Is due process warranted?
New Jersey. My son is going into 3rd grade. He is in self-contained and pushes into Gen Ed for specials. 2nd grade was a nightmare. My son is on the spectrum and struggles with social cues and although fully verbal struggles with receptive and expressive language. Last year there was a girl that he wanted to be friends with and approached it by teasing her saying things like “x makes farts” (he finds farts numerous) instead of recognizing a teaching opportunity, he was reprimanded for the behavior. I had no idea this had happened and when I got looped in, was told that he was making inappropriate comments to another student. I asked why they couldn’t just teach him how to interact and a BIP was recommended.
The BIP included a token board, but no teaching of the appropriate behavior. The token board was implemented and for several months I fought to get language added to actually teach him appropriate behavior. In the meantime he was removed from pushing into Gen Ed - I was led to believe that this was because student x was in the class he was pushing into, but later found out at a subsequent IEP meeting the student was not in the class. I found this out at an IEP meeting that I called to get an update to the BIP to include teaching, this was in March. His Present levels were updated for this meeting. The comments were deplorable and included the statement “to date he has only improved 1 reading level.”
Our annual IEP meeting was scheduled for late April, I asked for the latest IEP and was given the same IEP. The meeting was then rescheduled to June, 2 days before school ended. I asked for the latest IEP and was given the same with comments from March. A week after school ended I received an IEP with comments from April and it was in DRAFT status and I was offered two meetings over the Summer. I responded asking why we needed to meet and got no further response until August 3rd and was told I had two weeks to review the IEP before it went into effect. I responded and asked that a parent statement be included in its entirety. No response despite the Director being included in the email.
Fast forward, school starts 9/1 and the portal is now open. The IEP is the one from March and my parent statement has not been included.
I’m tired. If anyone has any insight, I would appreciate it. I was looking forward to wrapping up the IEP and starting the new year fresh.
Thank you in advance!