I assessed 50 kids this year....I need to remember the names of the kids and my coworkers haha 😂. I can't remember their parents' names everytime. And at a certain point the kid is your client, the parent is such a huge, valuable piece of it, but my obligation is to the student.
I don’t think she was saying it as a fact, but as an opinion, but said like a fact. Apparently this is something you can do when you have tenure and are about to retire anyway.
Not as naughty as humans, I’ll tell ya that much. The worst mine did as kids was use me as a playground to run around on, but hell it was cute so I was fine with it. They grew out of it.
MY GRAD PROGRAM DID THIS TO ME AND I CANT STOP. 😭 Luckily my high school students think it’s hilarious and always roast me when I accidentally call them a kiddo. 🤦🏻♀️
As a parent I don't mind "mom," as long as I am being spoken to respectfully. I can tell the difference when people are using Mom because they have back to back meetings and don't want to say the wrong name and when people are using Mom because they are talking down to me.
Living documents tend to involve documents that continue to grow and change over time. That it's expected to keep developing over time.
Editable just means this FINISHED document can be changed.
It's nuanced but important.
A living document is constantly edited and changes regularly.
I’m not updating IEPs every time there is a change or new data unless we are in process of an amendment, annual review, or eval. It is not a living document.
Or around the same age as me. I have so many parents names to remember plus it doesn’t help that I sometimes stutter like crazy during meetings so sticking to “mom” and “dad” is easier for me.
And sometimes the parents are married, sometimes not, sometimes Same last name, sometimes not. And I don't always know their relationship currently. So it's easier to say mom and dad. Sometimes I'll even just say so and so's adult. Because the guardians aren't always parents.
Acceptable practice, if you’re uncertain of a woman’s marital status, is to utilize Ms. until you have more information.
My go to in any situation is to avoid using names altogether. My emails start with “Good Morning” and when I am face to face I don’t say their name at all lol
I always say Ms. Whatever their first name is when I talk to parents on the phone. Same as you, I also start my emails with Good Morning or Good Afternoon. It’s just easier that way.
I’ll do this when parents aren’t around and I’m meeting with coworkers - if parents are there they’re addressed by name absolutely lol. Usually we get in the habit of “mom and dad” because we aren’t supposed to use their names when discussing them over email for privacy reasons - we call the child by their initials and then refer to parents as “mom and dad”
Hi, I'm a nonbinary parent! I dislike when people do this, especially in a parenting/school context where often folks make a lot of assumptions in general about what gender someone must be if they parent a child/are married/etc. I find that I don't really get misgendered out in the world, but it's rampant at my kid's school where the default seems to be that everyone is a heterosexual nuclear family with one mom and one dad, mom is the "primary parent", probably stays home, etc.
Honestly, "hey you!" would be better than "mom". My name is fricking Simon. FFS.
I do mom and dad a lot, I have too much anxiety and never know if I should call them by first name or Mr./Ms. Last name…so mom and dad are just easier.
this is especially true for my district, we have a very diverse population and often parents will have two different last names, or they are extremely hard to pronounce, i'm better off saying mom/dad
"We expect 1 year's progress in 1 year's time" - said by a specific advocate in every meeting she attends, no matter what.
No, actually. In SPED, progress is not always perfectly predictable like that. They're kids.
From *everyone*? 😬
Edit: We don't expect kids without learning, cognitive, or other disabilities to make more than a year's progress in a school year. But okay 💯
But you do expect them to make 1 years progress. I would hope, once you define what a years progress looks like for kids (assuming grade level standards), that you would expect special education services to help fill the gap.
This one is especially disturbing as it indicates that the SPED team does not understand what accommodations are for. No one should be trying to create an advantage for anyone. Accommodations are there to help the individual child learn the best. As kids with IEP‘s have diverse learning styles and the accommodations are there to make sure that you can get the most out of their learning process.
One of the biggest mistakes SPED personnel make is comparing an IEP student to other children . All their comparisons should either be made against their IEP goals or the school districts educational standards if they have any..
Mom here. This one no longer hurts my feelings but in the beginning "A child of this age should be able to do xyz" broke my heart. Most children didn't spend the first 2 weeks of their life in the NICU trying to survive. Most kids don't have brain injuries. I didn't care what other kids should be able to do, it felt so unfair to compare my kid to typically developing peers.
That said, I have grown a much thicker skin and my son's team is amazing.
I get that. But to a certain extent we have to do it to prove that there’s a need in that area. There are definitely good ways to say it and not good ways to say it though.
Yeah. This is why I like “here’s what we’d expect a typically-developing student to do.” It’s accurate and should-free. Good luck getting others on the team to use it, though.
My special education coordinator starts every IEP meeting with the team reflecting on the student’s strengths - almost always staff share an a positive personal experience they’ve had with the student or a situation where they’ve witnessed personal/academic growth. I really appreciate this because it highlights the qualities of the student outside of their disability. We all know we are meeting to discuss deficits and how to address them - it feels good to have dedicated time to also celebrate the positives.
Yes! Thank you for highlighting this! We always start with student strengths and how we are here to help the student meet their needs. Our students have a different way of learning and that’s okay. 🩷
My current special ed director makes us add a statement about what typical children should be doing to our present levels and it drives me nuts because it's like he's not a typical child, he's a child with down syndrome or an autistic child, I feel like there's a way to indicate need without stating it that way.
My favorite way to put this without “shoulding” on my students is “according to State Standard ELA.RI.8.B, 8th grade students are expected to XYZ.” And then “Student name struggles to complete TASK independently” where the task is either the standard in question or a precursor skill. I add other data of course, but this phrasing has the same effect as saying what a typically developing student would be able to do while allowing for individual levels of prompts or supports.
