E136: Difficult School Teams
You've tried everything -- and that relationship is just not awesome. How can you get un-stuck in your advocacy this year? In this episode we cover: 1) The reasons why you may be feeling like you are hitting a brick wall when it comes to advocating with some school IEP team members 2) 5 options for small actions that skirt you over under or through that barrier to advocacy Check out the newly updated free resources page!
You’ve tried everything — and that relationship is just not awesome. How can you get un-stuck in your advocacy this year?
In this episode we cover:
1) The reasons why you may be feeling like you are hitting a brick wall when it comes to advocating with some school IEP team members
2) 5 options for small actions that skirt you over under or through that barrier to advocacy
Check out the newly updated free resources page! https://theieplab.com/freeresources
E136: Difficult School Teams
Samson Q2U Microphone: [00:00:00] Normally, I’m pretty politically correct. I’m pretty PC. And I’m still PC in this episode, but I’m just a little bit more real. Because serving under more than 20 case managers in my day as a school occupational therapist, I’ve seen some amazing case managers who are very parent friendly and very team oriented, and ones that simply are not.
So many of you parents feel like you’re hitting a brick wall with advocacy sometimes, and most of the time, This is why, because your teams are being very difficult. So let’s break down the aspects of why you might be dealing with a difficult school team and some ideas about your options of how to respond so that you can actually advocate with confidence and also get somewhere with your advocacy this school year.
So stick with me, we’re talking about difficult school teams.
You are listening to the Parent IEP Lab, the podcast that helps you become an informed parent advocate to get your child supported and learning in school.
I’m Beth Linsenfeld, occupational therapist, passionate about leveling the IEP [00:01:00] information playing field for parent advocates just like you. My mission of the Parent IEP Lab podcast and also the online courses, workshops, and summit of the IEP Lab is to break down barriers to being able to advocate with collaboration as it is the most effective approach to advocacy I saw in over 400 IEP meetings.
We do this by providing you insider information from the school side so that you have context for what’s happening to create informed, thoughtful questions of your IEP team to have a clearer voice in your child’s plan. So let’s dive into the topic today and think about what we can change and tweak to get the right formula for success for your child to learn and grow at school.
Welcome to the lab.
Over the past couple weeks, the IEP lab sent out a parent survey that we do every single year and we had so many responses, it was just amazing to hear from you guys and what you need for this year moving forward. Now with that, some of the biggest feedback that we got
was that people weren’t aware of all of the freebies that we [00:02:00] have up on the website. So, we totally redid the freebie website and have all four of those freebies up for you to peruse and download if you think that it might be helpful for this coming school year. So, we have a vision statement handout that we just recently updated and reviewed and kind of popped back up there.
We also have the IEP process step by step guide, which has been downloaded I don’t know how many times. And people in the survey said that was really helpful. So if you have an annual review coming up this next year, then consider downloading that one because everybody says it’s really helpful. And then we also have two more freebies up on the website.
So, the link to the freebie page of the website is below this podcast in your podcast player, or you can just go to theieplab. com and you can click the heading that says free resources and it will take you to that page.
Okay, let’s get into the episode.
Okay, so when people come into parent coaching connected to the ultimate parent IEP prep course and talk about their difficult School teams, I can identify, but from the inside this time. [00:03:00] So if you don’t know or haven’t heard me talk about this, occupational therapists are related service providers as far as federal law IDEA goes.
Meaning we are rarely, if ever, in most states we’re not, the case manager that’s the lead person that manages the file and the IEP and participates in writing the whole entire thing and manages parent contact, that kind of thing. So we’re always working underneath a case manager that’s either a special education teacher or a speech therapist.
And there’s a couple exceptions to this, like New York City, Washington State. I think there’s a couple more, I’m just not sure. But in most cases, we operate underneath a case manager. And so. I’m here to tell you that some of them are absolutely delightful humans who understand their role, understand the IEP process, understand how to make parents feel like they are an important member of the team, and how to take that parent input and infuse it into the IEP to make it an actually effective IEP.
