IEP Yuck!

I have heard a lot of parents say that they hate going to the IEP meeting and doing IEPs. I have only done one before and it was a pretty good experience so I really had no experience as to why other parents hated the IEP meetings. No I understand.

For those of you who may not know, an IEP is an individual Education Plan. All children who need special assistance from the school have one, or should have anyway.

Well, I went to Memphis's IEP meeting last Friday. Needless to say things did not start well. When I took Memphis to therapy last Tuesday I was told by his Early On coordinator that his IEP expires that weekend and we needed to get one done ASAP. Well guess what, it is not my job to know when it expires and make sure he gets a new one done. They immediately called the teacher, who is the person who has to make sure his IEP is up to date and in effect to start the process. She called Wednesday at 3:00 to set up a meeting for Friday. I called her not longer than 10 minutes after she called me and she had already left for the day. I hate it when someone does that. She wanted to set up a the meeting for Friday, but in the middle of my work day. Well, since I commute and hour each way to work that wasn't going to be easy to do and I would have to basically take the whole day off and for any parent using a sick day up on something that is not important is a big sacrifice much less a parent of a child who sees multiple Drs, those sick days become precious. After doing some checking to reaffirm that the IEP meeting has to be done at my convenience, I called back to set it up for either 8am or after 3 pm so I would only have to take a couple hours off. We settled on 8am.

When I arrived at the school, first I was in awe. That was the first time I had been in the new elementary and it is really nice. I met with the teacher and we sat down in the principals office, as the principal was going to sit in as well. Memphis's PT was there as well. They explained there is a new computer system for doing IEPs that should make this easier. Yeah right. It is only easier if someone knows how to work the program. Most of the meeting was spent trying to figure out how to get the program to work, not talking about Memphis's needs. They also did not have all the information they needed from the speech therapist or the occupational therapist, since the meeting was put together on such short notice. So basically, I spent two hours watching the teacher try to make the computer program work and still did not get the IEP completed due to not having all the information available. So now I haveto go back for another meeting later, when all the info is available. Needless to say I was very frustrated when I left there, I cannot tolerate people who waste my time by being unprepared and unorganized.

More on the content of the IEP to be posted in the future.