How to become an advocate for your child
In order to help your child you need to become an effective advocate or hire an attorney who can advocate for you. If you are going to do it yourself, then you need to arm yourself with information.
In my experience schools are slow, cumbersome bureaucracies sometimes unlikely to respond to generalized requests for help. If you simply say to the school that your child needs help, the most likely response you’ll get is that your child is smart but underachieving and needs to work harder and smarter. However, once you understand the rules you can overcome this blanket rejection by including references to rules that require the school to act.
Therefore the very first place to start is with your particular school system’s codes of conduct, rules and / or operating procedures. Get copies of everything they have and read it and make notes on the sections that pertain to protections and requirements concerning providing services to kids with learning disabilities and any other pertinent sections. Pay particular attention to the rules and or procedures the officials, principals, administrators, school boards are supposed to follow. Armed with knowledge you will be able you to focus your requests in ways to motivate the school to respond. When the school says that your child needs to work harder and smarter you can artfully reply with the requirements and or obligations the school must provide to requests for assistance and any time frames the school has to provide them. Mastering the schools own requirements will be the biggest single lever you have to motivate your school to act appropriately.
If you don’t do anything else mastering the schools own rules may be sufficient to getting your child the assistance he or she needs. However to truly understand and mange your school system then you should read or research the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. These are the two primary federal laws imposing requirements on public school systems to ensure that students with disabilities are provided a “free appropriate public education” (FAPE).
Next, read or research state and local provisions regarding special education. You’ll begin to notice a lot of similarities with the federal law and you should see parallel requirements in the state and local provisions.
Knowledge of federal and state requirements will make your requests even more compelling and allow you to overcome vague objections to your request for services. This may seem like a lot to read and may be overwhelming at first; but there really are no shortcuts. You might find some support from groups and others from parents who have been where you are now but your own efforts are your best resource.
In my experience schools are slow, cumbersome bureaucracies sometimes unlikely to respond to generalized requests for help. If you simply say to the school that your child needs help, the most likely response you’ll get is that your child is smart but underachieving and needs to work harder and smarter. However, once you understand the rules you can overcome this blanket rejection by including references to rules that require the school to act.
Therefore the very first place to start is with your particular school system’s codes of conduct, rules and / or operating procedures. Get copies of everything they have and read it and make notes on the sections that pertain to protections and requirements concerning providing services to kids with learning disabilities and any other pertinent sections. Pay particular attention to the rules and or procedures the officials, principals, administrators, school boards are supposed to follow. Armed with knowledge you will be able you to focus your requests in ways to motivate the school to respond. When the school says that your child needs to work harder and smarter you can artfully reply with the requirements and or obligations the school must provide to requests for assistance and any time frames the school has to provide them. Mastering the schools own requirements will be the biggest single lever you have to motivate your school to act appropriately.
If you don’t do anything else mastering the schools own rules may be sufficient to getting your child the assistance he or she needs. However to truly understand and mange your school system then you should read or research the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. These are the two primary federal laws imposing requirements on public school systems to ensure that students with disabilities are provided a “free appropriate public education” (FAPE).
Next, read or research state and local provisions regarding special education. You’ll begin to notice a lot of similarities with the federal law and you should see parallel requirements in the state and local provisions.
Knowledge of federal and state requirements will make your requests even more compelling and allow you to overcome vague objections to your request for services. This may seem like a lot to read and may be overwhelming at first; but there really are no shortcuts. You might find some support from groups and others from parents who have been where you are now but your own efforts are your best resource.
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