Tactics School Districts Use to Prevent Parents From Winning Special Education Disputes!
Are you the parent of a child with autism or a learning disability receiving special education services? Are you new to the special education arena and would like to be educated on some tactics to look for? This article will be discussing 8 tactics used by some special education personnel, to prevent parents from being equal participants in their child’s education.
Tactic 1: Intimidation, bullying and lying! Some special education personnel try very hard to be intimidating, so that parents will not fight for services for their children! Intimidation could be loud voices, threats, condescending to the parent, or making the parent feel inadequate or uncomfortable!
Tactic 2: All of the above; but with a smile on their face! It absolutely gets me when a special education person opens their mouth and states something not truthful, when they are smiling! I wonder if they think that the lie will not be realized by the parent, due to their facial expressions
Tactic 3: Quoting laws that do not exist, to make it seem like they have more power than they do! As an educational advocate and parent I have seen this many times myself. Example: Mrs. Jones the law allows us to not give services to children if we run out of money (not true)! Or Mrs. Jones the law says that we can suspend your child for as long as we want to due to their behavior (not true)!
Tactic 4: I have heard from many parents that their special education personnel have actually changed educational records so that they could win a dispute with the parent! What I have seen is records added to a child’s file (that the parent did not know about) to document things that have happened. This is why it is critical that parents get copies of their child’s entire educational record (especially during a dispute) and keep it for future reference. If you end up in due process with your school district check all records that they are using to make sure that they match the records that you have!