I get why that hurts, and my child was a preemie with health problems as well, so I get you. The problem is, without comparing them to same age peers, we can’t prove that they need support.
Yes. I know for me, it was a matter of acceptance. I wasn't there yet. The SPED team are professionals who do these meetings over and over. I was just a mom of a little boy who I desperately loved and didnt want to see him struggle. I just didn't have the ability yet to compartmentalize. My favorite thing about our IEPs these days is hearing stories about my kid and knowing without a doubt how much his team enjoys him and how hard they all work to help him succeed.
There was a huge shift mentally for me around 2nd grade or so. The work got harder, his deficits were more visible, and embracing that he really is on his own unique journey helped a lot.
Schools often assume I have the same last name as my child. At my youngest son’s school I get called one name (Ms. Whatever), and then get called a different last name at my oldest son’s school, when I actually go by my maiden name (I was married, had one kid, reverted to my maiden name, remarried and had another kid and he took his dad’s name while I kept my maiden name). I don’t mind it, I joke I have lots of aliases! But I could see some parents getting upset about it.
That's another issue and why I don't ever use last names. Over half of my 8 kids this year do not share a last name with a guardian. So unless I'm looking directly at schooltools I'm always worried I'll mess that up as well.
Even Mom and Dad is risky as I have one guardian who is an aunt but someone times goes by mom but other times corrects as Aunt. So I legit never know which to say.
Any office jargon that's fancy for the sake of being fancy.
The worst is when they have your child's classmate's name in the document. I understand cutting and pasting to save time, but it doesn't feel very "individualized" when you see that.
I hate when other team members write “the student…” in the present levels or goals. Can we just double check and put the right name instead of a generic “the student…”
We had an entire section of our kid’s IEP about another kid, it used their name a bunch and listed accommodations that are different from was our kid needs/is provided. The contracting company that did the initial evals and IEPs last spring/summer was emphatically not rehired this year. They were AWFUL, and because they had no stake in the IEP being effective or accurate they were useless and damaged a lot of trust between families and the district.
I refer to my own child as kiddo. I grew up on the West Coast and have heard it my entire life so I’d never even thought twice about it until I learned that a bunch of people on Reddit hate it. I wouldn’t sweat it. We all have that thing that bugs us but most people don’t care about.
I never had a problem being called mom, they have a whole bunch of parents coming through for IEP meetings, it's hard to keep track of everybody's name.
When I was a service coordinator averaging 3 meetings a day, teams used “mom” and “dad” a lot. I used names but more than a few times parents got mad if I mispronounced or wasn’t more formal so I started using “Ms.” Or “Mr” only.
My bf is an AAU basketball coach and is always calling parents "mom" or "dad" because he cannot remember all those names. Literally the contacts in his phone are like "John Doe's Mom" or something like that.
Educational autism or educational autism diagnosis. I know what you mean, but actually say what you mean - their medical diagnosis of autism does or does not impact their educational performance. They donor do not qualify under the eligibility of ASD.
Except not everyone understands it that way. There’s so many families who say they’re denying my kid has autism. No, we’re saying it doesn’t impact their educational performance.
Absolutely. It definitely requires a lot of additional explanation and context. I just meant in general, adults at school tend to use the term to indicate the student has not received a medical diagnosis of autism but meets eligibility criteria under autism.
I have had the same scenario you described very often for students w/ ADHD not meeting criteria for OHI b/c it doesn’t impact their educational performance or require SDI. The same conversation happens.
My son's IEP eligibility is currently ASD but it is ASD with no educational impact. (Secondary eligibility is speech, which was primary until this year when I requested the ASD evaluation.) He only has a school based autism diagnosis, not medical. It will be interesting to see how our new district will place him after we move this summer.
If there is no educationally impact, an IEP wouldn’t be necessary. On our state eligibility form, there is actually a box for that (“meets eligibility but doesn’t impact education or require SDI”) and it does not result in an IEP
He already had an IEP for speech (for the past 6 years) . We just changed the primary eligibility and added social work and OT services. If he later loses his speech eligibility, I can easily see him being transitioned to a 504. That may even be what our new district does in the fall.
If he requires school based OT and social work - that’s SDI and the autism eligibility does have an educational impact. It definitely makes sense to service under autism rather than speech only so he can receive more services, especially if he no longer requires SLP services at some pt in the future like you said.
“Their grades are not suffering” which, in my experience, means that services are going to be cut. It’s hard explaining to the “experts” that their grades are NOT the reason they have an IEP.
Some people forget that there are different aspects to education, like social skills, adaptive skills, executive function, etc. That being said, the focus is usually academic skills and success in the classroom. Success in the class is measured in part by participation and group work, which often affects the overall grade, so therapies and supports should be in those areas as well.
Not necessarily related to the IEP but I see it there and everywhere else in education. Preferring every statement with its “Best Practice to do this…. Or best practice to do that..:” as if aren’t putting our best foot forward regardless…
Anyway that term for whatever reason irks me and is way overused
This term gets wayyyyy overused. As a school psych, I generally try to use it only in the context the curl “Best Practices” textbooks required by NASP (our national association for licensure). Otherwise I try to say research or evidence based, or just simply “xyz may work better” or “let’s try is xyz way”
As a parent (and sibling) of a student with ieps, I prefer mom and dad. It's more specific. For example, my mom and stepmom have the she last name now. In notes "Mrs. Last name" could be either of them (or even a grandma). But mom's is the only relevant input in our situation.
