Fun With IEPs
This weekend at the Step Up For Down Syndrome walk in Kansas City, with a friend we don’t see too often because of distance (and busy-ness!)
Fun fact: I spent 2 1/2 years as a music ed major before deciding all I really wanted to do was play my flute, and I universally hated every one of my education classes. The class that broke me and caused me to switch? Special Education For Non-Special Educators.
It took me until Julianna was in the 2nd grade to realize that class, as much as I hated it, had given me an exceptional orientation to what I was now going through—that I didn’t have stress and confusion on the process, because I’d studied it in the abstract.
The irony is not lost on me.
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The portion of Julianna’s educational paperwork we have actually kept over the years. This is probably about half of it. We print on the back sides of a lot of the rest.
We had Julianna’s IEP meeting on Friday. The process begins with a summary of “present level,” which comes home in advance. I’ll be honest: usually I don’t really read it very carefully. This time, however, we were coming in with some strong opinions and so I took the time to really process those four pages of dense “special-ed-ese.” But I couldn’t help laughing at this paragraph:
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Ah yes, my daughter is 4 for 4 when it’s about food. That’s about right. Chocolate, vanilla, and rainbow. Furniture. Yup.
And this one:
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“an answer that is unrelated to the passage and of high interest to her, for example, Star Spangled Banner, swimming, and choir!” Oh yes, these people DEFINITELY know my daughter!
The great and ever-ambiguous “They” say you should never go to an IEP meeting alone, that you should always have someone in your corner, someone outside the family who knows you and what you want for your child. I’ve never done that, because I’ve always felt like we’re all on the same team. This time, though, Christian and I set aside the time to attend together, which isn’t normally the case. I sent an email ahead saying, “Listen, we have a lot to talk about, so can we just skim over that part where you tell me my daughter is kind and loving and enthusiastic and gets along with everyone? 
