6 Parenting Tips on Special Education Law and Transportation

Are you the parent of a child with autism or a physical disability that needs transportation? Do you wonder what the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) states is the schools responsibility, to provide transportation for your child? This article will discuss what IDEA requires as far as transportation for your child with a disability. Also discussed are parenting tips that you can use, to help your child receive this important service.

Under IDEA transportation is considered a related service. A related service is transportation, developmental, corrective, and other services. . .as may be required to assist a child with a disability to benefit from special education. . .
What this means is that if your child requires transportation in order to benefit from their education, special education personnel are required to provide it.

Parenting Tips:

1. When advocating for your child, remember that; transportation not only means to and from school, but also in and around the school building, and any specialized equipment required by your child.

How To Overcome Special Education Personnel's Money Complaints

Are you the parent of a child with autism that has been denied needed educational services, for your child? Have you been told by school district personnel, that your child cannot receive a certain service, because the price is too high? This article will discuss ways that you can overcome these tactics used by some school personnel, for the benefit of your child.

The purpose of special education taken out of The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is "to ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living."

IDEA does not allow, school districts to use the "money" card, to get out of providing needed educational services to children with disabilities. The reality is, that many school districts try this tactic many times a day. And the sad thing is, that many parents believe them. Do not fall for this tactic! Stand up for your child, as you are the only advocate that they will ever have.

9 Steps to Parent Empowerment for Parents With Children in Special Education!

Do you have a child with Autism that is receiving special education services? Would you like to learn how to be a better advocate for your child? This article will address 9 steps that you can take to empower yourself, to advocate for an appropriate education for your child!

Step 1: Begin by asking a lot of questions when you speak to your child's teacher. Sample of questions for your child's teacher could be: "What curriculum are you using to teach my child to read? What do these standardized test scores mean? What type of positive behavioral supports do you use in the classroom" If your child's teacher tells you something that you do not understand, ask her to explain it, and perhaps send you the explanation in writing.

Step 2: Ask lots of questions when attending an IEP (Individual Educational Plan) meeting for your child. Sample of questions at an IEP meeting could be: "What does that word mean? What services will my child be receiving, and how many minutes will they be receiving the service? What standardized testing will you be conducting on my child, to see if she is making educational progress?" Always ask for explanations, when special education personnel start talking in terms that you do not understand, or talk about services you do not understand.

How to Use Special Education Caselaw to Get Your Parental Rights

Do you have a child with autism who has just started receiving special education services? Has your child with dyslexia been receiving services for several years, but you feel that they are not making academic progress? Have your been frustrated over the fact that your school district is refusing to listen to your input on what you think your child needs, to benefit from their education? This article will be discussing two different court cases on parental rights, and how to use these ruling's to get parental rights that you are entitled to!

I hear from parents all the time that are frustrated because their school district is refusing to allow them to have meaningful participation, in determining what special education services and placement their child needs.

There have been many Court decisions about parental rights and you can probably find them through a search engine such as google.

In a couple of the cases the court held that in order to fulfill the goal of parental participation in the IEP process, the school district was required to conduct, not just an IEP meeting, but a meaningful IEP meeting,

Can Parents Help In Special Education for Autism?

If your child has been diagnosed with autism there are a few changes you are going to need to make in order to help your child through this. One change begins with unique education. This is a critical time for learning and a child needs both parents and teachers to work together in special education. Parents can prepare their autistic child at home before they begin special education classes in the fall.

Routines are Important

Someone who suffers from autism relies on routines and may have difficulties if the routine is changed in any way. When school starts, your child will need to readjust to the new routine of getting up and getting ready for school, eating breakfast, going to special education class, and then returning home. In order to make the transition easier, you may want to start this routine a few months earlier. If you don't work or take your child to a sitter during the day, go through the routine of driving to the school. There are many summer activities for children to get into around the area so check into these activities to see if your child shows some interest in them.

8 Tactics School Districts Use to Prevent Parents From Winning Special Education Disputes!

Are you the parent of a child with autism or a learning disability receiving special education services? Are you new to the special education arena and would like to be educated on some tactics to look for? This article will be discussing 8 tactics used by some special education personnel, to prevent parents from being equal participants in their child's education.

Tactic 1: Intimidation, bullying and lying! Some special education personnel try very hard to be intimidating, so that parents will not fight for services for their children! Intimidation could be loud voices, threats, condescending to the parent, or making the parent feel inadequate or uncomfortable!

Tactic 2: All of the above; but with a smile on their face! It absolutely gets me when a special education person opens their mouth and states something not truthful, when they are smiling! I wonder if they think that the lie will not be realized by the parent, due to their facial expressions

Tactic 3: Quoting laws that do not exist, to make it seem like they have more power than they do! As an educational advocate and parent I have seen this many times myself. Example: Mrs. Jones the law allows us to not give services to children if we run out of money (not true)! Or Mrs. Jones the law says that we can suspend your child for as long as we want to due to their behavior (not true)!

7 Issues For Parents to Know in Special Education Settlement Agreements

Are you the parent of a child that has a learning disability that has filed for a due process hearing? Has your school offered a settlement, and you wonder what to do about it? Do you want to make sure that the settlement is enforceable in state or federal court? This article will discuss 7 issues that you need to keep in mind for a special education settlement agreement.

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act there are 2 types of settlement agreements.

1. A written settlement prepared at a resolution session, after due process is filed.
2. A written settlement prepared at a mediation meeting by a mediator.

Keep these things in mind when preparing and agreeing to a special education settlement agreement:

1. Read the settlement agreement from beginning to end. Consider showing the agreement to a special education attorney or an experienced advocate, to ensure that it is a fair agreement.

2. Only settlement agreements prepared at a resolution meeting (after due process is filed for by the parents), or a mediation are enforceable in state or federal court. So be careful!

5 Top Parental Special Education Advocacy Tips to Benefit Your Child!

My top 5 advocacy tips:

1. Trust your instincts. If you think, your child has disabilities in certain areas trust yourself. No one knows your child like you do, and you are the best judge of what will help your child learn. It is my experience that special education personnel may try and tell you that your instincts are wrong, but only accept this, if there is concrete evidence to back it up. You are the only advocate that your child has, and they are depending on you to advocate for needed related and special education services.

2. Important educational issues need to be handled by letters not telephone calls or e mails, so that you can begin developing a paper trail for documentation, you may need in the future, to help you in a dispute with special education personnel. As far as sending e-mails to special education personnel, I do not like to use e-mail, as e-mails are kept in an electronic record, and not in the child's written educational record.

If you have a verbal conversation with school personnel and want to document the conversation, you can always write a short letter to the person that you had the conversations with. Try and keep the letter to one page, date it, and give a summary of the conversation. Also, keep a copy for yourself.

Find Fulfillment With A Career In Special Education

Unfortunately, children who have disabilities do exist, and they need teachers who have compassion, patience, and the knowledge to help them strive to reach their potential, no matter what it is! This is the field of special education, which has grown in its importance and demand, and makes a very fulfilling career choice.

You are such a person but you also have others depending upon you to put food on the table. No worries, this is not an impossible dream! You can enroll into an online degree program and do the work from home.

First of all, you will more than likely need a Master's degree to find employment, which is required by most states and is regulated by the National Teacher's Association. Upon your completion, there will be an exam for licensing, so don't forget to research the various institutions offering degrees to make sure of their accreditation. However, if you do not have an undergraduate degree in education, you can still enroll into the special education Master's degree.