We met with the county people yesterday to see if the J-man would “qualify” for the school-system-run preschool. We had to take the J-man with us in an un-napped state, because the ONLY slot they had available was at 3 PM. You know, right in the middle of rest time. Good times.
The people were nice and all, and they think the J-man is adorable (because he is) but seriously, the woman who took minutes? Has no business ever writing again. And she’s a teacher. Also, the coordinator may want to re-think her strategy of “sharing” her monitor with me because obviously “sharing” is “inconceivable.” (“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”) Sharing does not mean briefly flashing the screen towards me, and then choosing what you think is best without consulting me.
Today I had to send the coordinator an email giving her all the errors in the reports and minutes. She was NOT pleased with me, and kept insisting that something had happened yesterday, when it obviously had not. Really, why would I tell you that my child knows his numbers, when he doesn’t? It seems bizarre, since from what I understand, parents should make their child’s issues look as significant as possible to get the kind of support actually needed. *sigh* We went back and forth, and finally she said she would just attach my corrections to the bottom of the report (where they are oh so likely to be read *eyes rolling wildly*).
Not exactly the way I wanted to start our relationship.
In completely unrelated news, my boss’s wife is in the hospital today being induced with their newest child. Last I heard, he was tracking the contractions via a spreadsheet. I seriously work for a geek. But a nice geek.
Posts that hopefully are similar:
- Preschool and IEP – The Adventure Begins!
- Our First IEP Process Draws to a Happy Close
- It Takes a School Village to Make a Great IEP
- IEP Results – The Short Version
- Giving Thanks for Therapists – A Season of Transitions
- Of IEPs and Heartburn
- Pointers and Tips on the IEP Process (Guest Post!)
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Yikes.
Is there a means of getting this, uh, “more properly corrected” perhaps? I’m guessing no, as this is how things often go. I’m so sorry.
Record-keeping apparently takes on a different dimension in this process. After this first round, the whole thing feels more like an audit trail, where everything is preserved even if it’s wrong. Knowing that, we’ll basically ask to review all minutes and forms filled out while we were there before we physically leave. Clearly the go-home-and-email-me-with-corrections method has some shortcomings we weren’t aware of at the time.
The process feels less like the accurate accounting and preservation of quantitative and qualitative data and more like a convoluted covering and preservation of various people’s buttocks. Given the byzantine bureaucracy that surrounds this process – much of it federally mandated – I guess none of this should be a surprise.
Clearly, what is said and what is received by the hearer can be much farther apart than I imagined. The takeaway – we have to be very precise in our language and make sure our comments are recorded accurately. Anyone who knows me knows that I am prone to hyperbole. (Captain Hyperbole!!! It’s at least a billion zillion times worse than I imagined!!!) This is not a good trait to have in this process.
As someone who gets paid to obsess about people’s technical and information processes, there wouldn’t be enough money in the world to get me to touch trying to fix theirs. When you spend more time being upset about how the Microsoft Word form functions and is designed than actually trying to record the information accurately, the process is broken. Period.
All that said, I still think this will turn out fine.
I just had this vision of you and Mary submitting all answers in writing.
You jest, but that may be closer to reality than you might think…
It’s only somewhat in jest.
It frustrates the you-know-what out of me when I say something and what is returned is something completely different from what I have said. At times I’ve thought about just writing comments on the board, if for no other reason, to be able to prove “no, that is not what I said.” I find putting words in one’s mouth (how was that for polite phrasing) to be incredibly rude.
If I had to deal with this, with the stakes being the care of my child, they’d be doing CPR on me pretty quick.
People need to listen more, interpret less.
As both a professional and a parent of a special needs child, I have been on both sides of the table. I just thank the maker that I don’t have to take notes, because your perception that it is a bureaucratic nightmare is correct. We always have sent letters detailing our concerns regarding the minutes, IEP (in your case IFSP) and all other statements. We have always tended to word it as such: “We were under the impression that…” Details usually get the ball rolling and sometimes you have to beat the drum over and over again (It has taken almost 2 years to get our son’s writing goals to accurately reflect what is wrong…) Good luck!
@JB – People have suggested using a digital recorder at meetings to preserve the gospel record of what is said, which by all accounts is fine if you inform everyone there about it and the recording is made available to everyone present. However, this strikes me as the (sorry, I hate using this term) ‘nuclear option’ since recorders fundamentally alter the conversation and make everyone edgy and mistrustful. Short of that, ensuring the complete accuracy of the minutes and other techniques of leaving a paper trail seem to provide a good alternative.
Nolo.com puts out an IEP reference guide with boatloads of forms and sample letters – along with how to best use them – that outlines the myriad ways you can leave a paper trail and make sure you stay on offense. I think we dropped our parental Spidey-sense too much this last round. Call it a learning experience, and we’re fast learners.
Like I’ve said before, I don’t think all this was intentional as they seem like people who genuinely want to be helpful, it’s just that the system seems designed to make things very awkward. You just have to learn the rules of the chessboard and play accordingly. I used to play chess a lot, but this is way more complicated, though.
@John – We’ve had pretty good luck with the accuracy of the IFSPs and the helpfulness of the people we’ve worked with around that. That said, we didn’t have to fight for services during Early Intervention so the stakes were a lot lower. With the IEP process now, it’s an order of magnitude more complex, and a real learning curve.
Your words re-emphasize what I’ve been hearing from others lately. The best offense doesn’t at all seem like a good defense. Being on defense allows control to stay in the school’s court. Staying on offense and not letting up really seems to be the best answer, which means sending letters, making sure everything is in writing and clear, making the school system respond to you and not just responding to what they write for you, and so on.
This isn’t to say that school systems are malicious or manipulative or whatever – though some are I’m sure. It’s nothing personal with the schools or the people involved, most of whom are helpful and professional. First and foremost, a paper trail isn’t about collecting enough paper to then later beat someone to death with it – though that may prove necessary – but about being professional, accurate, and leaving little or nothing about your child’s future to chance. If the schools can’t accept that, then that’s their problem. If they can generate paper, so can we.
We learned a lot in a hurry and now have a much better idea of how to avoid our errors in the future. Like you said, nothing beats determination and persistence.
I have found great resources in books and online for how to word letters and other communications with school systems. I need to compile those and post them up here. Resources like that and wisdom from people like you have really clarified for us the kinds of things we need to do. Thanks!