Understanding the special-ed system
Sometimes letters come slowly, sometimes the meaning of the words. Sometimes a 6- or 7-year-old just seems slow, unfocused like a lens. Sometimes it will be a teacher who first raises the suspicion that the child just cannot keep up with the class.
If a child is diagnosed with a learning disability, his family has entered a branch of education that can bolster the child's abilities and launch him on a path to achieving -- but can also disintegrate into a fractious process that drives a wedge between educators and parents, even when everyone believes they're doing what's best for the child.
To best help their children, specialists say, parents need a clear understanding of how the special-education system works, and what benefits and options are likely.
''Parents need to be reminded that they are equal partners in the process," said Andrew Lavash, a former special-education administrator and now an educational consultant in Hopkinton.
Before negotiating, Lavash says, parents need to work through their frustrations. ''Coming to the realization that your child may require help beyond what's given really hurts an awful lot," he said.
If a parent or teacher suspects a problem, either can begin the process by requesting that a professional assess the child in the suspected area of the learning disability, Lavash says. A parent must always provide consent, and district representatives generally meet with the parents to answer questions before any testing begins.
According to the state Department of Education, licensed professionals and teachers might examine many aspects of the child's thinking and behavior, from basics like hearing and vision to complex factors such as communication skills and adaptability to change.
Once the assessment is complete, the parents meet with the assessment team to discuss the findings. Educators must decide if there is a disability and if it hinders the child from mastering the curriculum. Parents and officials must agree on this issue.
Once they do, then the big questions must be hashed out. This is difficult because Massachusetts, like most states, does not have prescribed education solutions for specific disabilities. Each child receives an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP. The plan is created by parents, teachers, school counselors, special-education teachers, a district administrator, and specialists such as an occupational therapist or a speech pathologist, all of whom will meet to draft a prescription for improvement for the academic year. The goal is for everyone to agree on a course of action, be it tutoring or special accommodations at school.
This is where relations between the school and parents can often crumble as the two sides disagree on what services, and the length of services, the child needs.
''Parents sometimes push for special-education services that sometimes the kid doesn't require," Lavash said. The more common problem is that parents trust the districts to provide all the solutions, and districts operating on a slim fiscal margin try to provide the best services for the least amount of money. ''They trust and they shouldn't.
Specialists and parents say the IEP meeting is the time for parents to be outspoken. The IEP is a legal document and changes cannot be made after it has been approved by the state Department of Education. The DOE mediates any disagreements.
To be most beneficial, the plan should set clear goals that can be monitored and again evaluated. Fuzzy goals, such as ''Abby will improve her reading," don't provide the guideposts that will allow the teachers and parents to gauge whether the child is moving ahead, specialists say. A better goal would be ''Abby will improve her reading to a second-grade level and consistently answer 10 questions about her reading."
If parents and teachers believe the child is not meeting the goals, the type of services may have to be changed. Again, that involves agreement between educators and parents.
''Who will get more [services] is probably the kid who fights the hardest," Lavash says. ''That's what parents do. They have to fight and fight and fight."
Often parents are confused by the process or feel they need professional guidance to be able to make the best decisions for their child. Some, but not the majority, hire an advocate -- usually a parent of a special-needs child who has been trained in children's rights. Others opt for an education consultant, some of whom worked as teachers or administrators. Each district has a volunteer Parent Advisory Council that can provide names of local advisers, whose advice can cost several hundred to a few thousand dollars.
Very few parents initially choose to sit down with a lawyer, but Robert Crabtree, a partner at Kotin, Crabtree, and Strong in Boston who concentrates on disability law, suggests that such a conversation at almost any point in the process can be helpful to give parents a hand with the intricacies of education and disability law.
''A school system, with few resources, has a chance to limit what a kid can receive for services," he said. ''If people aren't educated about the procedures . . . they're at the mercy of a system that will lag behind if it doesn't have the resources."
