I am the parent of a 14yo 9th grader in a small high school - approx 320 grades 9 through 12.
There is a scheduled IEP meeting on Nov 26 for my son , his mother and I to review his IEP and make any revisions. The problems is the Math teachers and all his teachers in general. Several things in the IEP are not being met. For example: We are supposed to have a set of Textbooks/ Materials sent home to stay at home. We have not received a set and have asked several times. We have also asked for extra worksheets be sent home when my son looses them so we can do them and get them back and we have not seen any to date. End of 2nd semester is Christmas.
The Iep also states that there should be extra time aloted to finish his work. He does have study skills for 1 hour a day - but this is not enough time. It also states that the work can be lower ability and shortened as well. This has not been done - esp in Math. It states that test can be modified - but we have seen no modification of any test so far. Recording of assignments in note book - he does get help with that - but presently - we have no idea when test are coming up or if it is recorded and he does not bring his book home or the worksheet home to finish - we are out of luck to help him. Usually when this happens- the teacher - ususally Math - will not allow him extra time of an extra 2 days to complete it and turn it in. My son had sometimes he has turned in work that he has not. I think he was ashamed to tell us he lost it and just did not want to be embarrased or get in trouble with us - so he lied. WE always tell him- we can not help you if you lie to us - you have to tell us the truth. If he had just told us he had forgotten to turn it in- maybe we could have help in some way. At present - his goal in in Math is to pass with 60% comprehension - he has a 30% now. So this goal is not being met. His grading scale is 50 - 60 would be considered a D-, but he has several grades of F with percentages over 50%.
My wife goes up to the school at least 3 times a week and sees the teachers and they always tell me John is doing OK - but when we get his progress report he has 2 F’s, ( Math and English) - which is where his problems are - he tested for learn disablities in both these areas. All the other grades are D- , D, C- and A.
All his mother and I are asking for is some way to find out what his weekly assignments are, a set of textbooks for home and any worksheets, to allow John to have extra time to complete his assignments, and to know which assignments have not been turned in and allowed extra time to get them in. WE also want to have a way for the teacher to communicate with us to let us know what has not been turned in and extra time allowed for that work - even 1 or 2 days worth. I have given the teacher my email so they could send it email and copies of any test as well as attachments to try to make it easier also. Is this too much to ask. The teacher they have choosen to bein the room is the Math teacher - who is known to be a bully and will become mouthy and bully her way through all this. I taught in this school disrict for 12 years with these teachers. I am presently at another school district. I have 180 kids a day and 24 main streamed students in my classes and I have IEP’s on. With my students - I send a grid sheet home of the following weeks assignments and due dates with all the worksheets stapled to it for the week. I allow them to the following tues to turn it all in completed-packet. On test - I allow these students to do half the questions - to modify the test, and usually on the worksheets that they do not finish - they can redo it answering only half the problems.I do a check on Friday of the worksheets for the week and then modify for the weekend through tuesday. I do this every friday and it is not too much for me - why would my son’s teachers think they can not do it either. I am a teacher my self and meet the IEP’s the best I can. I work at trying not to let these students fal through the cracks.
Any suggestions and feed back would be of help to me - any ideas to help my son.
Have you tried presenting copies of the types of work you do to help your students? Maybe having an example to work from would encourage them to spend a little extra time.
Request that a district representative be present at your meeting.
Another thing you can do is to write a complaint to the district pointing out all the specific IEP violations and the fact that the school is not being responsive to your continued efforts. Document everything. If contacting the district does not get the desired results, move up to the next level of a written complaint to the state.
Good luck with your meeting.