Special Education Advocacy

Introductory Articles

Advocating for Your Child - Getting Started. Good special education services are intensive and expensive. Resources are limited. If you have a child with special needs, you may wind up battling the school district for the services your child needs. To prevail, you need information, skills, and tools.

Asking the Right Questions. How does the school perceive you? Good article about how to ask questions and get better services.

Advocating Through Letter Writing (PDF). A booklet containing information and tips for parents on advocating for your child through letter writing.

Assertiveness and Effective Parent Advocacy. This short article by advocate Marie Sherrett describes joys and challenges of parent advocacy. What categories do you fall into?

From Emotions to Advocacy - The Parents Journey. Strong emotions cause parents to react, often with damaging results. Don't shoot yourself in the foot. If you are having problems with the school, use your head.

Game Plan for New Parents. Introductory article; focuses on importance of planning and preparation.

Get Wrightslaw Best Sellers, Improve Your Local Library & Help Others. A Vermont mom provides a simple strategy to accomplish several missions.

Help! How to Find an Educational Consultant, Advocate, Attorney Strategies to find an educational consultant, advocate or attorney who represents children with disabilities.

My Child's Test Scores Dropping, School Doesn't Care - What Can I Do Sue Heath advises this parent, "You need a game plan. Before you can devise a game plan, you need to gather information, manage your emotions, and do your homework."

9 Ways to Boost Your Child's Attitude Before the Bus Arrives - What can you do before your children leave for school to help them feel they can conquer anything? These no-nonsense pointers from Jackie Igafo-Te'o will help you eliminate a large portion of last-minute stress that comes with every weekday morning.

Parent Advocacy: What You Should Do - and Not Do. Good advice from attorney Leslie Margolis about steps parents can take to get quality educational services for their children with disabilities.

When Parents & Schools Disagree. Educational consultant Ruth Heitin describes common areas of disagreement between parents and schools and offers suggestions about how to handle these disagreements.

Understanding the Playing Field. Indiana advocate Pat Howey talks to parents about trust, expectations, power struggles between parents and schools and how to avoid them, the parental role, and the need to understand different perspectives.

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Advocacy Tactics & Strategies

10 Strategies to Fight Mandatory Retention & Other Damaging Policies by Sue Heath. Learn how you can find answers to questions in the law and strategies you can use to fight mandatory retention and other damaging policies.

Advice About the 10-Day Notice Letter to the School. Pete Wright answers questions about what should be included in a 10-day notice letter; includes links to "Letters to the Stranger" used in his cases.

Advocacy Training: Partners in Policymaking. Participants in Partners in Policymaking learn about the history of disability advocacy, political issues, and how to become effective, involved community activists in civil rights and disability matters. Learn more.

Effective Advocacy: Documents, Records and Paper Trails. Good records are essential to effective advocacy. Keep a record of your contacts with the school. Use low-tech tools: calendars, logs, journals. Keep a log of telephone calls and meetings, conversations, and correspondence between you and the school.

Exit Exams Can Be Optional - If You Plan Ahead. Research editor Sue Heath describes a strategy to eliminate the state exit exam as an obstacle, and allow otherwise qualified kids to graduate with high school diplomas.

How to Deal with a Hostile Environment at School. School told child's aid that she may not tell parents about things that happen in the classroom. Can the school order the aid to keep silent? What rights do parents and aid have? How should parents deal with these situations?

How to Disagree with the IEP Team. Pete answers questions about IEPs and teaches you how to disagree with the IEP team without starting World War III. Learn about the Rules of Adverse Assumptions, how to use tape recording and thank you letters to clarify issues, and how to deal with an IEP team bully.

How to Handle Disagreements at IEP Meetings (or Playing 20 Questions with the Devil). Frustrated at IEP meetings? IEP team does not answer your questions? Parent attorney Sonja Kerr devised an approach to deal with the IEP meeting quagmire.

How to Put on a Special Education Case. Parent attorney Sonja Kerr has good advice for the attorney who is preparing for a due process hearing. Learn why you should not fly solo. Remember whose job it is to educate. Article includes tips about building the "perfect case."

How to Start a FETA Study Group. Do you want to learn about effective advocacy? The best way to learn is to teach others. This article is about the nuts and bolts of starting a FETA group, how to get free publicity, how to manage emotions and stay on task.

Play Hearts, Not Poker. Jennifer Bollero, attorney and mother of a child with autism, describes important differences between advocacy and parenting, explains why you need to learn the rules and strategies . When you learn the rules, you reduce the risks when you negotiate for your child; this article includes "Eight Steps to Better IEP Meetings."

Preparing for a Due Process Hearing. Vermont advocate Brice Palmer says, "Your job is to present your case in an organized manner that gives the decision maker enough good factual information to reach a conclusion in your favor -- this is different from advocating at IEP meetings or evaluation meetings."

Paper Chase: Managing Your Child's Documents. This article by Massachusetts attorney Bob Crabtree teaches you what documents are important and how to organize your child's documents. Learn how to use a log and create documents to prevent problems and get better services for your child.

Tactics and Strategies: IEP Goals and Objectives - Pete answers questions from the president of a state LDA chapter. What can parents do to get good goals and objectives in a child's IEP? What can parents do when the school wants to use subjective "teacher observations," not objective testing, to measure the child's progress? How and when should parents use a consultant to help with IEP goals and objectives. How can parents avoid "methodology disputes?"

Three Generations at the Supreme Court. Attorney Pete Wright (who has dyslexia and ADHD) represented Shannon Carter (who has dyslexia and ADHD) before the U. S. Supreme Court.

What You Need to Know Before Filing a Complaint - Advocate Pat Howey describes the pros and cons of filing a complaint with the state.

What You Should Know About Evaluations. Attorney Bob Crabtree explains, "As a parent, you must make sure that all areas of possible need are assessed as quickly as possible. While some parents would rather not allow their school system to evaluate their child, a refusal to cooperate at this stage of the process can backfire . . . " Read article

Why You Should Obtain a Comprehensive Evaluation from an Independent Evaluator - Benefits of a comprehensive evaluation, despite objections by school personnel.

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Wrightslaw: From Emotions to Advocacy

"If I were asked to choose just one book to help me learn advocacy skills, this is it!" - Support for Families of Children with Disabilities

For more articles, success stories, resources and publications about advocacy, visit FetaWeb.com

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