, but apparently had trouble operating it so it disappeared from the class and our son was then sent to the office to make his own copy of the notes.
So, Can The Happy Dance and IEP Meetings Coexist? That’s probably a question best answered by someone more scholarly than myself. We haven’t had the fortune of having a wonderful experience during our time of IEP Meetings but I believe we have just one meeting left during our son's school career barring any unforeseen issues, so we are doing the happy dance because we see the end approaching, but there's an anxiety cloud looming that I keep pushing away for now, it's our daughter's first high school IEP Meeting on the horizon. She has dyscalculia and has been fortunate enough to have supportive school staff in the past, because with her, we've heard things in meetings like, how lucky she is to just have an issue with math and not reading because at least she can read and that's more important.
We're hoping for the best.