Truth, Paperwork & Pushback. Stories, strategy & sarcasm from NJR Advocacy, LLC

 I tend to over communicate. Is that a bad thing? Maybe sometimes. But in this case, it was extremely helpful. I’d lay awake at night writing emails in my head. I was always thinking… How can I fix this? Really, what am I missing? What are THEY missing? When things got bad in 7th grade, I combed through my emails. Much to my surprise, I was able to find messages I had written to the school all the way back in 2nd grade. I didn’t know it at the time I wrote them, but those emails told a story—the story of me pleading for help. Each of those emails was met with Band-Aids that never worked. On repeat. From K through 7th grade. Until they had no choice but to address them. Those emails are what got my son outplaced to a private school in an IEP meeting—which is rare. I’m still a little shocked at how easy it was to get them to agree to it. I’ve heard horror stories about families being forced into due process and how hard it is to win. I was told it depends on the mood of the roo...

 Let’s talk about the emotional trauma you experience as a parent advocating for your child. Never in a million years had I imagined this was even a thing when I sent my first child to school. I truly believed they had his best interests at heart and would do whatever was needed to help him learn and grow. Well, that thought didn’t last very long. “What do you mean you don’t see that he can’t sit still? Or that he can’t focus for more than five seconds? Or write with normal spacing and letter height on the lines of the paper?” “So wait, you’re saying it’s okay that he’s writing letters backwards?” That one still throws me for a loop. “We can read what he writes,” they said. Eventually, it turned into: “It’s just his ADHD.” And I fell for it. Repeatedly. I walked out of every meeting feeling like an overprotective mom. That mom. And it didn’t just end with my oldest son. It continued with my other children too. “We don’t see that here.” Okay, great. Just because you don’t...

  I can promise you that no parent walks into that room wanting to fight. All we want is for the school district to understand who our child is, what they struggle with, and brainstorm how the district can support those little humans that we love so much. You spend many nights before the meeting lying awake, role-playing in your head. You spend your days researching, overthinking, preparing, and looking for any past evidence you can find to prove your point. Then you walk into that meeting. You, a regular education teacher, a special education teacher, an “administrator,” and anyone else who can contribute—which sometimes can be multiple other people. You hear that you are just as much a part of the team as the many other people in that room. But are you? Because it seems to me that you’re outnumbered. The school team asks for your input, which you give. The input you’ve spent days gathering. The input that you think will hold a lot of weight… And then you hear it. Those fiv...