I knew that from the last meeting, there was a little over a week before the Ohio Achievement Tests (OATs) were to start. I knew that was their reason for such a big rush - more for their benefit than Penelope's. I wanted to slow it down but I didn't want to be spiteful. I just want it to be right and slowing it all down made the people at the school stop to listen. The Tuesday following the Thursday meeting, I decided to call the Director of Special Services. It was more for political reasons than true curiosity. She was outside the situation enough to not know what I was doing, but also the person in charge of Special Education for the district so she should know how poorly this situation is going.
I asked her if she had any books or resources on how to write a behavioral goal for an IEP. She was very polite and asked for more information. I explained in a very general sense, how poorly the meeting went and it's been pretty much left to me. She continued to ask questions and we started brainstorming ideas. I said that these were the topics that I think should have been discussed but that Mrs. Carpenter feels that Penelope's emotional problems shouldn't be dealt with at school, that is what therapy is for (which explains why every time I meet with her, she always asks if Penelope is still in therapy). I explained that I disagreed, as the emotional problems need to be addressed because they impact Penelope's ability to learn, makes her sicker, and she brings that home and abuses me with it. Again, therapy for Penelope is 24/7, not the 1 hour per week we are meeting with the Attachment Therapists. The Director said she agrees with what I was saying but she also sees where Mrs. Carpenter is coming from. She says "You are both right." How political of an answer is that! So anyway, she decided to set up a meeting with herself, me and Mrs. Carpenter. I tried to see if she would rather have 6th grade Intervention Specialist there instead since she will be the one who really will be implementing it. I told her that I don't feel Mrs. Carpenter knows what Penelope's needs are, explaining some of the challenges I have had with her through the school year. She didn't say no but pretty much did but going back to Mrs. Carpenter. Fine, no one likes to step on toes over there.
The Director was in charge of scheduling this meeting and told me she wouldn't be getting back to me until probably Friday. However, she ended up calling me on Thursday saying that the reason the teachers wanted to push the IEP through was because they wanted to have the OATs read to Penelope as an accommodation. Right.. I offered to amend her 504 plan to have that in there. I had to show up the next day in order to do that so it was in there before the OATs began.
But the meeting was scheduled that following Thursday, for an hour (it took over two) as that was all the time Mrs. Carpenter had that week. I brought my dad for support, and I prepared two pages of typed notes that I handed out. I had gone line by line through the draft IEP and made notes on the changes. They were somewhat shocked with the amount of changes I wanted, but I explained it's not as bad as it looks at first. I typed out the sentences I wanted deleted as well as typed out what I think should replace them.
We started with the behavioral part, at the Director's suggestion - since it was the key issue. The goal "Needs" section that Mrs. Carpenter put in was "Penelope needs to start working immediately and stay on task. She needs to learn how to problem solve." 'Start work immediately'? what's that mean exactly? Do we put a timer on her desk to measure how quickly or slowly she starts working when the assignment is given? And where is the behavioral link to these issues? Obviously, as per the statute, the behavioral piece has to be tied to her academics, but what Mrs. Carpenter wrote didn't make sense to me. So I suggested "Penelope needs to become more independent in her work by staying focused and on task, learn how to problem solve, and acquire a 'menu' of strategies in order to remain engaged and complete work successfully. Penelope needs to develop appropriate coping skills when in stress-induced situations to develop appropriate responses and behaviors." I made a point that Penelope working independently "successfully" was the key. She has learned to deal with her emotions through coping skills and making good decisions but successfully meaning, resulting in a good grade. Nothing about good grades was listed. Just that she had to complete the assignments. I told them that we have had to push the concept of not just putting an answer down but the right answer down when doing assignements.
The Director went through each section of my goal and decided she liked it. Mrs. Carpenter begrudgingly acknowledged it would work and put it in there. We talked on how to implement that into the Benchmarks/Short-Term Objectives. They ended up being:
a) When given homework assignements daily, Penelope will complete assignments 3/4 times and turn them in to the teacher. (That was Mrs. Carpenters. I asked to have the 'turn them in to the teacher' part because Mrs. Carpenter did acknowledge that the issue of Penelope doing her assignments in general is in the past - so she has already met this objective. Was it suppose to be filler than? Set expectations low? Something she has always done with Penelope. 'Don't expect much from Penelope...' Anway.. don't like her!)
b) When given the directions to complete classroom assignments, Penelope will independently complete 3 out of 4 assignments daily with an 80% or above. (This was the key goal. This is the one that the Director and I spoke about the most. It really encompasses all the issues identified in her needs section.)
c) Molly will problem solve situations involving avoidance behaviors that arise at school 80% of the time. (This was actually written during the first IEP meeting by the recommendation of the 6th grade person. Mrs. Carpenter didn't like it because she felt it would waste valueable time doing something else. She didn't complain about leaving it in at the second meeting, especially when I showed the Director the problem solving grids that the 6th grade person gave me that would be used in this piece. She really liked it.)
