6 years - parental comments to proposed IEP draft

After about two weeks from the IEP meeting we receive the proposed IEP. We make it very clear that we regard this document as the first IEP draft. See below the letter we sent to the team leader, detailing our comments and requests for editing regarding the proposed IEP. We go through as many iterations of IEP draft/request for modifications as necessary.   

You will notice that I'm providing our comments without providing the actual IEP draft, only the final accepted IEP. Hopefully this is still helpful for you. The important thing is to get an idea of the extent of communication we have with our team regarding the IEP process. I encourage you put challenge your team to put forward the best possible plan on behalf of your child. 

Here is the actual document. Parental comments to the proposed IEP draft
6 years (kindergarten, transition to public school)

Dear Team Leader,

Thank you for the proposed IEP we have received on March 2014. We appreciate the time and effort you and the team members have invested in this document. We are very excited about The Student’s transition to the public school and very hopeful that The Student will receive the support he needs for a successful transition and a great year in kindergarten.

Attached to this letter are our initial comments on the proposed IEP. Please make the modifications possible at this time and let us know when a new draft is ready so we can act on it.
     
Sincerely,
The parents

 
March 2014
Parental comments to the proposed IEP for The Student Lauric
11.       Vision statement (page 4). Please edit the sentence “The team would like to see The Student advocate for himself, improve his toileting skills, improve communication with peers and adults” to “The team would like to see The Student advocate for himself, become more independent, and improve communication with peers and adults”
22.       Accommodations (page 5)
a.       The Student is not completely toilet trained and he almost never requests to use the bathroom. The Student requires frequent scheduled bathroom breaks and reminders to stay dry. 
b.      Per The Student’s 3-year evaluation reports and based on our observation of the inclusion kindergarten classroom we believe The Student requires 1:1 instructional support during academic activities (writing, math instruction, independent work) in order to have meaningful access to the curriculum. Please see:
(1)    OT report page 6 - “The Student’s organizational skills and his ability to work independently are not functional for school performance:  “The Student has difficulty with initiating, organizing and completing tasks. The Student needs frequent reminders to keep working.”
(2)    Educational report page 2 - “During times The Student is required to write in the classroom, he works one-on-one with a teacher to help with focus and organization. Without this support, despite his knowledge of letters, The Student has a very difficult time with writing tasks.”
(3)    Educational report page 3 - ” As the demand of the task increases, The Student’s attention wanes and increased encouragement or restructuring of the activity is needed.”
(4)    SPL report page 2 - “The Student needs repetition and explicit instruction in order to recall and connect newly learned information with concepts that are already known.”
3.       Goal 2. Speech and language
a.       We believe The Student should work on retelling familiar stories, including key details. For example The Student should be able, with support, to tell his peers and teachers details about his home days, and at the end of the school day The Student should be able to talk about his day and provide details.
4.       Goal 4.  Fine motor
a.       The Student should continue working on lacing strings through holes as per current IEP.
5.       Goal 8.  Mathematics
a.       The Student should be supported to achieve the same benchmarks in math as his kindergarten peers. He is already working on many of these benchmarks and should be able to make significant progress towards a more challenging goal. In addition to the existing benchmarks, per the kindergarten curriculum provided by the kindergarten teacher, we believe this goal should also include:
                                                               i.      The Student will be able to count 0 - 100 in sequence.
                                                             ii.      The Student will be able to skip count to 100 by tens.
                                                            iii.      The Student will be able to name/model/draw shapes and identify them as 2D/3D.
63.      Service Delivery
a.       It was discussed during the IEP meeting and recorded in the Summary of Meeting for Proposed IEP that the whole team (teacher, therapists, and special educators) will meet for team consultation 1x15 minutes per week.  This needs to be added to the IEP.
b.      The Student should receive most of his speech therapy in the classroom, as it was previously reported by his previous speech therapist, and his classroom teacher that he is not generalizing skills from the pull-out therapy into the classroom (see the 2013 annual IEP report). At a minimum, the current schedule, 2x30min in the classroom and 1x30min pull-out, should be maintained. Given The Student’s poor evaluation results, especially in social pragmatics and speech intelligibility, we believe The Student would benefit from an additional 1x30min in classroom session for a total of 3x30min in classroom and 1x30min pull-out therapy.
74.       Additional Information
a.       For consistency in service and to minimize The Student’s stress in interacting with new adults, we believe the 1:1 staffing support during transitions, lunch and recess should be provided by one of at most two people previously designated for this service. This will allow The Student to get familiar and comfortable with the staff person providing the service and will allow the support person to get familiar with The Student’s communication issues.
85.      While the team has agreed that various AAC strategies should continue to the probed during a trial period, the IEP contains no clear plan for such a trial. Please see the attached Assistive Technology Trial Planning Form intended to guide the IEP Team through the process of considering each student’s need for Assistive Technology. We believe the trial should be implemented in the classroom and the time allocated for this trial should be separate from The Student’s other therapies to make sure it doesn’t negatively impact The Student’s progress towards his goals. We understand that the successful implementation of the trial may not be possible while The Student is enrolled at TEDCC, but a trial plan should be in place for September.


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