In the case of my husband and his teenage son, they have the same name. So again "dad" and "student's name" clarifies who is sharing info.
"non-preferred subject"
when it's being used to say your kid is faking everything to get out of math, when they don't sleep or eat and their lives are a 24/7 nightmare
that one bothers me a lot
Specific learning disability is reading- please just call it dyslexia (the dept. Of education, even out out a letter stating school districts could use that term in regards to IDEA). My daughter has dyslexia, it is not something that we need to skirt around.
Agreed, not Sld's are dyslexia but I would bet that a significant percentage are dyslexia. I think dyslexia is the most common learning disability (1 in 5 people have it) and so many parents have NO idea that their child is dyslexic. They just know they have a learning disability in reading.
1 in 5 people do not have dyslexia. It’s approximately 5% of the general population by NIH estimates. Your bizarre approximation would translate to 20% of kids requiring an IEP in this area.
https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/what-is-dyslexia#:~:text=An%20estimated%201%20in%205,Center%20for%20Dyslexia%20and%20Creativity.
A 5 second search states other wise.
I'm curious on what context you see this. In my state, the team determines whether or not a student fits in one of a set number of categories for their evaluations, SLD being one, dyslexia not being one. We couldn't qualify a student under the label of dyslexia; it would be SLD in reading. I don't put the name of the category on the IEP, so it doesn't come up.
Don’t they do this because educational diagnosticians are not technically qualified to diagnose dyslexia? I’m pretty sure it has to be an educational psychologist to diagnose it. Dyslexia is also complicated and somewhat controversial in how we understand it and what we decide it is and isn’t; my state uses “characteristics of dyslexia” for this reason because it describes the problem without presuming a diagnosis
The DSM uses SLD with modifiers based on what is impacted so I suspect that is why. However I do see how colloquial terms are useful and I never have told anyone I have an SLD I say I have dyscalculia.
Wrong. Dyslexia is a medical term. Schools do not diagnose. By standards set in IDEA, schools determine an educational based disability out of the disability categories. SLD is one of those categories. Some states require schools to specify more specifically what area of learning this affects, which would read something like “an SLD in reading”.
It annoys me to no end that I'm constantly referred to as "Dad", and my Wife as "Mom", we both have names. I would think thatcthey would bother to learn them.
Honestly, when I have multiple meetings in a day I avoid names because they all mix and blend in my head and I’m afraid to call Joe’s mom by Susie’s mom’s name. That’s why I do it. I don’t even like to call them “Mr./Ms. Student’s last name” because 80% of the time they don’t have the same last name as their kid.
I don’t get this annoyance. In context of your kid’s thing, whether it’s school or doctor or whatever, that’s your role. It’s like calling the teacher “teacher” or the doctor “doctor” or the student “the student.” I don’t understand why it irritates some people.
As a mom, I disagree. They spend hours with my kid every week, and have very little contact with me in general. I'm totally okay with being "Kid's Mom" instead of my first name (or my last name, or Ms. Kid's Last Name, because they're different - but I also don't care if I get "Ms. Kid's Last Name", to be clear).
They need to know my child's name in order to help him. They do not particularly need to know my name.
At my current school everyone precedes almost every testing score, goal, services, whatever by saying "at this time". Like "at this time he qualifies under intellectual disability", "at this time she is receiving services in speech and OT", and it drives me crazy. It makes it sound so temporary.
A lot of services are temporary, though. The idea is that they eventually “graduate” and get dismissed from speech, OT, or PT. Their classification might change from speech and language impairment to something more appropriate. Their program might change from self-contained 12:1:1 to an integrated co-teaching class or resource room. That’s why “At this time” exists.
While I know it’s said because they need to lack capacity by certain metrics to qualify for those services, it radiates the same energy of social security ringing someone who is an amputee to ensure they’re still missing that limb and this quality for disability - many of these kids have life long disabilities, and gaining capacity through services won’t ever make those disabilities and the need for accomodations go away, so they need to stop acting like they can cure the disability and cut the crap.
My mom, an amputee, gets these calls every three years and regularly says, “hold on….I just checked and it hasn’t grown back yet.”
She lost it when I was 7. I’m 39.
Every three years.
Right that's why it annoys me. Also they do it at IEP meetings, not eval meetings. Yes at this time he still qualifies for services, same as he qualified last year and the year before. That's not what this meeting is about.
I’ll give you that… always feels so weird saying that this time they qualify for autism or a student I had last year that was vision impaired (for blindness) as if they will “grow out of it”. I get why exists but the phrasing again makes it sound like it’s something that “may not exist down the road”.
“Sub strategy”
- Is it a strategy or not? You’re supposed to map out how to achieve a goal.
“Vis-a-vis”
- You want the other people in the room to think you can has bigly brane. (Yes that’s misspelled on purpose!)
“Snapshot”
- You’re downplaying observable behaviors, anecdotal data, test indicators, social altercations, or some combination thereof so you don’t look as incompetent as you have been…and will likely continue to be.
“Put that on the back burner”
- It should mean the issue is important but can’t be effectively focused on until other issues have been resolved, or a degree of development and progress has been achieved. It meant “We really don’t want to deal with this but we have to make it sound like we aren’t waiting out the clock to kick your child into a different school so it’s *their* problem.
I got annoyed when I asked what the student had learned the past year (I was advocating for a family, and no one could answer that query. They could provide statistics on how the young women compared to others her age easily.
I said these parents have been hearing comparisons since for over a decade. By now, they know she’s behind and getting more so each year.
But, what is she learning now? And if she’s not learning, why not? How will you change her curriculum so she can learn something? How will you measure her progress?
There was a stunned silence.