The last piece that was changed on the behavioral goal is the list of accommodations. The original accommodations, which mostly just address her academic needs (relating to goals 1 & 2 - reading and writing respectively) didn't cut it for me when it came to the behavioral side, the accommodations that Mrs. Carpenter had been fighting me on from the get go. The accommodations they wanted to have in are:
Chunking (splitting work into chunks to give her breaks), extended time, read directions out loud, read test or passage out loud (we took this out of the 504 at the beginning of the year since she was caught up, but since she hasn't progressed this year with her reading level, we have to put it back in since she is, again, a year behind), small group setting, student will read test to adult, use of computer as needed, reduce assignments as needed (this was debated, because again, I don't want them to lower their expectations of her because she could feed right into that but I agreed to leave that in with the condition it will be an agreement between her teacher and I during a period that Penelope isn't coping well), calculator for mathematical process and applications (whatever - it was stated that math is getting to the point where it's about theory and calculators wouldn't help her anyway - good), homework check, safe place (this was there one and only behavioral accommodation on her 504 - pitiful isn't it?)
The ones I had added after some discussion:
natural and or logical consequences to avoidance and manipulative behavior, needs to be informed about any changes in daily schedule, nonverbal signal to leave room when noncompliant (also known as the Take A Hike Program - Nancy Thomas), access to a consisten safe place for calming (Strong Sitting - Nancy Thomas), set clear guidelines and expectations but no reminders, response to emails within two working days.
The thing they wouldn't put in - because they said it should be part of her behavior plan not her IEP, is that there is NO anger when disciplining Penelope. No lectures, warnings, bribes or second changes. Also, conditional positive reinforcement. "I see you... working hard." Not "You are such a hard worker." Doesn't go over the same way - makes them self-consious and practically sabotages the efforts. It's the low-self esteem. Just look at Nancy Thomas' website. It works! But anyway, I look forward to seeing this Behavioral Plan that I suspect Mrs. Carpenter has already forgotten about. She mentioned doing one at both IEP meetings but that's all that has been said.
After we got the behavioral piece done, I wanted to address what was written in the "Present Levels" part. Before that though, I asked them to change the "Discuss future planning. (Family and student prefereces and interests)" Before, Mrs. Carpenter wrote "The team includes Penelope's parent would like to see Penelope be confident and have a great year." My insider told me to change that and be more specific. That section really lays out the involvement and interest of the family to whomever reads the IEP. So I had it changed to "The team, including Penelope's parent and grandfather, would like to see Penelope be condifent and proud of her work, develop a love of reading, become an independent worker, develop strong interpersonal skills and friendships with other students, gain self-esteem, be able to set personal and academic goals, and eventually graduate high school and go to college."
The "Prensent Levels" section of my notes were the most overwelming to them. But it really addressed 3 different things.
1) What was stated about her present reading level and testing. Her testing was inconsistant so it is hard to determine what level she really is at - versus just stating she is at 2nd grade - 4th grade level. I had them add a note about successfully completing her 4th grade OATs as well as a reading assessment test that my Aunt gave her. The Director tried to say because it was a relative, it wasn't credible. The conversation got a bit heated and my dad through in the white towel - "It makes sense to leave in the 'second - forth grade' so the teachers know where she is at." But Mrs. Carpenter, I think, tired of the arguing, put a blurb about her end of 4th grade reading level assessment results in there.
2) The part that addressed her writing discussed an assignment given at the beginning of the year where the students had to write a memoir - and how poorly she did on it. I became emotional when discussing this piece. I said I wanted it taken completely out, because a) it happened at the beginning of the school year, but b) it was asking her to write a memoir. I discussed with her teacher during this assignment how difficult this might be for her - to ask Penelope to write about her past, especially where she was at coming right out of the hospital for the second time! They quickly agreed to remove it.
3) There wasn't much written about her behavior in the present level. I wanted them to add more specifics about her behavior and issues in school, somatization, hyperactiveity, manipulation etc. They referenced the part of her evaluation that I copied for the piece I wanted in her IEP. I think they were getting tired. That's fine, as long as it didn't have anything that would paint a picture for the incumbant team that they need to set their expecations low for Penelope, and I was happy with the needs, goals, benchmarks and accommodations, I went ahead and signed it.
I wasn't going to go into this much detail in this blog, but I know that I had a hard time finding any samples of IEP info for my RAD child while I was searching the internet, so maybe what I have may help someone who comes across this. I don't know if the IEP is good or bad, but it is there.. we will see in the next year. But I still go back to the school and it really depends if they live by it. I really don't think they did with the 504.
Also, I didn't put anything in here about her first two goals, reading and writing. I pretty much left that up to the school since that is their area of expertise. I made sure it made sense to me and I think the only change related to setting goals for "successful" grades.
In my research on IEP writing, there are a lot of different formats and methodologies. One method I thought made sense to me, is from http://concordspedpac.org/IEPGoals.html
"The goals should be what we expect of regular students. The IEP goals explains how your child gets from "here" to "there".
Reed Martin, tells that a goal should have 5 components:
1. The direction we want to go (increase or decrease)
2. the problem we are addressing
3. the present level
4. the amount of change, by the end of this IEP year
5. the methodology needed
To bring in Wrightslaw information and state and federal regulations, we are going to add a 6th components.
6. Measured by (standardized test)
Reed's Martin exampleJohnny will:
(1) increase
(2) in-seat on-task behavior
(3) from 0% of the time currently to
(4) 50% of the time by the end of this year
(5) by training the teacher in positive behavior interventions that give reinforcement to in-seat, on task behavior
and do not unintentionally reinforce Johnny by giving attention to out of seat behavior.
When I discussed having a time or a methodology at the end of each goal (objective), I was told that wasn't the way they write objectives. To me it spells things out. But they don't like that because it ties them down and they said it would be hard to be flexable.
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