And then, there’s [00:04:00] others that aren’t like that at all. Communication can be really hard. You feel like you have no idea what’s happening, what the progress is on the goals, why your kid is coming home upset. You just might not have an idea or a good system or you’ve asked for things and it hasn’t happened yet, as far as communication goes, or there’s a lack of follow through.
They don’t actually hear you, or they deny that things are happening, or they say that they’re going to do something, and then it’s very obvious that they’re not doing that. Uh, or one of my least favorites, when a teacher thinks that they know everything about working with your child, and they obviously don’t, and they won’t listen to any other input about it, even from the team.
I think that’s happened to me. Yes, it absolutely has. Well, and maybe this is my least favorite. When case managers judge parents and have drastically different ways of handling, let’s say, behavior, and everything turns into a hot mess, with your child in the middle of this hot mess. I’m getting a little [00:05:00] frustrated even just thinking about these situations because, of course, specific situations are popping into my head as we’re talking about it, right?
So, first of all, let’s just get it out there. Case managers are human. They aren’t perfect, and they’re also working within an imperfect system. So many times the problem is actually up higher than them. It’s the system overall. It’s the district. It’s, it’s that kind of thing. But we all know that even with that setup, we could all do better, including case managers and team members.
\ So I’m not accusing your case manager of being a terrible person. Many times they’re intimidated, they feel stuck in the middle, they have personal things happening or an unlimited amount of reasons, right? Not an excuse for them, but that’s kind of the simple reality of we’re working with humans in a kind of idealistic system that works really well when people know the system and they know how to work the system.
And then if they have any gaps in their knowledge or imperfections in their personality or the way that they’re [00:06:00] handling things, then the system all of a sudden breaks down pretty quickly. Okay, so let’s go through some solutions that I’ve seen parents do when they’re up against one of these, not so great case managers.
The first one is to know your team if you have more than just one case manager on your child’s i e p team. If you have more people on the team than that, I want you to think about reaching out to one of the other people on the team and expressing your concerns in a totally non rant way.
Now you really need to have anything that is in writing needs to be totally PC and needs to be something that you are okay with being shared with other people on the team, right? If you feel like you’re better with talking to somebody in person, then maybe you can contact the OT or maybe you can contact the speech therapist if they’re not the case manager and just be real with them and say, Hey,
I’m really struggling with not having communication or whatever the concern may be and see if they have some suggestions with working with that case manager in particular and see if that person can help [00:07:00] you advocate from the inside as well to be your ally on the team, right? So again, Make sure that anything that is in writing, you are okay with, you know, it coming up in legal stuff, right?
So, if you file a due process and they subpoena every written correspondence, then that’s going to be included. So, you want to make sure that you have your emotions in check, that you have your tone in check, and also, if it’s easier to just… kind of catch somebody in the hallway and ask real quick, then absolutely do that.
But I want to encourage you to really think outside of the box and say, I have more people on my child’s team than this one person that I’m struggling with. And let’s reach out to your other resources, right? if you’re needing help with how to put that tone, this kind of question and working through your particular situation is perfect for the membership.
So if you haven’t checked out the Parent Advocacy Club, you can go check out more information at theieplab. com slash club, C L U B. And um, the doors [00:08:00] are opened back up for the club. We’re going to have a promotion in just a couple of weeks, but just so you know, that is the perfect situation to come into the membership.
Let’s talk about your specific situation and what to do from there. The second thing is to manage your own priorities, emotions, and motives. So many times I’ve seen parents that come in with all of the things that they need fixed on their child’s IEP or everything that is wrong with this case manager and, and why things aren’t going wrong.
So, when I see them kind of focus on one particular thing, this is the most important thing that I need to get in place for my child, then they get a whole lot further with their advocacy. It’s like magic once they just focus on one thing. And it also helps you because if that case manager is picking up that proverbial rope to play power tug of war with you, you have to say, okay, is this something that is truly my priority right now?