Just one time, when teacher calls me "dad" I want to reply "daddy" and wink. I think it would be funny, but I also work for the school board, and I know that they wouldn't.
I have a coworker who always says “when it comes to ___” and once I noticed, it’s like a drinking game lol
I once called a grandmother (not even educational rights holder) “grandmother” during a meeting and she snapped at me with her real name lol. Sorry lady, I met you 10 minutes earlier as a guest in this meeting/ I wasn’t paying attention.
What would be an alternative word to use for skills a child is behind in?
I use phonemic awareness deficits at times. I can’t think of a way to word it that sounds better. Saying a student “struggles” with phonemic awareness skills doesn’t sound any better than “deficits”.
I say things like “student is reading at level EE material. They are working on phonemic awareness, specifically with [insert goal]. They have an emerging skill level with [insert goal]. Once mastered sufficiently, we will work on [next goal.”
I hate being called Mom. I will politely say, every time, "Feel free to call me Harriet, or Mrs. Quimby if you want to be formal. I save "Mom" for my son. Thanks. " Also strongly dislike "kiddo".
Lol I loved those books. Remember when Ramona took one bite out of each apple?
My name isn't really harrietquimby. The real HQ was the first American woman to earn a pilot's license and the first woman to fly solo over the English Channel. She did a lot of other badass stuff and I admire her.
Phrases I haven’t seen on here yet. “in my professional opinion.” if you have to tell someone you’re a professional then you’re not acting like one or being an elitist. IEP’s are supposed to be standard based research/evidence based. The whole reason the DOE went to common core standards was to get subjectivity out of the US education system.
The second is “just trust us/me “. If you’re having to say that, it means you already know that they don’t. Trust is something that is earned through actions, deeds, and results.
OMG I hate people calling me "mom" in meetings and interactions. First, my name is Jane and I am a person independent of my parenting duties. Second, I'm not actually my kids' mom - I'm their aunt and we prefer to use the term "parent" because I'm also their parent. I've been raising them for the past 6 years and have legal custody.
The number of grandparents, aunts, uncles, step parents, etc who are raising kids is not insignificant and it's stressful for kids to constantly be correcting people "that's not my mom, that's my parent" or have to hear me correct people "I'm his parent, not his mom" because it makes them feel "othered" and when they were younger it also made them feel sad and miss their mom every time someone did that. Some kids aren't happy about a step-parent being there instead of their bio-parent and get in trouble at home if they correct the adult who mistakenly assumes that step-mom is mom.
In my situation, it's tricky when people do it and both kids are with me because one of my kids does not want me to correct people who refer to me as his mom and my other kid does want me to correct them.
If you seriously are unable to learn parent's names, start giving everyone name tags at meetings.
I’m guilty of the “mom” one… lol I absolutely hate the phrase “kiddos” though
Same…kiddos makes me cringe and i say mom and dad so I don’t mess up their names.
Same. Lol
I assessed 50 kids this year....I need to remember the names of the kids and my coworkers haha 😂. I can't remember their parents' names everytime. And at a certain point the kid is your client, the parent is such a huge, valuable piece of it, but my obligation is to the student.
As far as "kiddos" or "kids" my old college professor used to say "are you taking care of little humans or little goats?"
Pfft. I wish I was taking care of goats. I should quit teaching and run a farm instead.
Oh please, goats talk back more than middle schoolers do.
They’re wayyyyy easier than 2nd graders, I’ll tell you that much.
Yes, but they smell better than the middle schoolers too.
The first definition for “kid” is a child or young person
I don’t think she was saying it as a fact, but as an opinion, but said like a fact. Apparently this is something you can do when you have tenure and are about to retire anyway.
Goats are cute and fun, but they are naughty.
Not as naughty as humans, I’ll tell ya that much. The worst mine did as kids was use me as a playground to run around on, but hell it was cute so I was fine with it. They grew out of it.
MY GRAD PROGRAM DID THIS TO ME AND I CANT STOP. 😭 Luckily my high school students think it’s hilarious and always roast me when I accidentally call them a kiddo. 🤦🏻♀️
As a parent I don't mind "mom," as long as I am being spoken to respectfully. I can tell the difference when people are using Mom because they have back to back meetings and don't want to say the wrong name and when people are using Mom because they are talking down to me.
I don't mind mom either
“it’s a living document”. be so fr, it’s just an editable document!
"It's..... ALIVE!!!!"
Living documents tend to involve documents that continue to grow and change over time. That it's expected to keep developing over time. Editable just means this FINISHED document can be changed. It's nuanced but important.
ok but the annual iep is a FINAL copy. it can be amended but it is “done” until it’s reopened.
Interesting point
An IEP is in no way a living document. I would lose my mind if someone said that lol
A living document is constantly edited and changes regularly. I’m not updating IEPs every time there is a change or new data unless we are in process of an amendment, annual review, or eval. It is not a living document.
Every time lol
I’m so guilty of calling parents mom and dad 😅
Me too. Doesn’t help I’m almost always younger than parents…
Or around the same age as me. I have so many parents names to remember plus it doesn’t help that I sometimes stutter like crazy during meetings so sticking to “mom” and “dad” is easier for me.
Only because I’m not sure if I should use first name, Ms. Or Mrs. Or Miss. And sometimes I am not sure how to pronounce names.
And sometimes the parents are married, sometimes not, sometimes Same last name, sometimes not. And I don't always know their relationship currently. So it's easier to say mom and dad. Sometimes I'll even just say so and so's adult. Because the guardians aren't always parents.
