A little background....my 3 year old daughter Laurie was dignosed w/PDD (high functioning autism). She currently attends a wonderful full day private Montessori program 15 minutes away. At her initial IEP meeting, CB, the Director of Pupil Personnel Services, wanted to send Laurie off to a 1/2 day special needs program 45 minutes away. I refused (aside from the long bus ride, Laurie's cognitive score was in the 94th percentile, so that was NOT appropriate placement), so her IEP states that she is to receive OT 2x per week and Play Therapy 2x per week from 3/11/04 - 6/24/04 at her Montessori school.

Well, so far Laurie has received a total of four sessions of OT and no play therapy.

Laurie's IEP review is Thursday, so, I dropped off a letter to CB(thanks, lespring!) basically stating that Laurie is not getting the services in her IEP.

About an hour later, CB calls me on the phoneand tells me "well, we offered you a program and you didn't accept it". Then she calls me five minutes later and states "You really should think about the half day program for next year because we can't guarantee we can provide services at her private school."

What? I was shocked that she would make a statement that I'm pretty sure is a complete lie. Don't they HAVE to provide the services?

And CB just got her tenure, so I'm going to have to deal with her for the next twenty years! If I'm having this much problem with Laurie, who only needs 4 hours of therapy a week, I can't imagine what kinds of battles I'm going to have to endure when Kayla turns three.

That is SO FRUSTRATING! But...does the IEP say specifically that she's to recieve OT/Play therapy at the montessori program? If it does say that specifically, then you need to file an non-compliance complaint with the state.

They may have OFFERED something else, but they could have offered you the MOON but it wouldn't matter if it's not in the IEP.

Check out wrightslaw.com It is a great educational law resource! Drop me a note privately...I've been through this before!

I don't know if rules/laws apply differently state to state, but you should have something called a "stay put" order. That means that means that any therapy that is working to YOUR satisfaction, not the school districts, "stays put" for as long as YOU want it. And YES the school district is bound by law to provide your child the therapies that child requires. However, getting them to do it is quite a different story. We recently had an educational series with an attorney who specializes in law suits against the school districts.....I was very impressed with how much the law is on our side, but very shocked at how much the system won't do unless called on the carpet. To call them on the carpet, requires a law suit. That can be expensive. It is a sad world we live in, when programs that help our children, any child for that matter, takes a back seat to tax programs that benefit the rich. Okay, I am just going to stop now....I get a bit too fired up on this subject. I just wanted to let you know that you are right.........they HAVE to do what YOU want. you do NOT have to sign anything.......and they cannot take action without your approval. Good luck....

I keep hearing about signing the IEP...they never ask us to sign it. At least we got a copy of it this time around. If I don't agree to the district's suggestions, they put that in the IEP. (Laurie's IEP says that we unilaterally decided to place her in her private school). To be fair, though, I don't think it's to necessarily get out of providing service (although it seemed like it at the time!) but to cover their butts in case they can't find a therapist to come to the school. They did readily agree to compensatory services for Laurie, though, so I'm a bit more hopeful these days.

It is a FEDERAL law for the IEP to be signed. Once the IEP is written, the school district has 10 days to give you a copy and have it signed. If they don't do this the school district is in non-compliance and can get in serious trouble with the state.

If a parent recieves the IEP and doesn't sign it within the 10 days, then there it goes into affect as default.

You can call your state's department of education and request a review. (in MN school are audited every 3 years, and if found in non-compliance have to submit a plan indicating how they will fix the situation.) When you request the review you'll need to include information about unsigned IEP's. I'm sure the state would be interested to find that none of the IEP's they have are signed and that all parents just happened to not return the signagure pages? hhhhmmmmmmm

And you DON'T have to sign that you agree. The signature page has "I agree to the IEP has proposed." and "I do not agree with the IEP as proposed" in which case they have to hold another meeting within 10 days. etc.

A friend of mine was just telling me about a case in Pa. The children were supposed to get services within the public school. They didn't. The parents sued. They recieved enoungh money to send them to a specialized privste school. $23,000 a year.It will pay for the kids to be in this school for the remainder of their education. The district was cited for not providing appropriate education. If the courts can do that they should be able to get your daughter the services she needs. The question is does she need them and do you really want the public school to provide them.

[Edited by marci on 05-15-2005 at 08:44 AM]

Okay, you are all making me so nervous about when PJ goes to school!!!

Well, Angela is in 2nd grade and we've only had one issue with her education. It DID cause me to move her to a different school district, but really it wasn't that big of a deal. We were living in an extremely rural area for her first 5 years and had her open enrolled to another, slightly bigger, school district for preschool. That worked great until 1st grade when we had an issue. By that time I was ready to move her anyway, to the district I was working for.

It's not usually that bad, and really you have more success (most of the time) when you try to tame the beez with honey!