Loathing of the IEP Process (subtitled: "On Hate, A Monologue")

My Personal Manifesto for today.
(Yes, Virginia, I am off to donate my otherwise-child-free morning to Tim's IEP team wherein I expect to learn that the District couldn't POSSIBLY allow Tim to stay in middle school for band and PE next year but rather that Tim will BENEFIT from giving up band and taking only PE with a sport coach -- vice a teacher-teacher -- at the Big, Bad high school).

I hate IEP season with a purple passion. I do not appreciate not getting the draft reports in advance. I do not like not knowing the agenda. (I truly do not "do" surprises with grace). I hate being read to page by miserable page. I hate stupid mistakes in grammar, spelling, and most of all, thinking. Especially from folks in the field of "education". I hate not really having a vote, just having a veto.

I detest IEP season because it means my overexposure to bad hairstyles, wrong haircolors (e.g., those not found in nature), bad shoes and/or handbags, hopelessly outdated eyewear, an overabundance of polyester and the near occasion of thematically-inspired aprons, for a certain resource teacher. I fret about what this chronic over-exposure may do to my unborn baby.

I am annoyed that no one else shows up with quality snacks. I hate that if others do happen to bring snacks, I am compelled to surreptiously check the expiration date (which is, more often than not, yesterday or earlier, and is leftover from some staff training) and therefore, confirms that the team is INDEED trying to poison the hapless parent.

I hate Encore. I hate Encore. I hate Encore. (Note: Encore is the online computer database that all SDUSD IEPs must be stored within). I am vexed by spending time in a meeting watching someone else trying to insert ampersands and delete key words in order to fit the space allowed.

Oh, and I really hate that the District -- despite a huge RSA staff and budget and years of burgeoning numbers of students identified -- still has no idea how (and under what conditions) kids with autism learn.

I loathe going through multiple meetings and then having the "facilitator" ask me to provide "parent concerns" just "because there's a box" -- not because the staff could even feign interest. I hate having a facilitator jammed down my throat. (It makes me gag, which I similarly hate). I grow obstinate when the "parent concerns" box is already filled in before I have said anything.

Frankly, I do not endorse a ratio of 20 staff per parent in a room. I regret my obsessive need to try to estimate how many dollars in salaries (and when I'm especially bored, add in benefits package values) it takes to quash the procedural safeguards. (Think of it like the old "guess how many jellybeans are in the jar" contest). I hate contemplating how much the attorney retainer will be and comparing it to the cost of the people it takes to say "no". I hate conducting cost-benefit analyses to determine the cost of the attorney vs. the benefit of mental health, the cost of wasting time vs. the benefit of doing it right.

I grow weary with how the District employees can make unsupported statements but that my utterances each need to have 3 documented pieces of evidence -- and grow quite irritated that parent "observation" is never sufficient (whilst teacher observation is good enough to measure an annual goal). And, oh, how I hate surprise meeting participants. Then again, I likewise despise 2-for-1 meeting participants, where one is noticed for "OT" and wins a bonus prize: one lowly OT and one senior, supervising OT. (What a lark!)

I hate papers passed around the room and running out of copies before the pile makes it to the 21st person in the room (the parent) and then that awkwardness of the staff going through the pecking-order to figure out who should have to forfeit their own personal copy to the parent. (Hint: those people who don't rate a copy probably don't need to be present for me to play the jellybean-jar game). I hate when there happens to be, heaven help us, two parents in the IEP meeting, that they are expected to share the paper between them.

I object as unfair that the experts getting all the information in advance and the novices (i.e., parents) having to react real-time to T-scores, standard scores, z-scores, percentiles, et cetera. I hate that the percentiles tend to be single-digits. I hate that even single-digit %iles will win your child the barest minimum of direct service.

I do not relish thinking one assessment will be given only to find out that, on a whim, it was abandoned for "clinical observation".

I hate parking challenges. I hate schlepping binders. I hate having to deal with audio recording; I really hate having to remember to notify the District 24-hours in advance of my intention to audio record. I hate that rules only seem to apply to me and that the rules that govern District participants conduct are interpreted as "suggestions" or "guidelines".

I hate with a vengeance having to sign in within offices that think it's cute and festive to have "flower-pens". Please note that the pens never work and there you are, brandishing a freaking flower that you really didn't want to hold in the first place. I hate that there's never a pump of Purell next to the decades-old flower-pen that didn't work but you just know has a virtual petri dish of microbes waiting to give you a parting gift for your meeting attendance.

I hate being early (because that's who I am) and everyone else sauntering in thereafter (because they don't care and they're drawing a paycheck wherever they are engaging in photosynthesis). I hate that they all pre-met before the meeting and yet manage to be tardy to the meeting for which I was invited.

I loathe frequency, duration and intensity of service being offered in hours per year. I hate the little caveats written in (e.g., "not responsible to make-up SLP services during the first 2 weeks, holidays, weekends, minimum days, standardized testing, Arbor Day, Earth Day, the ASHA convention, therapist illness, student illness, inclement weather, or the third Tuesday afternoon of every month").

I detest knowing I'm the only sorry sack in the room that will remember this child's name 4-years from now, well except for the not-so-fortunate ombudsperson who's been stuck with us since 1999.

I abhor having to order the code book every year from the CDE. I abhor having to actually look inside said book.

I hate not having the correct people in the room when a topic is raised and having to stick issues in a "parking lot" for when the people get to the meeting. I am ever-hateful that these folks never actually get to the meeting at the same time, making the valet have to drive the car-issue out every time some new person comes in for the minimum possible time to sign their name and sputter an unconsidered opinion.

I am capable of self-loathing at the schizophrenic feeling of underselling one's own child's skills because that's what is required for one's own child to receive an appropriate level of service.

I pretty much hate using the word "appropriate" at this point.

I hate sitting in the room considering the other things I could be doing instead, * some might call this a solipsistic tendancy on my part * like getting a pedicure, like shopping for groceries, like getting my glucose-tolerance test completed, like getting back in touch with the floor of my laundry room, like picking up seizure meds at the hospital pharmacy. Like mumblety-peg, if that's what I fancy doing today.

I am loathesome of the opportunity to get tweaked by my spouse's propensity to agree with the wrong person about a critically important (though seemingly trivial in the momen) issue.

I hate work samples, because they never look like the stuff that comes home in the backpack the other 10 months per year. I hate not being able to lay my hands on the work samples that have slipped into my possession when the IEP wasn't on the horizon.

I hate having Charlie's assessment report look up at me from Tim's IEP binder. I hate having Jamie's meeting notice hide in Jack's IEP binder.

I grow angry at the very sight of certified mail with IEP-related materials mostly because I'm never home and the P.O. is such a "have-to" (and there I go, giving up another pedicure for IEP season).

I despise that IEP season is my involuntary Lenten sacrifice. I hate being grumpy because I either am about to or just have endured another meeting about nothing. I hate that an IEP has none of the joy of a Seinfeld episode.

I am overcome by irritation that otherwise chatty-cathy types turn into silent, stoic towers of no information once the meeting commences. I hate that the very useful tidbits from teachers or therapists that are casually dropped during the "off-season" have to be pulled like stubborn eyeteeth during the meeting.

I feel a semi-violent volcano within me at the sense that the teacher will call me a "b-tch" in the faculty lounge within 12-minutes of the IEP meeting's conclusion. I hate having a friend overhear that very utterance within the estimated timeframe. Even so, I hate my persistent and real inclination to want to be liked by my child's teacher. It will be futile, to be sure.

Mostly, however, I hate the mom-hour sink-hole that is the process of writing something down for which I have a 95% band of confidence will NEVER actually occur.