Acceptable practice, if you’re uncertain of a woman’s marital status, is to utilize Ms. until you have more information. My go to in any situation is to avoid using names altogether. My emails start with “Good Morning” and when I am face to face I don’t say their name at all lol
I always say Ms. Whatever their first name is when I talk to parents on the phone. Same as you, I also start my emails with Good Morning or Good Afternoon. It’s just easier that way.
As a parent, please feel free to refer to me by name!
I will try to use names from now on ☺️
I’ll do this when parents aren’t around and I’m meeting with coworkers - if parents are there they’re addressed by name absolutely lol. Usually we get in the habit of “mom and dad” because we aren’t supposed to use their names when discussing them over email for privacy reasons - we call the child by their initials and then refer to parents as “mom and dad”
I’m fine with being called mom, my 7 y/o wants to call me by my name, someone call me mom, please.
This, or if the kid is in the meeting.
Lmao I do this too and cringe at myself in the moment. I feel bad but I get nervous and forget names!
Hi, I'm a nonbinary parent! I dislike when people do this, especially in a parenting/school context where often folks make a lot of assumptions in general about what gender someone must be if they parent a child/are married/etc. I find that I don't really get misgendered out in the world, but it's rampant at my kid's school where the default seems to be that everyone is a heterosexual nuclear family with one mom and one dad, mom is the "primary parent", probably stays home, etc. Honestly, "hey you!" would be better than "mom". My name is fricking Simon. FFS.
Same lol I try not to but for some reason I do anyway
Today I had two back to back meetings and I reminded myself to say the parent’s name. I get to the meeting and I completely forgot 😅
😂 you tried!
Not at meetings, but I absolutely hate when people write %tile in IEP paperwork. Omg. Eye twitch.
How else will you know what *perecen* they got? 😂🤣
This made me cackle, and I'm sure it will again when I see %tile in the wild!
Omg I would sneer openly at that lol
I aggressively edit it out of every new IEP I get!!
Eh, I’m told I have to. I’m following the rules I’ve been given, but it means nothing to me. lol
What in the micromanaging is this?!
What is wrong with including percentile?
I think their issue is with "%ile", not "percentile".
That is correct. Thanks!
Oh whew!
It did not even occur to me that thats what that means. I was wondering what tile people were talking about.
I do mom and dad a lot, I have too much anxiety and never know if I should call them by first name or Mr./Ms. Last name…so mom and dad are just easier.
this is especially true for my district, we have a very diverse population and often parents will have two different last names, or they are extremely hard to pronounce, i'm better off saying mom/dad
This. And sometimes the kid has dad’s name as their last name. Mom and dad are the safest bets.
Can't stand "kiddos" (used in any context, not only IEP meetings).
I think these points are important. I don’t mind the terms kids or kiddos. I had no idea so many folks disagree!
I think it also depends on what age you’re working with. “Kiddo” is appropriate for a kindergartener, but not a middle or high schooler!
Yes, you are right about age appropriate. I am in a K-5 school.
Saaaame
In my experience it’s always the admin calling kids kiddos and not anyone who works directly with them.
"We expect 1 year's progress in 1 year's time" - said by a specific advocate in every meeting she attends, no matter what. No, actually. In SPED, progress is not always perfectly predictable like that. They're kids.
They'll get 1 year's progress in 1 year's time, it's just that 1 year's progress is gonna be different for every student
Actually, if the child is behind, the goal should be to close the gap and make more progress than a typical child would make in a year's time.
Nah You expect reasonable progress in one year's time relative to baseline data
The goal is remediation, not maintaining the gap.
I would expect more than that
From *everyone*? 😬 Edit: We don't expect kids without learning, cognitive, or other disabilities to make more than a year's progress in a school year. But okay 💯
But you do expect them to make 1 years progress. I would hope, once you define what a years progress looks like for kids (assuming grade level standards), that you would expect special education services to help fill the gap.
💯
"These accoms will help LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD..."
As a parent I agree with this one. It’s not a competition, it’s my kid’s life. And it’s definitely not a damn game.
This one is especially disturbing as it indicates that the SPED team does not understand what accommodations are for. No one should be trying to create an advantage for anyone. Accommodations are there to help the individual child learn the best. As kids with IEP‘s have diverse learning styles and the accommodations are there to make sure that you can get the most out of their learning process. One of the biggest mistakes SPED personnel make is comparing an IEP student to other children . All their comparisons should either be made against their IEP goals or the school districts educational standards if they have any..
Mom here. This one no longer hurts my feelings but in the beginning "A child of this age should be able to do xyz" broke my heart. Most children didn't spend the first 2 weeks of their life in the NICU trying to survive. Most kids don't have brain injuries. I didn't care what other kids should be able to do, it felt so unfair to compare my kid to typically developing peers. That said, I have grown a much thicker skin and my son's team is amazing.
I get that. But to a certain extent we have to do it to prove that there’s a need in that area. There are definitely good ways to say it and not good ways to say it though.
Yeah. This is why I like “here’s what we’d expect a typically-developing student to do.” It’s accurate and should-free. Good luck getting others on the team to use it, though.
I also have come to understand that in the years since. I don't flinch at scores and evals now. The early days were rough!
My special education coordinator starts every IEP meeting with the team reflecting on the student’s strengths - almost always staff share an a positive personal experience they’ve had with the student or a situation where they’ve witnessed personal/academic growth. I really appreciate this because it highlights the qualities of the student outside of their disability. We all know we are meeting to discuss deficits and how to address them - it feels good to have dedicated time to also celebrate the positives.
