A parent is often a child’s best advocate. We usually know our child’s history and potential for learning better than anyone else. But too often, when it comes to a child’s Individualized Education Plan, parent concerns are not inserted into the conversation or official record.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the recent Supreme Court Case, Endrew F., stresses the importance of parent participation at the IEP table. Parents are supposed to be equal partners of the IEP team, but often the IEP document is skewed to the school district’s point of view.

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To ensure your point of view is injected and carried out, include a Parental Statement every year. Attached this letter and a bulleted list of concerns to your child’s IEP. You can even have them copy and paste your input into the online IEP form. There’s no reason why they can’t. Read the one I sent to my child’s new school, in a new state. Your letter could talk about the progress or lack of progress your child has made in and out of school since his/her last IEP.

Feel free to use my format, and change it to your child’s situation.

Parental Statement for Troy

To Whom it May Concern:

Our 5-year-old son, Troy, is a congenial, kind, and bright young boy. We’re nervous about him starting kindergarten, and we expect he will be too. Troy has Down syndrome, and although our expectations for him are the same as his typical twin brother, Hunter, we fear that well-meaning community members may have little to no expectations for him. We expect that Troy will be fully included in the academic and social aspects of k-12 education with proper supports. Our long-term goal is to have Troy graduate high school with a regular diploma, prepared for post-secondary education or integrated, competitive employment. With the national graduating rate for students with disabilities around 50%, and unemployment at 80% for people with disabilities, this may seem like an impossible goal to reach. But we understand that the law supports placement in general education first with supports, and all the research proves it works. We’re betting on our son, because we know he’s capable of contributing meaningfully to his community.

My husband is an emergency medicine doctor with the United States Air Force, and this is the third state Troy has lived in in his short life. I stay at home, as well as advocate for other families in the special education process. The move across country is sure to be tough on Troy. He has a hard time with change. He thrives on routine and clear expectations. We’ll try to ease the transition with social stories, and keeping our daily routines. We expect that kindergarten transition will be hard as well, but Troy loves school. If proper transition supports are set up and carried out with fidelity, we know that he will do well.

Troy has been in an inclusive educational setting since right before his 3rd birthday, and has received early intervention since birth. He and his typical twin brother have shared the same teacher for three years in an Ohio public preschool. The class was fully inclusive, but Troy often had the most significant disability in the preschool class each year. Even so, he did very well in this setting, and exceeded teachers’ academic and social expectations. Speech and OT were pushed into the preschool class, and Troy left Ohio well prepared for kindergarten. He knows how to write his first name (albeit messily), use scissors, color, identify all his letters, over 20 sight word recognition, one-to-one correspondence from 1-10, patterning, and much more. Even more important, he understands the routines and expectations of a classroom, and how to socialize with other students. To gain these skills, Troy needed explicit teaching and specific support in the general education classroom.

Although Troy has no medical problems, he has been diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Using push-in speech services, as well as private speech therapy, Troy has grown by leaps and bounds when it comes to functional communication. Troy is saying many more novel phrases without prompting. I can understand most of what Troy says, but strangers often have a hard time understanding him unless the conversation has context or visual clues. Troy does have many common phrases (like “Yes, I do” or “I not do that again”) that are very intelligible. Often practicing functional phrases, with visual cues, that will be used often in the classroom is the best way to improve Troy’s intelligibility.

Positive behavior supports work best for Troy. As you know, behavior is communication, and Troy is always trying to communicate something. He loves attention, and will work hard to gain your attention even if it’s negative in nature. Troy doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, so most of his problem behaviors are attention-seeking in nature. The few behavior issues Troy had in preschool were remedied with continual visual cues or giving him positive attention. Some issues included eloping to his favorite therapists office. Teachers solved this by putting a “stop” sign at the classroom door, and pushing in speech therapy instead of pulling it out. Troy loves circle time, and during free play he would often want to take down the pictures of his classmates, and use the teacher’s pointer to look at them. This issue was solved by creating his own book of classmates’ pictures and giving him his own pointer. Troy loves to feel helpful, and be a leader in class. Troy also needed to explicitly be taught classroom play-based skills, and will likely need help with this in a new classroom.

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We’d love for Troy to have an experienced, yet open-minded kindergarten teacher. Someone who has high expectations for our son, and empathy for our situation. I taught middle school and high school students before I stayed home with my twin boys, so I understand the challenges of meeting the needs of every child. Still, we know the general education teacher is the content expert, and the best teacher to serve our child, with support from special education teachers or paraprofessionals. We know his teachers will need a lot of support. I hope to advocate for Troy’s teachers, and volunteer weekly.

We have high expectations for our son and the school he attends. We expect that his IEP will be standards based, and include all the accommodations and services he needs to make progress in light of his disability. We want IEP goals that are appropriately ambitious, and ensure that he is exposed to the same content as his twin brother. I will lean on school personnel as the experts in content and specially designed instruction, as I hope they will lean on me as the best advocate for Troy. I’m excited to work with Troy’s teachers to successfully include him in general education with supports. I know this will not only have a positive impact on Troy, but also the other students in the class who will one day be teachers and employers who will remember Troy and hopefully work to change the current dismal outcomes for people with disabilities.

We consider this letter part of Troy’s educational record, and the IEP document incomplete without this letter attached. I appreciate your time and consideration! I look forward to working with you!

Thank you,

Courtney