This blog post discusses IEP amendments, when it can be useful to amend without a meeting, and things to consider when you are deciding whether to amend your child’s IEP without a meeting.
If your child has dysgraphia, this list of tools and apps from Understood.org can make writing easier. Your child may already use some of them at school, but it can help to have them at home, too. Most tools are sold in online catalogs for occupational therapists.
This post presents a seven-step process for developing IEPs that are aligned with state academic grade-level content standards. Each step is followed by guiding questions for the ARD committee to consider in making data-based decisions. This process can help school personnel to: (a) consider each student’s strengths and needs to develop goals focused on closing the gaps between the student’s levels of academic achievement and grade-level standards; and (b) use data to make decisions, including selecting the most appropriate assessment option. The goal is to support ARD committees to develop documents that, when implemented, provide access to the general curriculum and [...]
Progress monitoring can give you and your child’s teacher information that can help your child learn more and learn faster, and help you make better decisions about the type of instruction that will work best with your child. Our children’s progress is being monitored constantly at school, through the steady stream of homework assignments, quizzes, tests, projects, and standardized tests. On first hearing the term “student progress monitoring,” our initial reaction may be “they’re doing this already!” or “more tests?”. But do you really know how much your child is learning or progressing? Standardized tests compare your child’s performance with other [...]
Unfortunately, parents at times realize that they are not sure of the amount of services that their child is receiving or other aspects of the delivery of related services. Recently, a parent wrote that they just learned that a COTA (Certified Occupational Therapist Assistant) rather than an OT was working with their child. “I have used up all the time allotted on the IEP, therefore I am now only visiting your son as a favor which is why I make unscheduled visits to his class. Oh, you misunderstood, I meant that the minutes on the IEP are minimum minutes, but I [...]
There is a lot of talk recently about charter schools at the national level. It will be some time before we know what, if anything, might change at the national level regarding charter schools. However, it is important to understand the current status of charter schools in Texas. Since 2005, Texas law has allowed charter schools. They are run by a variety of organizations, including some public schools. They receive state funds based on student attendance like public schools, but do not collect property taxes. They cannot charge tuition, so they have less funds per student than public schools. [...]