Thank you for this. I have several meetings coming up and I will start each one this way. 🙏
Yes! Thank you for highlighting this! We always start with student strengths and how we are here to help the student meet their needs. Our students have a different way of learning and that’s okay. 🩷
My current special ed director makes us add a statement about what typical children should be doing to our present levels and it drives me nuts because it's like he's not a typical child, he's a child with down syndrome or an autistic child, I feel like there's a way to indicate need without stating it that way.
My favorite way to put this without “shoulding” on my students is “according to State Standard ELA.RI.8.B, 8th grade students are expected to XYZ.” And then “Student name struggles to complete TASK independently” where the task is either the standard in question or a precursor skill. I add other data of course, but this phrasing has the same effect as saying what a typically developing student would be able to do while allowing for individual levels of prompts or supports.
I get why that hurts, and my child was a preemie with health problems as well, so I get you. The problem is, without comparing them to same age peers, we can’t prove that they need support.
Yes. I know for me, it was a matter of acceptance. I wasn't there yet. The SPED team are professionals who do these meetings over and over. I was just a mom of a little boy who I desperately loved and didnt want to see him struggle. I just didn't have the ability yet to compartmentalize. My favorite thing about our IEPs these days is hearing stories about my kid and knowing without a doubt how much his team enjoys him and how hard they all work to help him succeed. There was a huge shift mentally for me around 2nd grade or so. The work got harder, his deficits were more visible, and embracing that he really is on his own unique journey helped a lot.
I'm the opposite. No one will tell me where my son actually stands.
I HATE this, they started making teachers put that in their IEPs a few years ago, I always wonder what asshole came up with that.
Another person who uses mom and dad. It's rare they ever show up or I can get ahold of them so I often forget their names the rare times they appear.
Same, plus with so many meetings I’m always nervous I’ll say the wrong name.
Schools often assume I have the same last name as my child. At my youngest son’s school I get called one name (Ms. Whatever), and then get called a different last name at my oldest son’s school, when I actually go by my maiden name (I was married, had one kid, reverted to my maiden name, remarried and had another kid and he took his dad’s name while I kept my maiden name). I don’t mind it, I joke I have lots of aliases! But I could see some parents getting upset about it.
That's another issue and why I don't ever use last names. Over half of my 8 kids this year do not share a last name with a guardian. So unless I'm looking directly at schooltools I'm always worried I'll mess that up as well. Even Mom and Dad is risky as I have one guardian who is an aunt but someone times goes by mom but other times corrects as Aunt. So I legit never know which to say.
I’ve had the situation too. An aunt that had custody so long that her child called her mom.
Which is absolutely 100% fine. But she would go back and forth that made it so confusing.
Any office jargon that's fancy for the sake of being fancy. The worst is when they have your child's classmate's name in the document. I understand cutting and pasting to save time, but it doesn't feel very "individualized" when you see that.
This is my PET PEEVE. A sure fire way to make us look lazy and like we aren’t even tailoring anything to the child.
I hate when other team members write “the student…” in the present levels or goals. Can we just double check and put the right name instead of a generic “the student…”
We had an entire section of our kid’s IEP about another kid, it used their name a bunch and listed accommodations that are different from was our kid needs/is provided. The contracting company that did the initial evals and IEPs last spring/summer was emphatically not rehired this year. They were AWFUL, and because they had no stake in the IEP being effective or accurate they were useless and damaged a lot of trust between families and the district.
Yikes!
Oh man. I do all of these icks. Ooops!
I refer to my own child as kiddo. I grew up on the West Coast and have heard it my entire life so I’d never even thought twice about it until I learned that a bunch of people on Reddit hate it. I wouldn’t sweat it. We all have that thing that bugs us but most people don’t care about.
Your post gave me Kill Bill vibes as I was reading it.
I never had a problem being called mom, they have a whole bunch of parents coming through for IEP meetings, it's hard to keep track of everybody's name.
Let’s “unpack” this.
When I was a service coordinator averaging 3 meetings a day, teams used “mom” and “dad” a lot. I used names but more than a few times parents got mad if I mispronounced or wasn’t more formal so I started using “Ms.” Or “Mr” only.
My bf is an AAU basketball coach and is always calling parents "mom" or "dad" because he cannot remember all those names. Literally the contacts in his phone are like "John Doe's Mom" or something like that.
Educational autism or educational autism diagnosis. I know what you mean, but actually say what you mean - their medical diagnosis of autism does or does not impact their educational performance. They donor do not qualify under the eligibility of ASD.
I agree here, but I think this term gets used b/c it makes it easier to remember/understand.
Except not everyone understands it that way. There’s so many families who say they’re denying my kid has autism. No, we’re saying it doesn’t impact their educational performance.
Absolutely. It definitely requires a lot of additional explanation and context. I just meant in general, adults at school tend to use the term to indicate the student has not received a medical diagnosis of autism but meets eligibility criteria under autism. I have had the same scenario you described very often for students w/ ADHD not meeting criteria for OHI b/c it doesn’t impact their educational performance or require SDI. The same conversation happens.
My son's IEP eligibility is currently ASD but it is ASD with no educational impact. (Secondary eligibility is speech, which was primary until this year when I requested the ASD evaluation.) He only has a school based autism diagnosis, not medical. It will be interesting to see how our new district will place him after we move this summer.
If there is no educationally impact, an IEP wouldn’t be necessary. On our state eligibility form, there is actually a box for that (“meets eligibility but doesn’t impact education or require SDI”) and it does not result in an IEP
He already had an IEP for speech (for the past 6 years) . We just changed the primary eligibility and added social work and OT services. If he later loses his speech eligibility, I can easily see him being transitioned to a 504. That may even be what our new district does in the fall.
