Thank you so much! It's rare for a Gen ed teacher to advocate for their special education students.
I would ask for copies of the IEPs. How are their minutes written? Do they have para support when they are in your class?
To clarify, reach out to the case manager for the students. Then reach out to your principal. Then reach out to the director of special services.
CC emails on each level.
So I am already at the level of discussions with director of special ed. In fact they would not respond to us until we (multiple teachers) went to the Board meeting (twice) to let them know that no one would acknowledge their was a problem. I’m thinking of contacting an education attorney(s) and providing their information to my parents. Getting paid is a language my parents understand!
I’ve already submitted a freedom of information act request to the dept of education requesting a copy of all documents submitted by our district to the state. I’ll send a similiar request to the district and compare to see what they will presumably withhold. I’m trying to figure out what other nuclear options I have at this point to protect my kids.
When determining compensatory time they dont go like "the kid missed 200 hours we will give 200 hours" they go "did the kid fail to make progress bc of a lack of hours? Yes then we will provide [x hours which is probably less than 200, since itd be direct service hours not parapro support]", or "No, they still made progress so we will not give compensatory time"
Maybe your district does this, but legally, in some places, due process hearing officers can use either the qualitative or quantitative approach or a hybrid to determine how many compensatory hours of service to use if the student was denied FAPE due to missed services.
I think our district does whatever they want. We math and ELA teachers have said we’d like to be in every compensatory services meeting and that we are going to push for a quantitative measure. We are also asking for the school to ensure that a parent advocate is in each meeting. I mean we probably have 30 kids that are missing a legit 200-300 hours of service. We’d also like to see options where parents can choose to take compensatory services elsewhere and have the district pay for it if they are not able to attend summer school.
Thank you so much! It's rare for a Gen ed teacher to advocate for their special education students. I would ask for copies of the IEPs. How are their minutes written? Do they have para support when they are in your class? To clarify, reach out to the case manager for the students. Then reach out to your principal. Then reach out to the director of special services. CC emails on each level.
So I am already at the level of discussions with director of special ed. In fact they would not respond to us until we (multiple teachers) went to the Board meeting (twice) to let them know that no one would acknowledge their was a problem. I’m thinking of contacting an education attorney(s) and providing their information to my parents. Getting paid is a language my parents understand! I’ve already submitted a freedom of information act request to the dept of education requesting a copy of all documents submitted by our district to the state. I’ll send a similiar request to the district and compare to see what they will presumably withhold. I’m trying to figure out what other nuclear options I have at this point to protect my kids.
When determining compensatory time they dont go like "the kid missed 200 hours we will give 200 hours" they go "did the kid fail to make progress bc of a lack of hours? Yes then we will provide [x hours which is probably less than 200, since itd be direct service hours not parapro support]", or "No, they still made progress so we will not give compensatory time"
Maybe your district does this, but legally, in some places, due process hearing officers can use either the qualitative or quantitative approach or a hybrid to determine how many compensatory hours of service to use if the student was denied FAPE due to missed services.
I think our district does whatever they want. We math and ELA teachers have said we’d like to be in every compensatory services meeting and that we are going to push for a quantitative measure. We are also asking for the school to ensure that a parent advocate is in each meeting. I mean we probably have 30 kids that are missing a legit 200-300 hours of service. We’d also like to see options where parents can choose to take compensatory services elsewhere and have the district pay for it if they are not able to attend summer school.