Is anyone here receiving special services at their local school? Have you had your IEP meeting yet for the year? How did it go?
Christine

I know this is an older thread, but I saw this today right after I'd mentioned our IEP and thought I'd comment here. Our initial IEP meeting did not go as smoothly as I wish it had. Our son's preschool teacher wanted to meeting with us alone and call it an IEP. There would have been no LEA rep or anything if we'd gone by her plans. I called and asked the principal if this was the usual way they did this because I'd read that an LEA rep should be present. The principal cancelled and rescheduled for a time when there would be a true IEP team present. The teacher didn't take that well. She seemed to take it all personally. I worked to let her know it wasn't personal and things did eventually get better later in the year when I saw her around the school. When we came into the room for our IEP meeting we were bullied a bit. We were told to state any concerns up front because some people might have to leave during the meeting. We were alse told that we had a set time frame because the room we were in would be needed for another meeting soon and we would have to go down the hall to finish if we had further concerns at that time. We WERE intimidated at the meeting. We signed everything...even some papers that weren't completed....because we were trying to be cooperative. Then, we went home and realized that we did a disservice to Ethan. I called the Director of Exceptional Services for our school district. He was VERY helpful and took time to walk through our concerns with us. The school staff had belittled some of our concerns so it was nice to have someone hear what we were saying. In the end, we reconvened and they REALLY worked well with us after that. They provided more speech than they said they could initially and we didn't have to leave our child on campus alone, which was a concern after the nurse downplayed his medical condition. It all ended up well, but not without some calls that I placed calmly after crying my eyes out about the whole thing. I learned that IEPs are WAY more stressful on the parents' side of the table than they were when I was on the teachers' side!!!!