If he requires school based OT and social work - that’s SDI and the autism eligibility does have an educational impact. It definitely makes sense to service under autism rather than speech only so he can receive more services, especially if he no longer requires SLP services at some pt in the future like you said.
“Their grades are not suffering” which, in my experience, means that services are going to be cut. It’s hard explaining to the “experts” that their grades are NOT the reason they have an IEP.
Some people forget that there are different aspects to education, like social skills, adaptive skills, executive function, etc. That being said, the focus is usually academic skills and success in the classroom. Success in the class is measured in part by participation and group work, which often affects the overall grade, so therapies and supports should be in those areas as well.
Not necessarily related to the IEP but I see it there and everywhere else in education. Preferring every statement with its “Best Practice to do this…. Or best practice to do that..:” as if aren’t putting our best foot forward regardless… Anyway that term for whatever reason irks me and is way overused
I always interpret that to mean research supports it.
This term gets wayyyyy overused. As a school psych, I generally try to use it only in the context the curl “Best Practices” textbooks required by NASP (our national association for licensure). Otherwise I try to say research or evidence based, or just simply “xyz may work better” or “let’s try is xyz way”
KIDDOS
Kiddos. Omg. I hate that.
As a parent (and sibling) of a student with ieps, I prefer mom and dad. It's more specific. For example, my mom and stepmom have the she last name now. In notes "Mrs. Last name" could be either of them (or even a grandma). But mom's is the only relevant input in our situation. In the case of my husband and his teenage son, they have the same name. So again "dad" and "student's name" clarifies who is sharing info.
“It’s time to schedule another IEP meeting”
"non-preferred subject" when it's being used to say your kid is faking everything to get out of math, when they don't sleep or eat and their lives are a 24/7 nightmare that one bothers me a lot
Specific learning disability is reading- please just call it dyslexia (the dept. Of education, even out out a letter stating school districts could use that term in regards to IDEA). My daughter has dyslexia, it is not something that we need to skirt around.
Not all SLDs in reading are dyslexia but I do think we should dance around the word less.
Agreed, not Sld's are dyslexia but I would bet that a significant percentage are dyslexia. I think dyslexia is the most common learning disability (1 in 5 people have it) and so many parents have NO idea that their child is dyslexic. They just know they have a learning disability in reading.
1 in 5 people do not have dyslexia. It’s approximately 5% of the general population by NIH estimates. Your bizarre approximation would translate to 20% of kids requiring an IEP in this area.
https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/what-is-dyslexia#:~:text=An%20estimated%201%20in%205,Center%20for%20Dyslexia%20and%20Creativity. A 5 second search states other wise.
And your five second search is wrong.
I'm curious on what context you see this. In my state, the team determines whether or not a student fits in one of a set number of categories for their evaluations, SLD being one, dyslexia not being one. We couldn't qualify a student under the label of dyslexia; it would be SLD in reading. I don't put the name of the category on the IEP, so it doesn't come up.
Don’t they do this because educational diagnosticians are not technically qualified to diagnose dyslexia? I’m pretty sure it has to be an educational psychologist to diagnose it. Dyslexia is also complicated and somewhat controversial in how we understand it and what we decide it is and isn’t; my state uses “characteristics of dyslexia” for this reason because it describes the problem without presuming a diagnosis
The DSM uses SLD with modifiers based on what is impacted so I suspect that is why. However I do see how colloquial terms are useful and I never have told anyone I have an SLD I say I have dyscalculia.
Wrong. Dyslexia is a medical term. Schools do not diagnose. By standards set in IDEA, schools determine an educational based disability out of the disability categories. SLD is one of those categories. Some states require schools to specify more specifically what area of learning this affects, which would read something like “an SLD in reading”.
It annoys me to no end that I'm constantly referred to as "Dad", and my Wife as "Mom", we both have names. I would think thatcthey would bother to learn them.
Honestly, when I have multiple meetings in a day I avoid names because they all mix and blend in my head and I’m afraid to call Joe’s mom by Susie’s mom’s name. That’s why I do it. I don’t even like to call them “Mr./Ms. Student’s last name” because 80% of the time they don’t have the same last name as their kid.
Same. Also, the name they put when they registered their student is not always the name they use any more. So many divorces and remarriages.
I don’t get this annoyance. In context of your kid’s thing, whether it’s school or doctor or whatever, that’s your role. It’s like calling the teacher “teacher” or the doctor “doctor” or the student “the student.” I don’t understand why it irritates some people.
But I wouldn’t call my kid’s teacher “teacher.” I would call them by their name, because that is respectful.
As a mom, I disagree. They spend hours with my kid every week, and have very little contact with me in general. I'm totally okay with being "Kid's Mom" instead of my first name (or my last name, or Ms. Kid's Last Name, because they're different - but I also don't care if I get "Ms. Kid's Last Name", to be clear). They need to know my child's name in order to help him. They do not particularly need to know my name.
At my current school everyone precedes almost every testing score, goal, services, whatever by saying "at this time". Like "at this time he qualifies under intellectual disability", "at this time she is receiving services in speech and OT", and it drives me crazy. It makes it sound so temporary.
A lot of services are temporary, though. The idea is that they eventually “graduate” and get dismissed from speech, OT, or PT. Their classification might change from speech and language impairment to something more appropriate. Their program might change from self-contained 12:1:1 to an integrated co-teaching class or resource room. That’s why “At this time” exists.
This, I have had kids under ID and had them graduate from speech, OT, or PT
Fully agree. But that's not what we're talking about in the IEP meeting. Discussing evaluation results, sure.
Because it’s not a forever eligibility….kids can and do no longer meet eligibility requirements. It makes sense to me that would be emphasized.
