One More Isolated Incident

I was in attendance in my son's IEP meeting on December 16th, 1996. I assumed it was going to a contentious meeting, as it had all of the earmarks of those types I had attended before.

Prior to this meeting, I had written a letter to the principal outlining some of my concerns. After six years of learning the ways of the District, I had become better at covering all of the bases, even though I knew there would be some angle I was not prepared for.

While there were a lot of interesting things that happened in this meeting, I will address one connected to the link below. The principal recorded the meeting. There were a lot of "damaging" things said by some of the District people and also there was a lot of "evidence" of how my "procedural safeguards" were compromised, some being outright violated. Keep in mind this was prior to me learning the rules of the game. In fact, that day started my official quest for knowledge regarding IDEA and how it is supposed to work.

It was the proverbial straw. Some of the people who were in that meeting are still around. I think one or two of them understood the injustice that was done. I think the others were more entrenched in how to spin the events so they were defensible.

The fallout of this meeting was immediate and widespread. It may not surprise some of you that despite the fact that I had an MO-12 inviting me to an IEP meeting on that day and a time specific and room specific, along with the fact that nine or ten other people showed up at the same time and place, upon my request for copies of the records of that IEP meeting, I was told by a District Person that there had been no IEP meeting. I guess it depends on what the definition of "was" was.

The principal had tape recorded the meeting. She had prepared for taping. I did not. Try getting a definitive "yes" or "no" answer today whether a parent can tape an IEP meeting.

Back to my point that speaks to the below. After I insisted on getting a copy of that tape, I was finally given a tape.

The tape I received was blank.


This post jogged my memory:

Saturday, April 05, 2008

I can't remember exactly how this poor mangled teacher came to my attention. I think she emailed me. I asked for a copy of her court case to put on our blog, and she said OK.

Elephants Have Good Memories

I have a comment to make about a comment to me:


Nobody's Patsy said...
Hey Pro--

"It's all about the documentation. If it isn't on paper, then it never happened. The best things people like you and myself (and countless others) is to teach our breatheren who, how, when, and why to document. We are all highly educated folks, we of all people should know about the power of the pen. I am availble for lessons if need be.

March 23, 2008 10:18 PM" and can be found here


I have started the process of labeling my previous posts. I am now more and more seeing issues and ideas coming up that I have given an opinion or comment on from my position. I can't find my comments very easily, so maybe if I have a label system, it will help me find the links faster.

I know full well about the importance of a paper trail. Of equal importance is whether the trail is present or not present. Somewhere I wrote about how much power the entity has that controls the paper trail. Fabrication, fraudulent change and missing documentation is all part of the game. Somewhere I wrote about how important it is to make copies and make sure someone else has a copy, and everyone knows that someone else has that copy. It is called insurance.

Below is what I wrote about my perception of district documentation. The full context can be found here: Big Fat Money


"I have been in many, many IEP meetings. I know the game. If an elephant came into the IEP meeting, dropped a load right in the middle of the table, no one could ever prove it if it wasn't written in the IEP form or the conference notes. Even when there are teachers, ESE specialists, related service personnel, principals, directors and parents that see the elephant, moved their papers out of the way of the big dump, and smelled the aroma that stunk up the whole room. If it wasn't written, it didn't happen."

S""t happens all of the time, and with elephants in the room, it's a load.

Thankfully the Aides finally got the courage

This is not a broad brush attack against teachers.

I will readily agree that this (teacher) is an isolated incident. Obviously, her patterns of behavior towards the kids were not isolated. There was enough of them that some how it overcame what ever barriers the aides had in reporting these events.

I know a lot of people don't believe parents. The principal makes a comment that she doesn't think the aides would make this up. But she likes the teacher and is surprised these events happened. Like being slammed on the head for not answering a question. It's in the reports.

It reminds be of a kid at Randall Middle school who was given 7 felony assualt charges against a school employee. Part of the reason his behavior escalated was he refused to obey an order to stand up. The fact that he had a disabilty to the extent he could not stand up without assistance of some type didn't seem to have much meaning to the authority figures. I never could understand the mindset of an adult who puts themselves in striking range of a kid who can not stand up, other than to prove the adult was the boss.

Sort of that arrogance with ignorance thing. The charges were later dropped, which probably really pissed the teacher off. Upsurped the teacher's authority over noncompliant kids. Tons of CYA paperwork were generated.

On page 16 of the attached link, it states that one parent said there were no other options for her child. I know what it is like to not be heard.

And it didn't happen in my county, so why should I even bring it up.

But I just couldn't help reading the probable cause affidavits

I wonder what the culture of defense is in that county.

I wonder what message the aides will get.

I wonder if they will get accolades for defending the disabled.

I wonder if they will be used as a example that the next time an employee sees something like this, whatever you do, you do not expose the school system.

My comments are not about teachers. My comments are about systems.

A Piece of the Dysfunctional Puzzle

It is very difficult to succinctly explain 15 years in a few sentences. But I can use the contents of a document I have to illustrate one of the many issues I faced.

At one point in time, an issue concerning my son's report card occurred. My issue was not about the grades. I could have cared less. How does one objectively grade a kid who is deaf, visually impaired and had other challenges that needed to be met. Grades were insignificant compared with needing to be taught adequate behaviors and how to function in his world. My issue was about what was not being done for my son that the IEP called for. I can only assume that the below interaction was just one more indicator of someone who should have known, did not understand my issues, and unfortunately passed it off as a shallow request from "a parent who wants his kid to get a better grade".

Preceding this action below, I had written a letter to the Area Director outlining my concerns. I received a response with a copy of my son's report card with red marker drawn through a couple of the grades and a higher grade written with same marker.

This did not address the issues, it simply added another dynamic. I subsequently found out that the grades had not been changed at the school. Again, the issue was not about the grades, but now, not only was I once again brushed off, I had just one more concern about getting false information, which I was accustom to. A short while later, I came upon another document.


I have in my possession a copy of a Student Withdrawal Form. I will withhold the date and the names used because I do not need the hassle of any type of litigation. I am writing about it now in hopes more people will understand how I got to where I am with this blog, and my adjacent blog.

I have always assumed that this document was to have never been seen by me, but I have it.

Along with the identifying data, it contains the Subjects and the original grades. Two of the original grades were "D"s. They have been slashed through and have "C" written next to them.

At the very bottom of the form is the following written by a teacher about an Area Director. It states:

" * These grades have been changed as per (name withheld)'s request although I feel it is unethical to do so. I have changed them solely to avoid any charges of insubordination".
Once again, this is one "small piece" of the dynamics I faced for many years.

This has been years ago, but another interesting find was the last time I checked the "J" screen, according to the "J" screen he wasn't even enrolled in HCDS during the time these events occurred, which was a little over three months. Must have just been an entry mistake. Or, maybe it was to lessen the chance his records would be found by an outside auditor.