I had the strangest experience at my youngest's school the other day.
Apparently they are somewhat new to this whole IPP thing so they thought they would have a Parent Information evening to explain the program planning process and pass some other information on to parents.
Needless to say, I am intimately familiar with IPPs - in fact, much, much more intimately familiar than I would like to be.So I sat and listened .... blah, blah, woof, woof, yadda, yadda ... on and on it went until these Words of Blasphemy were uttered:
An IPP is a legal document.Yep, I kid you not. Those very words were spoke.
Words of Blasphemy because, as we all know, the Dept of Education and at least my school board has been swearing up and down for years (for the past 15+ years to my personal knowledge) that
IPPs.After my head stopped spinning, I put up my hand to clarify that I had heard correctly. Apparently, I had. In fact, one woman sitting in the audience (I'm thinking a parent but perhaps also a teacher from another school?) went so far as to pipe up and affirm that yes, they were indeed legal documents as they were found in the legislation.
Are.
Not.
Legal.
Documents
"Yes. I know they are mandated in the Education Act," said I. "But I am just very surprised to hear you say that considering that the Dept and our school board have been telling parents for years that they are not legal documents."
Once again, I was assured that they were, in fact, legal documents. Indeed, the Department had so declared.
Feeling all eyes upon me and the need to say something, I responded, "Okay, maybe they've changed their minds or something", (with the sarcasm apparent only to myself).
But, when the headmaster responded that he didn't know why I would have heard such a thing, why it would have been said that they were not legal documents, I couldn't resist. I mean, really, could you have?
"I don't know. Perhaps they were telling parents that because they just didn't want anybody to sue based on them", I quipped.
The look on the headmaster's face?
Priceless.
2 comments:
Very interesting indeed! I have been attending IPP meetings for 15 years for my son, and not once has it EVER been referred to as a legal document! Have we been hoodwinked for all these years? We have an IPP meeting coming up very soon and I AM going to ask that question! Oh yes I am. I will let you know what the answer is from our IPP team. Something I have discovered over the past 15 years is that they want to keep parents of children with special needs in the dark and if you don't educated yourself, they certainly won't fill you in on your child's rights to an education, a level playing field and they will make you fight tooth and nail to find every bit of information to back up your stand on behalf or your son or daughter. This should not be!
Your absolutely right on that point, Susan - parents of children with special needs are (intentionally or not) kept in the dark about a lot of things.
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