Understanding the Challenges of School IEPs:
IEPs in schools have been around for a long time. It is a plan that the schools, parents, and sometimes children come up with how to best meet their needs in an academic setting. Once they are signed they become federal law, enforceable both by the Individuals with Education Act (IDEA) and recently parents can now sue schools under the American's with Disabilities Act (ADA).
There was a Supreme Court case in 2022/2023 of Perez vs some school district in Michigan. I will let you go look it up, however the outcome made it possible for parents to sue schools for accommodations under IDEA and for monetary compensation under the ADA.
In my eyes this is great news, and here is why. I have a degree in Secondary Education and I taught for two years. That combined with my experiences of coaching with other educators I was able to see some major flaws. The meetings to establish the IEPs should have the school counselor, administrator, ALL the teachers, school resource officers, and anyone else that might need to be involved. They should all be informed of what accommodations need to be made the reality is they are not informed or do not stick to the plan. This can lead to escalation, panic attacks, etc, and the blame is usually put onto the child.
I have heard coaches make fun of kids with special needs in the coaches offices, I have watched teachers have biases, bullying, and more. Here in Idaho we had an issue of a school resource officer didn't follow the plan (he signed saying he knew what it was) and threw a child to the ground and assaulted him, when the child resisted he got slapped with a felony charge, and the family was able to sue the school district over this. Who pays for these lawsuits? We the tax payers do.
If you ever wonder why our economy is so bad, look at the amount of money our local governments and school districts pay in lawsuits over people who pass a background checks but still choose to break the law. Not everyone should be a teacher or police officer.
I wish I could have gone to a school for the gifted.
Thank you,
Mikey