1. EFFECTIVE ADVOCACY
FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION
PART 1
Copywrite 2011 by Lynne Adams http://www.napsea.co
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Contents:
1. How to Address Your Concerns
2. How to Get Your Child Evaluated
3. What Evaluations to Ask for
4. What Happens Next
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2. Concerns
Academic Areas
You may have concerns about your child’s learning.
You may start to see your child struggling and not keeping up with the
school work.
You’ve thought that the teacher would give your child some extra help and
everything would be ok.
You start to help your child more with homework and realize that he
doesn’t understand the academics.
You meet with the teacher and the teacher also sees your child’s difficulty.
The teacher asks if you’ve considered medication.
Social Areas
You may have concerns about your child’s social skills.
You start to worry that your child isn’t making friends.
When they are with other children, they aren’t interested in playing with
them.
They get too close or don’t make eye contact.
They don’t play appropriately with toys.
Emotional Areas
You may have concerns about your child’s emotional health.
You start to see mood swings.
Your child is anxious.
Your child is depressed.
Your child is complaining of a stomach ache or head ache but there is
nothing physically wrong.
Your child is constantly going to the nurse.
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3. Behavioral Areas
You may have concerns about your child’s behavior.
Your child is getting into trouble in school.
Your child is always in the principal’s office.
Your child is getting suspended from school.
Your child is refusing to do work (defiant)
Your child is obsessive with routines.
Aggressive behavior that is not provoked.
Frequent tantrums that last a longer than 30 minutes.
Extreme responses to situations.
Physical Areas
You may have concerns about your child’s physical development.
You may see problems with handwriting or manipulating small objects.
There may be difficulty with throwing a ball, riding a bike, balance,
climbing, etc…
You may see unusual fatigue.
You might see poor posture.
Seeing one or two of these things may not be worrisome, but a multitude of issues will cause
concern. Trust your instincts and judgement. If you are concerned, it’s usually right to be.
What can you do?
First Steps
1. Start to write down all of the things that you are concerned about with
details (dates, times, items, and areas of concern).
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4. 2. Request a meeting with the teacher to see what is happening in school and
if the teacher shares your concerns or has other concerns.
3. Request in writing that your child be evaluated to determine if your child
needs special education.
You have the right to have your child evaluated in all areas related to the
suspected disability.
Educational
Psychological
Speech and language
Occupational Therapy
Physical Therapy
Specific Learning disability
Social/Emotional/Behavioral
These evaluations should provide a detailed description of your child’s
educational needs and answer these questions:
1. Does your child have a disability? What type?
2. Does the disability cause the child to be unable to progress effectively in
regular education?
3. Does the child require specially designed instruction to make effective
progress or does the child require a related service or services in order to
access the general curriculum?
Once you request these evaluations, the school department must get your
consent. A consent form will be sent to you for your signature. When you sign
and return the consent form, the school department has a limited time to
evaluate your child and hold a meeting to discuss the results and determine
appropriate action.
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5. The meeting will be held to determine eligibility for special education, based on
the student’s evaluations and other information provided by the team members,
including the parent and student.
Team Meeting
Required Members
Parent
Student (at age 14 or earlier when appropriate)
Teacher
Special education teacher
School district representative (special education director)
Someone Qualified to interpret evaluation results (speech therapist)
Optional members
Others with information to share
Parents guest/advocate
Outside providers (therapists…)
At the teem meeting, you will be asked to state your concerns and what you hope
to see your child accomplish. Everyone will discuss your child’s challenges,
strengths, and evaluation results.
If your child is determined eligible, an IEP (individual Education Program) is
developed with accommodations, skill goals, services and other provisions which
will assist your child with learning and accessing the curriculum.
Be sure to address other areas of development as well, social, emotional,
behavioral, and physical. Sometimes the academics is the focus, but these areas
affect academics and the child’s outcomes.
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6. The school district will then propose the final draft of the IEP for you to accept or
reject*. You can reject in whole or in part.
*Never reject your first IEP in full. If you disagree with sections, then reject those
sections. But accept all other areas of the IEP so that your child can begin to get
some support.
Placement
Once you have developed the IEP the team should discuss Placement. This is the
type of classroom where the IEP will be implemented and where your child can
make progress. This should be the least restrictive environment. The least
restrictive environment is where typically developing students are taught and is
considered general education.
Your child may need a more restrictive environment, but this should be only until
they are making sufficient progress to be placed back in the mainstream
classroom.
For more information, read Effective Advocacy for Special Education Part 2
Join Lynne Adams at NAPSEA National Association for Professional Special
Education Advocates and Parents http://www.napsea.co
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7. Federal Resources
US Department of Education www.ed.gov
US DOE Office for Civil Rights www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/
National Council on Disability www.ncd.gov
National Information Center for Children & Youth with Disabilities (NICHCY)
www.nichcy.org
U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/
NCLB No Child Left Behind Act
NAPSEA National Association for Professional Special Education Advocates
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