School System

I knew our local school system was bad, like one of the lowest 3 or 4 in the U.S., but I did not know it was this bad.

I attended and Individualized Education Plan with one of my clients mom's. This little boy has Oppositional Defiant Disorder, ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome. The school supposedly administered a number of tests to this young man and had a 15 minute observation of his classroom behavior. He is below grade level in every academic area and initially qualifies to have 50 minutes everyday in the resource room with a 1:3 ratio, and speech therapy 15 minutes a week.

This is great, it is an improvement from what he has now, which is nothing. But where in the world do people plan out goals but not have steps articulated in order to meet those goal? I guess in the Clark County School District.

Let me explain, one goal is to have this young boy complete all his classwork independently 9 out of 10 times to the teachers expectations. When I asked them what that actually meant, the facilitator told me teacher expectation is evaluated in neatness, accuracy and quality. Again, what does this mean? How is a 7 year old with learning disabilities supposed to meet neatness expectations when I as an adult do not know what the teachers expectations are? Where are the concrete benchmarks of even starting with one assignment, that has two questions completed independently before we jump to having 9 assignments completed?

Goal number 2 was to have him increase his reading comprehension and fluency. Again, I asked what strategies they are going to use and what is the outlined plan? The facilitator told me we cannot dictate how the teacher teaches her material in the classroom.

So, this poor boy has these hefty goals, either he will meet them (without a plan in place) or he will not meet them, then this IEP group will reconvene again. To decide what? I am not sure. Since there is no plan, and we cannot tell teachers how to teach, what does a teacher do when what she has tried has not worked?

I am still baffled hours later of what the purpose of having stated goals is, if there is no plan.

The accommodation part of the meeting is tomorrow morning, so I will bring my list of accommodations and suggestions. I am sure the resource teacher will not be happy with me as she plans to have this wrapped up in 20 minutes. Not going to happen, if she has to try and lay me out a plan of action!

I left this meeting completely flustered, I can only imagine how his mom feels! Defeated, and dejected, as hard as she is trying, she cannot seem to find help for this young boy.