Good afternoon,

 

I just have a question. I am in Ohio and over the past few years I have had nothing with issues, with the school following my son's IEP.

 

I emailed for an amendment and reasonings for the change, along with Why findings were not added to the IEP as it would change classifications. Also with the IEP now being post secondary why my son who is 14 and a freshman in high school , was not invited to meeting. 

They will not answer anything in less than a week and when I do follow up emails they get upset. What are my rights and how should I proceed ?

 

Thank you 

Students who are post secondary - high school and middle school are secondary level so this is college level - do not get IEPs.  In college, they expect students to self-advocate.  This would include students who are 14.  I'm confused with you saying your child is a high school freshman.  I believe you meant to say your child is a freshman secondary school student and is transition age.

Assuming that your child is 14 & in HS, I would include in any email that you will be following up in 6 school days if you do not receive a reply to your email.  This sets an expectation that the school will be replying in a week which I feel is a reasonable time to respond.  There are no timelines that I'm aware of with how long schools have to get back to parents.  What I've seen is 'a reasonable period of time'.  This tends to be defined by case law.  (PA defines it as 10 calendar days; OH might be different.) I can see the school saying they got your email & will get back to you once they look into what you said where they reply in 6 days but not w/ an answer to your questions.  (I've also seen in my district where email was delayed & received by a teacher months later where a timely reply wasn't possible.  This teacher is a friend.  She was frustrated that she got an email months after it was sent.)  Not sure about saying to 'reply immediately so I know you got this in the email'.

The way things work (I'm in PA, so giving their rules) is that the IEP that includes the 14th birthday is when students must be invited.  In looking at the Ohio Invitation form (it's on this page:  https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Special-Education/Federal-and-State-Requirements/Ohio-Required-and-Optional-Forms-Updated) it does show the student being invited.  I'm not sure if the invite was handed to your child on paper or emailed to their school email address but it is possible they got it and didn't read it.  (I have an issue with Ohio Dept of Ed using Word for these forms as it requires you to pay for Word to have access.)

If your transition age HS child was not invited to their IEP meeting (double check it wasn't emailed or they lost the envelope it was in), filing a state complaint is a better solution than telling the school they messed up.  I've also seen where schools don't do well when an email covers more than one topic.  They tend not to address everything when this happens.  I'd number your questions so the person reading the email knows that it covers a few topics.  For non-compliance with the IEP/not following it, filing a state complaint is a good solution if working with the school district isn't working for you.