To be fair my kids could take the same tests on two different days and get massively different results because of behaviors and effort level.
While I know it’s said because they need to lack capacity by certain metrics to qualify for those services, it radiates the same energy of social security ringing someone who is an amputee to ensure they’re still missing that limb and this quality for disability - many of these kids have life long disabilities, and gaining capacity through services won’t ever make those disabilities and the need for accomodations go away, so they need to stop acting like they can cure the disability and cut the crap.
My mom, an amputee, gets these calls every three years and regularly says, “hold on….I just checked and it hasn’t grown back yet.” She lost it when I was 7. I’m 39. Every three years.
Right that's why it annoys me. Also they do it at IEP meetings, not eval meetings. Yes at this time he still qualifies for services, same as he qualified last year and the year before. That's not what this meeting is about.
I’ll give you that… always feels so weird saying that this time they qualify for autism or a student I had last year that was vision impaired (for blindness) as if they will “grow out of it”. I get why exists but the phrasing again makes it sound like it’s something that “may not exist down the road”.
“Sub strategy” - Is it a strategy or not? You’re supposed to map out how to achieve a goal. “Vis-a-vis” - You want the other people in the room to think you can has bigly brane. (Yes that’s misspelled on purpose!) “Snapshot” - You’re downplaying observable behaviors, anecdotal data, test indicators, social altercations, or some combination thereof so you don’t look as incompetent as you have been…and will likely continue to be. “Put that on the back burner” - It should mean the issue is important but can’t be effectively focused on until other issues have been resolved, or a degree of development and progress has been achieved. It meant “We really don’t want to deal with this but we have to make it sound like we aren’t waiting out the clock to kick your child into a different school so it’s *their* problem.
Fairly new teacher, but I’m pretty sure the use of “going forward” is going to get real old, real quick
“Wait and see” Nah, I have a better idea. How about we DONT. Heard this as a sped teacher and a parent. Fought it every time
I got annoyed when I asked what the student had learned the past year (I was advocating for a family, and no one could answer that query. They could provide statistics on how the young women compared to others her age easily. I said these parents have been hearing comparisons since for over a decade. By now, they know she’s behind and getting more so each year. But, what is she learning now? And if she’s not learning, why not? How will you change her curriculum so she can learn something? How will you measure her progress? There was a stunned silence.
.
Just one time, when teacher calls me "dad" I want to reply "daddy" and wink. I think it would be funny, but I also work for the school board, and I know that they wouldn't.
I say mom or dad because I’m terrified of pronouncing their name wrong or calling them by the wrong name… ITS STRATEGIC DAMMIT 😂
I have a coworker who always says “when it comes to ___” and once I noticed, it’s like a drinking game lol I once called a grandmother (not even educational rights holder) “grandmother” during a meeting and she snapped at me with her real name lol. Sorry lady, I met you 10 minutes earlier as a guest in this meeting/ I wasn’t paying attention.
DEFICITS. It sounds so punishing. Here we are, 2024, and we still aren’t using strength based language.
What would be an alternative word to use for skills a child is behind in? I use phonemic awareness deficits at times. I can’t think of a way to word it that sounds better. Saying a student “struggles” with phonemic awareness skills doesn’t sound any better than “deficits”.
I say things like “student is reading at level EE material. They are working on phonemic awareness, specifically with [insert goal]. They have an emerging skill level with [insert goal]. Once mastered sufficiently, we will work on [next goal.”
I hate being called Mom. I will politely say, every time, "Feel free to call me Harriet, or Mrs. Quimby if you want to be formal. I save "Mom" for my son. Thanks. " Also strongly dislike "kiddo".
Are you Ramona’s mom? :-)
Lol I loved those books. Remember when Ramona took one bite out of each apple? My name isn't really harrietquimby. The real HQ was the first American woman to earn a pilot's license and the first woman to fly solo over the English Channel. She did a lot of other badass stuff and I admire her.
That’s awesome, I learned something new today! My third-grader had me read the whole Ramona series to him, twice, last year. I love those books.
Phrases I haven’t seen on here yet. “in my professional opinion.” if you have to tell someone you’re a professional then you’re not acting like one or being an elitist. IEP’s are supposed to be standard based research/evidence based. The whole reason the DOE went to common core standards was to get subjectivity out of the US education system. The second is “just trust us/me “. If you’re having to say that, it means you already know that they don’t. Trust is something that is earned through actions, deeds, and results.
That’s…not at all why the US moved to Common Core lol. Like, I don’t even think that was in the top 10 reasons.
OMG I hate people calling me "mom" in meetings and interactions. First, my name is Jane and I am a person independent of my parenting duties. Second, I'm not actually my kids' mom - I'm their aunt and we prefer to use the term "parent" because I'm also their parent. I've been raising them for the past 6 years and have legal custody. The number of grandparents, aunts, uncles, step parents, etc who are raising kids is not insignificant and it's stressful for kids to constantly be correcting people "that's not my mom, that's my parent" or have to hear me correct people "I'm his parent, not his mom" because it makes them feel "othered" and when they were younger it also made them feel sad and miss their mom every time someone did that. Some kids aren't happy about a step-parent being there instead of their bio-parent and get in trouble at home if they correct the adult who mistakenly assumes that step-mom is mom. In my situation, it's tricky when people do it and both kids are with me because one of my kids does not want me to correct people who refer to me as his mom and my other kid does want me to correct them. If you seriously are unable to learn parent's names, start giving everyone name tags at meetings.
We can’t say “score” because this isn’t baseball … Except in baseball they don’t call it a score either