I thought I knew a bunch about this whole IEP system.  I thought I was a quick learner.  I thought that being a teacher in years past would help me (and it has, to an extent).  I thought that knowing my daughter inside and out would be of huge advantage to them*, especially the fact that I feel like I should have a pseudo-MD for all the crap I know about her condition!  I thought I had the higher hand.

What I found out, after meeting with my advocate for 2 hours, is that I’m not as far ahead of the game as I thought.  Which makes sense, considering I hired an advocate in the first place.  Obviously I couldn’t keep pace with them* and so I hired the advocate to keep pace for me.  I was further behind then I thought.  My knowledge and understanding only took me so far.

What amazed me about my advocate, upon meeting her, the ease and agility in which she perused through all of the past evaluations, IEP’s, doctor’s notes, and test scores.  Within minutes she was finding documentation in which they* contradicted themselves.  Test scores that have gone down over the years (hello, regression?).  She was quickly going over all these documents with highlighters and pens, writing herself notes in the margins and in her own records.  And, looking back it is now humorous, she was mentioning to me, “ooh, they are in so much trouble.”  What? There’s evidence to support our case?

Can I toot my own horn for a quick second?  (Why yes you can, it’s your blog!)  I pride myself on being über-organized.  And when Emma got into school and we started this whole IEP process, my good friend, Marshelle, recommended I reorganize.  I can do that!  I will write a post later about how I organize my IEP binder.  And in this case it’s now two binders.  And I will take none of the credit, it is Marshelle’s system.  However, my advocate did compliment me on my organized layout…it definitely helped her moved through the data quickly!

Anyhoo…

Basically, advocate left me with hope at the end of our meeting.  And a long to-do list.  Our game plan was to attend the next IEP meeting with advocate in tow.  I was not going to announce to anyone that I had hired an advocate.  However, with issues that arose before our IEP meeting, I was called to email various people around the school and district.  And with the advocates help with wording, it was probably very clear to most people that I had hired someone to help me.  The vernacular wasn’t mine.  Notsomuch!

The last 3 weeks of school were left.  I would be lying if I didn’t say it was a bumpy road.  It was uncomfortable, mostly for Emma, but for me as well, since I was working on campus.  There were a couple of incidents that left me speechless.  And I will tell you about those…tomorrow!

*By “them”, I’m referring to the district, specifically the special education department within the district.

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