Asking The Right Questions of Teachers

You're sitting at your daughter's IEP meeting. It's time to go over present levels and your Chelsea's English teacher provides this feedback: "Well, Chelsea is such a great kid. She is kind to others and always asks for help. She has a D in my class, but I know she can get her grade up. She should come see me more after school." While this sounds sweet and super positive, you still have NO IDEA how Chelsea is doing in English!


Truth: Teachers are not trained to speak about student's progress when they go into IEP meetings. But, it's not the teacher's fault! No one tells teachers how to report progress on their students. Teachers automatically talk about behavior, or "coming to see them for help". Teachers, like most humans, tend to report on observable data based on their last memories. Typically this type of feedback is not as useful as how your daughter is actually doing in ENGLISH. 

What I Suggest: Ask targeted questions for each teacher. If you can, have these pre-prepared. In Chelsea's case, it would have been nice to know: why is she failing? And, are her writing skills on grade-level? If not, why? What can be done at home, and in school? And, what about reading? But, remember, teacher's are going off their latest memory of your child. So make sure you ask for data to back up their statements. Going off gut is not sufficient enough for you to know, and for the teacher to know what needs to be done to support your child's skills.





Reply to this post if you'd like a checklist inventory targeted on getting feedback on Reading, Writing, Academic Skills, Executive Function & Attention, and Math.

The Power of Neutrality

Your kid is looking to see your reaction to everything. Remember when your little Suzzie was one, just learning to walk, and she looked back at you every 5 steps to see if you were watching? Her eyes asked: Can I keep going in this direction? Do you like my waddle? Are you proud of me? Your teen is saying these same things!

Truth: Kids are meant to test boundaries, and we all know they need you to help them. But, what most people don't realize is that they WANT you to help! Yes, almost all students want to know: Can I keep going in this direction? Do you like my waddle? Are you proud of me? Well, maybe not waddle - maybe more like: Do you like my boyfriend? 
Your child is constantly looking back at you for your approval. This is the reason why it is so hard to help your kid with homework, making a plan, or honestly, anything to do with school. Most students associate anything school with making my family proud of me. 


What I Suggest: First, recognize, you are in a tough position. You are the guide to your child's emotions. Your approval means everything, and your disappointment is the universe! Now that you have the power of awareness, you now are ready to take hold of the power of NEUTRALITY! If you want to work with your son or daughter on homework, planning, checking grades, etc. you have to be neutral. You will not get far if every success is "incredible" and every set-back is "awful". Give all feedback in a neutral tone: the good and the bad!



Reply to this post with a typical challenge you are having and I will help you reframe your language from having an emotional charge to supernaturally NEUTRAL! 

How to make IEP Goals WORK

Most students have these intricately written IEP goals. They usually go something like this: 

"By 1/22/2017, when given an expression (e.g. 3(x + 1), 3(2y + 4y), 2(z – 3) + z), Greg will use the properties of operations (e.g. associative: a + (b + c) = (a + b) + c, commutative: a + b + c = c + a + b = b + c + a, and distributive: a(b + c) = ab + ac) to create equivalent expressions for 4 out of 5 problems."

This sounds amazingly detailed, and may be specific to what you kid needs to learn right now. BUT, what about 3 months from now? Or 12 months from now; the only time this goal will be re-evaluated by the IEP team? Are you really supposed to come together on 1/22/2017, a whole year from now to see whether your Greg has met this goal that may take him only half a year to meet? 

My Answer: NO!

Truth: Goals are hard to measure over a whole year. Most goals are too specific to what a student is currently struggling with in that particular area. The timing of your IEP influences the purposefulness of your goal. If your student is a mid year IEP date, like in Greg's case, yet your student has moved up to the next math class, where does that leave this goal? The reality is: this goal has probably not been relevant this whole semester (over 4 months!). 





What I Suggest: First, when you are at the IEP meeting, don't accept a goal because it sounds appropriate right now. Question the team as to this goals relevance in a year from your child's IEP date. Once you accept a goal, make sure you are getting progress on that goal from the support staff at your child's school. You should at least be getting semester progress on all IEP goals. 






Reply to this post with an IEP goal for your student and I'll help make it right! Make sure to tell me the grade level, and rationale the team gave for the goal.