I head straight to the school this morning on four hours sleep and not having my tea (I was raised by proper Irish people) because I told the parents of the IEP saga to meet me at the school this morning. I get in quite early and set up shop. I deal with an FM system issue and learn something in the process about how the actual FM system functions.
The parent and student arrive late, which makes me wonder about the future of the student when they don't actually arrive on time for their first day in school. Particularly when the parent was so eager for them to start the day before. Anyway, I get them settled as far as their academic program is concerned and hand them off to the guidance counselor for the grand tour.
Since I had scheduled myself to be available for teacher IEP questions, I attempt to get some other work done while waiting for teachers to beat down my door and inundate me (which they don't). When my time is up, I head back to my home office to get ready for an initial referral conference. I talk with my coworker, who has just returned from several bereavement days, and bring her up to speed on what has happened with her caseload.
I actually have two initial referral conferences. The first one is interesting because it involves a student with Maple Syrup Urine Disease. Its one of those diseases that you would see on House or Mystery Diagnosis. Since the student is, currently, medically stable and not demonstrating academic difficulties, it is referred back to I&RS for a possible 504 plan with the caveat that the parent should contact us again if further difficulties arise.
Following lunch we have the second meeting which is one that is definitely in need of an evaluation. This student gets almost the whole menu: psychological, social history, learning evaluation, occupational therapy evaluation, speech evaluation, physical therapy evaluation. The child has a heavy duty medical history with multiple cognitive, behavioral and educational issues.
Following this, I go to my mailbox and find another IEP for another student that has moved into town. I ask the secretary, "Didn't we put out the closed sign?" The IEP is from another state. In addition to weighing in at 10 pages long (which is incredibly short by New Jersey standard; the smallest I've ever done was 22 pages) it also has nebulous information. There is no clear indication what type of program (resource, in-class support, self-contained) the student had; the student is classified as communication impaired but there is no related service listed for speech therapy. Another interesting thing that I discover is that the student just left the district a year ago and is now back. That is one of the qualities of the town that I work in: there is a large transient population. So I do manage to find some information on the student in our records, especially since he was initially classified in our district.
The other fun part about the IEP is that there is no contact information on it. Most NJ IEPs have the district's address, phone and fax numbers. No such luck here. There isn't even the name of the person that completed the IEP. It doesn't mean that a case manager complete the IEP. In a number of other states, a special education teacher would actually conduct the IEP meeting and write the document. But you would think that for accountability sake, the person who wrote it would have to have their name on it.
So I talk to my supervisor (not my director) about the student and the IEP and I make plans to call the district tomorrow. I look the district up on the internet and I'm amused by the fact that their website doesn't list the area codes for any of their phone numbers. I guess the district just assumes that no one from outside the state would give them a call, or even someone that lives in the next area code would call them.
With that my day ends.
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