Tuesday, March 31, 2009

It worked!

Our Columbo Tactic paid off. We received an apology from the school district letting us know that they must have been misunderstood/misrepresented the process and they would certainly include us in the eligibility meeting and know that writing the IEP in advance in detail was illegal. The response was incredibly apologetic and detailed in how they would do the process.

1 comment:

Tim said...

Go y'all! Now that's how it's done.

I read about another interesting tactic if you're feeling like you're getting strong-armed by the schools. Summarize all conversations (esp. those containing offending comments from them) in writing, say in the letter "if you wish to correct our summary, please send your written response to us within 10 days of receipt of this letter. If our summary is accurate, there's no need to respond and we'll add this to the record," and then send it certified mail to the school district. Essentially it forces them to respond or accept what you wrote. Sneaky. Apparently this part of the record holds up if it goes to appeal (can't confirm that though), but it ventures toward throwing down a gauntlet if you're not careful with it. In your case, I think things will get somewhat easier now.

Usually once they clue in that you're not screwing around, that's enough to get things moving in the right direction.

Great job!