We want to have Cate as a paraprofessional because she has done a great job with our son. The administration wants to change her for someone who has a bad reputation. Can we write Cate into the IEP? Does IDEA state anywhere that an individual can not be requested as a paraprofessional.
No, the law doesn’t say anything about a parent’s right to select a specific teacher or paraprofessional. Your child has a right to a teacher (or para), but does not have a right to the BEST teacher or para.
You need to be careful about how you approach this issue.
Much depends on your relations with other school personnel and the policies or customs in your school or school district. In many schools, if a parent requests a specific teacher or educational program, this guarantees that the school will not provide it.
The school doesn’t want to “cave in to demanding parents,” they don’t want to throw the floodgates open - there are many unspoken reasons that parents are never aware of.
Read Loving Parents Want What’s “Best” for Child - School Only Needs to Provide an “Appropriate Program”
http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/fape.notbest.htm
Tags: IDEA · IEPs · Paraprofessionals · Tactics and Strategies13 Comments
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13 responses so far ↓
My son’s IEP team did specify and document a highly qualified teacher who would provide home based services including the timeframe.
Within a few days of this meeting, a unilateral decision was made by the Director of Special services to send out a person who was not highly qualified.
This decision resulted in 0% academic progress for my son who had been and currently is an A student.
When we brought this up, school staff was able to look surprised that we had issue but never addressed it.
One way I have found to address this type of issue is through the IEP. When your child has specific needs related to the type of assistance that works, describe those needs. Describe the types of attributes the aide must have. Describe the teaching modality needed. Get them in under present levels. Then, when the choice of personnel is made, you politely ask for the ways this person matches the descriptions in the IEP. You cannot dictate to the school who to assign, but you can describe how that person has to be.
Also, be sure you put training down for the person who will be working with your child. Teachers and paras alike can benefit from training in specific disabilities and the best practices in teaching that population. Asking for the support your child’s teacher needs helps both the teacher and your child.
Debbie: Good advice! Training for teachers, paras AND parents can and should be written into the child’s IEP. For an excellent article with examples about how this plays out under different scenarios, read “Support For School Personnel and Parent Training:
Often Overlooked Keys To Success” by parent attorney Susan Bardet:
http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/support.bardet.htm
In regards to Paraprofessionals, can a school refuse to allow a student’s One-on-One Paraprofessional to attend his or her IEP so that said Paraprofessional would not be able to be named in a Lawsuit?
This was a question I was asked and did not have an answer for. Thank you.
COPYING BAD BEHAVIOR
My child is developmentally delayed but has the capacity to copy others students behaviors both good and bad. In the current placement there is a student who screams and hits at the teacher and another student who self stimulates his privates in plain view. My child has now copied the screaming student’s screams right down to the pitch and rythym and also has begun copying the hitting. I fear the self stimulation of privates is next. What do I do now? Do I pull my child out?
NO TEACHER TRAINING
I know my daughter is not entitled to the BEST . She however is entitled an appropriate Education. Can I get a legal defintion of what appropriate is.
My daughter is also being privately tutored by a langauge therapist trained in the Orton-gillingham program. I filed due process on our school, because they were not providing my daughter with FAPE. In our agreement they sent the special Ed teacher to a 4 day training in the Orton program. She is not trained properly, not to the orton specifications. The school hired my tutor to be the consultant. Is this not a conflict of interest and what do I do because the special ed teacher does not understand the program and was not trained for the more advance part of the program. My daughter’s tutor says the special ed teacher is doing more harm than good. What do I do about the conflict ?
I agree do be very careful when discussing this, for instance with my son’s school in the past couple of year’s, if I were seen speaking to a teacher (regarding anything) by one of the office staff. A week or so later that certain Teacher would be transferred out of that school or terminated for reason’s unknown. So now I only speak with certain Teacher’s via email’s so they are able to keep their job’s, I had no idea until this was brought to my attention which I totally felt horrible about it .
At the end, do you have a right to ask for a teacher who match with your kid? and after reading the article, do you have or haven’t the right to put the name of the one-to-one in the iep?
I’m a parent of a special needs child and I’m a para. Thank you for addressing these issues. There are so many issues on both sides that need to be addressed. Paras jobs are not always well defined for us and for the teachers we work with try to guide us in a mentoring way, at least they do in the program that I work in. My son recieves help from a para and it isn’t in his IEP and now we are looking to put it in writing. I look forward to reading and learning everything I can on this topic.
I am also trying to “name” my son’s para in his IEP. I haven’t seen a definitive answer here yet. Is this possible? I am in the middle of due process - can the hearing office make a judgement as to who the para will be for my son?
I could not get a straight answer from anyone regarding whether or not the principal could make unilateral decisions regarding who my daughter’s para would be, or how many she had. So I called the Dept. of Ed. and they told me that Yes, the principal does have the right to make those decisions on his own. She said she would hope that it would be a team decision based on the needs of the child, but ultimately it is the principals decision. And my experience is that it’s sad but true, if you suggest or request someone, more than likely that’s not who you will get. Administrators love to throw their weight around, especially to parents who really advocate for their child.
I school wrote the name of my daughter’s paraprofessional 1:1 aide in the IEP. Are they obligated to keep that 1:1? The district has given her a layoff notice due to budget cuts. Are they required to call me back. My daughter is autistic & doesn’t do well with change.
Lea Ann,
If the district has layoffs, they may not have a choice as to who gets their pink slips first. It may be determined by contract stipulations. And they cannot legally force anyone to work for them. If the aide is still working for the district, then it can be beneficial for the aide to continue to work with your child. It would be congenial for the school to contact you to inform you of the circumstances. If this went up the chain of command, it would likely be determined that the statement indicating a specific person was inappropriate and non-enforcable. You can, however, make a list of training appropriate and skills/traits needed to meet your child’s needs. If a change is necessary, this list can be used to work towards a good match for your child.