As a parent we want what is best for our children. In schools, however, it is easy for your child to get overlooked and not get the assistance he needs. Your child is just one in a sea of faces. Typically the children that get the most attention in the classroom are the brightest students or the students that frequently misbehave.
There is also another group that any child can fall into – the one where the parents take an active participation in their child’s academics.
Teachers notice the parents who show up to conferences, inquire about how their child is doing in their class, who volunteer, and if they are on the autism spectrum – show up to their child’s IEP meeting. At least one of us would always show up for every parent/teacher conference or open house. It wasn’t always easy sometimes we would have to do the conference over the phone or bring a younger sibling to the meeting, but we made it work.
We’d look at the sign in sheet one time saw that even though we were in one of the last time slots, only six parents had shown up the open house. I had even inquired if the first sign up sheet had been full and this was the second, but the teacher said that was the only one. She looked sad that the parents didn’t care enough about their child’s education to come and meet her. So when we did it helped her remember us, and our child. We spoke with her about what we could do to help our son, and approached it as a team sport, and we wanted to all be playing the same game the same way.
We would call or email the teacher when we had a question or if our son was struggling in the class. We would try to volunteer when we could, sometimes it was only to send items to school or chaperone a field trip. The teachers and the staff knew us by sight and were always friendly with us and our children.
We attended every meeting we could. At one of our son’s schools we were told that only about half to a third of the parents attended their child’s IEP meeting, and almost none had both parents in attendance. The fact that we’d both show up often surprised people. It was, and still is, an easy way to make your child stand out and get the assistance they need.
When they were reducing the autism program at our son’s school we were told there was one slot left and it was between our son and one of his friends. Both desperately needed to be in the program, but they told us they selected our son since we were active parents and our son had a greater chance at success since we were directly involved in his education. I’m by no means saying that this was right – it wasn’t – but we need to make sure that our child gets all the assistance he needs by being his advocate.
Just because your child needs something, doesn’t mean they will get it. It could even be required by law, but many schools find loopholes to justify not giving your child what they need. They know that most parents will eventually back off. Don’t. Be persistent. Find a way.
Our middle son needed summer school for knowledge retention issues, as well as social skills retention for interacting with children on his age level. The school told us that summer school had limited funding and was only for children who failed both parts of the standardized testing, which he didn’t. I asked him if there was money allotted for him that hadn’t been used, could be used to pay for his slot. He said he didn’t know and that it hadn’t been done before. I requested that they check. As it turned out, there was enough remaining and we were able to “purchase” his spot in the program. By being persistent and thinking out of the box we were able to get our son the assistance he needed.
Read up and ask around about things that your child might be eligible but not receiving. Most schools will not offer extra things that might be available because it requires more money or effort. They know people usually will not check, so they deny or not offer. Sometimes you have to pay a professional IEP Advocate to intervene on your behalf, but usually they are well worth what you spend.
When our oldest went to middle school they were not following his IEP, some classes were too easy and some were too hard. Rather then putting him in classes at the appropriate level for each subject they just assigned him the classes that fit their predetermined schedule. He would frequently get frustrated in the harder classes, so we asked them to fix this. So they put him in a self-contained class with other children who were way below his education level. His teacher tried getting him the curriculum he needed, but the school would not purchase the curriculum for just one child. Once again we approached the school about not following his IEP, but we were making no progress.
We researched our options and came up with three – sue the school system (lengthy and expensive), hire an IEP advocate (which might have limited success since the school said they were doing everything they could already), or apply for the McKay scholarship (A Florida program which uses the public school funding allotted for your child to be applied to a private school).
Now parents have to pay the difference at whatever the McKay scholarship didn’t cover, however, we came across a private school that wasn’t far from where we lived that looked perfect for our son that accepted whatever the child’s funding was and didn’t require parents to pay anything (just provide transportation to and from the school). We were able to qualify for the scholarship and have our son accepted in the school. He flourished there and made great progress. Always know your options.
Remember – no one cares more about your child than you do. If you don’t push for what is best for your child, then no one else will.
