When
my son was going into kindergarten, it was a traumatic time - more for me than
for him. He was leaving the safety of
the developmental preschool, where I knew and trusted everyone, and entering
the “real world” – a regular ed kindergarten class at the local neighborhood
school. I dutifully prepared a
bullet-point list of “essential” information I felt the staff at the new school
needed to know about how to deal with my son.
Then, since I have a tendency to be long-winded, I weeded it down to the
final product - 3 pages with 20 bullet points.
I made copies for his regular ed teacher, special ed teacher, and the
paraeducator who would be working with him.
A
year later, at the beginning of the next school year, two things happened. First, I gave the same list to my son’s 1st
grade teacher and his new special ed teacher.
Second, as a brand new special ed teacher, I received an 8-page
single-spaced narrative about one of my students. This was eye-opening for me. Because I was now on the teacher side, my
son’s teachers were much more blunt with me than his kindergarten teachers were
– “Janell, do you really expect me to read this? I don’t have time to read this. Nutshell it for me.” Suddenly, my carefully thought-out list
became four short phrases –
- Stay calm, no matter what.
- No food because of life-threatening allergies.
- He’s a runner and will leave the building.
- Use “first-then” for everything.
But,
even more eye-opening to me, was my reaction to the document I received. As the parent of a child with a disability, I
understood COMPLETELY this parent’s desire to share about their child and
should have been jumping at the chance to read this in-depth picture of my new
student. But I was completely
overwhelmed. Honestly, I didn’t even
look at it – it went straight to my “I’ll get to this when I can” pile on my
desk, where it stayed until the end of the school year. Oh, I have plenty of excuses, all of which
were very valid. After all, I was just
hired 2 weeks before school started and expected to create a brand-new classroom
from scratch including buying curriculum AND start courses toward my license
AND attend the new teacher trainings --- all at the same time. But those things don’t matter to the parents
of that individual student. I failed them – 2 weeks into my job and I had
already failed at something that was one of my prime directives – give parents
a voice. My only saving grace was these
parents came to Back-to-School night and gave me the opportunity to hear from
them in person about their child.
This
experience taught me three things.
First, it is better to ask for a short, face-to-face meeting with your
child’s teacher at the beginning of the school year. Stress that you only need 15 or 20 minutes of
the teacher’s time and stick to that time limit. Emails and notes are great for a written
record but a face-to-face meeting is better for gaining the complete attention
of the teacher. Second, while it is
tempting to share every possible contingency of what could happen with your
child, limit yourself to the 3 or 4 things that your child’s teacher needs to know
to survive the first week. There will be
plenty of opportunity for the other strategies later, as they are needed. Third, give the teacher the benefit of the
doubt. Don’t immediately assume the
teacher isn’t going to work with you.
Even the teachers with the best of intentions are overwhelmed and are
very limited in their time and resources.
So, until the teacher gives you reason to think otherwise, assume she’s
slow to respond because she’s swamped – and trust me, she IS swamped. Give her a reasonable length of time and
follow up with another attempt to address your concerns.
Prior to becoming a
special ed teacher, I was the president of a parent support group – in fact, I
still am. In this position, I field a
lot of questions about how to get services from the school district. In all honesty, special ed law is VERY
complicated. The more informed a parent
is, the more likely that their child will get the services they qualify
for. Even more honesty – NO teacher OR
district person knows everything there is to know about special ed law. I had a 30 year teacher/district person tell
me recently, “Don’t take my word for it.
I might be wrong. I don’t know
everything. That’s why we call [so and
so] at the State Office.” So, become
informed and come to meetings with your findings in black and white. If you do your homework, you’ll have more
success.
How
can you become more educated? The whole
basis of the law is a federal law called IDEA 2004 – the official website is http://idea.ed.gov/
-- click on the section that covers your child’s age. I highly encourage every parent to read IDEA
and highlight the parts you want to know more about. Then go to http://www.wrightslaw.com/ and use their
search feature to get interpretations of the sections of IDEA that you wanted
clarification about. Then, go to your
state’s Office of Education website and explore the resources they have under
special ed. One of the resources on the
Utah State Office of Education website is the handouts from the 2010 Special Ed
Law Conference, which I attended – here’s the link -- http://www.schools.utah.gov/sars/2010-Conference.aspx
. Talk about eye-opening. That conference was EYE-OPENING! I highly encourage every parent of a child
with autism to read the one about autism and LRE (Least Restrictive
Environment). In fact, if you ever get
the opportunity to attend a law conference, jump at it. Utah has one every August and it’s attended
by educators, college students, AND parents.
Finally, as the president of a parent support group, I
have to put a plug in for being involved in one. This will help you meet parents who have
“been there done that” as well as give you opportunities to attend classes that
will help you become more knowledgeable.
Check the websites of the various national organizations to see if they
have a local chapter in your area.
Contact service providers and the school to see if they know of any
support groups in the area. If you have
to, start your own by putting out flyers and asking other parents to help you
get one off the ground.
In
an effort to take my own advice, I’m going to close by nut-shelling my
long-winded advice:
- Have a brief face-to-face to share essential information.
- Assume the best of intentions.
- Become educated.
- Become involved with other parents.
How do you advocate for you child?
Janell Locke is involved with the autism community in a variety of ways. She has an awesome 9 year old son with autism, teaches a special education elementary class, and is the president of the National Autism Association of Western Utah. She loves helping parents and advocating for people with autism.
