Yea, though I battle through the valley of the shadow of IEP season, I shall fear not using the Procedural Safeguards: for the law art with me.
With a brutal winter and a ton of snow days, our school year ended even later than it typically does. It is with great joy that we have entered SUMMER.
This IEP season for both kids has been the most difficult to date. Countless IEP meetings in person, via email and by phone could not resolve differences in opinion between our family and our district. Hiring a great attorney changed all that and with her help we are finally moving forward in a way we can support.
I’m not litigious and pride myself with my negotiation skills, so it is no small thing that we are ending this school year and entering ESY for summer with 2 settlement agreements. I did not want to have it go to this level, but our core belief in inclusion, FAPE, and LRE just didn’t line up with our district’s plan for educating our 2 kids with IEPs.
Despite our disagreements I continue to believe we have a fantastic team of teachers and therapists who believe in our kids. When you have as many team members as we do, you have to get creative in order to be thrifty with thank-you gifts. I ordered these extra large soup mugs in November intending to use them as holiday gifts, but then I had spinal surgery and they sat in boxes. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. Mark helped me package them in cellophane and ribbons and dropped them off.
In any case, I’ve learned so much through advocating for our kids and I am more determined than ever to make systems change. I’ll just need a little time to recover.
Welcome to SUMMER - rising 4th grade boy and 2nd grade girl!
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