Is it actually helping your child to pick up the other end of [00:09:00] the rope on that situation or not? And if not, just don’t engage and it helps you manage your emotions and it also helps you kind of stay with that priority top of mind so that you stay focused on what needs to be done that year,
the next thing is to know the hierarchy. So if you’re struggling with somebody, go up the ladder. Inside the Ultimate Parent IEP Prep Course, Which, just so you know, is opening next month. But we have a flowchart with how to go up throughout the ladder if you have a problem. So, you know, if it’s in special education, if it’s your case manager, you’re generally going to go to special education coordinator or director, but there’s people in between that.
There’s other people who can help you as well. So, kind of know your hierarchy and how your school is set up. Um, you can ask about this. We can figure it out through your district website together. You know, whatever helps you do that. But kind of know who’s your next person to go to, um, up the ladder if you have a problem to try to advocate with that person.
I know there’s been a ton of people [00:10:00] who have gone all the way up to the superintendent sometimes and whether that was needed, I don’t know, but did they get what they needed? I’m pretty sure they did in this case that I’m thinking about. So just keep that in mind. The next one is no one enough is enough.
I remember, oh, I think it was two times ago that we were in the prep course and we were in group coaching and I had a parent who was trying to decide if pulling her child out of school completely was the right option for them. And in her heart, she knew it was, but this team was so nasty that it was making her second guess her parent intuition.
And it was getting to this point of conflicting opinions on what her child needed, and it was getting to the point of a somewhat emergency situation.
So she pulled her child out, uh, kind of reassessed her options, found a virtual program. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the best situation for them as a family. family. It wasn’t easy support wise. It wasn’t like the perfect education situation [00:11:00] either. But in this building conflict situation that she had going on with the school, the child was suddenly okay and not in crisis all the time.
Things calmed down, it was a workable situation for the time being, and then they could make some decisions about how to move forward. But just know that you probably have an option that you may not have thought about if you dig in and say, okay, what are my options? So many people think that that’s the only school that they have, that’s the only case manager option they have.
But you likely have some. at least one other option that you can consider and see if it’s going to work for you or not. So can you switch to a public charter? Can you switch to a private charter? Are you in a school of choice system where you can change schools? Do you have homeschooling family that can assist you if you do pull them out of that school?
What does your state offer as far as services for funding for homeschool? Can you just pull them out for a week to see if things calm down and maybe restart from there? So feeling like you are stuck [00:12:00] can really, really heighten your emotions, right? So really think about, okay, what are my options?
Can I lay them all out? Can I do a pro and con list to just see what my options are? And even if you have this initial gut reaction to say we can’t do that, just kind of think it through and say, could we make this work if we had to, um, and go from there
and then your last thing, what I’ve seen parents do, again, with a priority thing as well, but just stay child focused. What are your priorities for the year? What are you going to stay focused on? And then keep it really, really consistent with what your child actually needs, right? Sometimes we get caught up in what other parents are saying your child needs or what the school team is saying your child needs, and that’s all good to consider.
But then kind of find some quiet and find the support that you need so that you can make those decisions with what’s best for you. And we’re actually going to have a free training just in a week or two.
You’ll [00:13:00] probably see some information in your email. And probably on the next podcast, we’ll have more information about that training, but the training is going to be, there’s so much out there, not only from the IEP lab, but also there’s summits going on. There’s additional information from other experts that are out there, which is just amazing.
But what I saw in the parent survey was like, Oh my gosh, I’m so burnt out. I don’t even know what to focus on. And so what the free training is going to be is okay. Like let’s list out all of the resources that you have. Let’s try to decide and we’re going to go through a couple frameworks together to decide What is most important for you to do in the next six months or so, you know?
So really the support that you need to say is an IEP a priority for me this year or is it not right? Do I have time for this? Let’s think this through, like, do you need to focus on other aspects of what’s happening in the home environment, let’s say, um, and then kind of making that decision as well. Thank you so much [00:14:00] for listening to the podcast today.
Remember that freebie page that I just updated on the website. So again, a lot of resources up there if you want to peruse that and see what might be helpful for you. And then keep an eye out on your email for the announcement for the free training so that you can register for that and get a little bit of coaching and support with narrowing your priorities coming into this next school year and knowing what you are going to focus on so that you can take advantage of the time that you do have and actually get somewhere as well.
So I will see you same time, same place next week. Have such a great week. We’ll talk soon. Bye.