Sandra Riggs, Advocate and Educational Consultant

Tips for navigating your child's IEP supports and services when your school district goes fully remote, from Lipson Advocacy: Educational, Legal and Strategy Specialist, Sandra Riggs, Advocate and Educational Consultant and Law Ofc of Allison B. Vrolijk, Esq, Special Education Attorney

Cobb County School District is committed to providing FAPE in the virtual model! This is huge!! I have been on calls yesterday and today with Assistant Directors of Special Education for the district and have been impressed with how forthcoming they are. There are still unanswered questions - because they simply don't have answers yet. The following was confirmed for me: 1. Therapy times will stay the same in number of minutes and will be delivered in a synchronous sessio...n - no more packets for parents to do. This was a big concern of mine and I am thrilled with the commitment to not reduce service times. 2. The district has great sample day schedules on their website broken up by grade level. For cotaught services, students will have both teachers during the synchronous time for each subject and then a set amount of time weekly to work direct with the SPED teacher. Small group students will receive more time weekly for 1:1 with the teacher. This time will be determined in the meeting to create a digital learning plan. I liked what I heard as examples! 3. If student receives 5 days a week reading (as example) instruction in small group focused on access to grade level curriculum and making progress for objectives, this will continue daily -- not just a few times a week or via video lessons 4. If child has dedicated para support, it will continue all day in a virtual model See more

Based on the wisdom of Sandra Riggs, Advocate and Educational Consultant, Law Ofc of Allison B. Vrolijk, Esq, Special Education Attorney and Lipson Advocacy:

Parents of students with disabilities are seeking guidance and advice about the coming school year in Georgia. Lipson Advocacy, Sandra Riggs, Advocate and Educational Consultant and the Law Ofc of Allison B. Vrolijk, Esq, Special Education Attorney want to offer families some language to communicate with public schools during the summer of 2020: In response to school’s directive that parents make a choice between in-person and virtual instruction: I am in receipt of the scho...ol district’s request that students make a choice for fall instruction between in person instruction and virtual instruction. My child has an IEP and the LEA has not provided enough information for me to make this decision. I would like to have an IEP meeting prior to the decision-making deadline to discuss the instructional options for my student. Once in the IEP meeting, oppose any efforts to reduce IEP services and supports to your student, as well as any efforts to create a distance learning plan outside of the IEP. Make all attempts to preserve service time (particularly for OT/PT/Speech) and (if necessary due to the nature of the service) convert services into those which can be implemented virtually. If the IEP offered is less services than what was provided by your IEP in early March 2020, read this statement at the end of the IEP meeting: I do not believe the IEP offered today confers a FAPE upon my student. I do not waive any of my rights under IDEA, including but not limited to my child’s right to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), my right to challenge the sufficiency of the provision of a FAPE, or my right to pursue compensatory services by accepting the services offered at this time. See more

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