Using a Special Education Advocate

Things have stalled with your child’s special education process. You and the school can find no room for compromise and you are no longer talking to the teacher. In the meantime, your son or daughter is not making any academic progress. Now is the time to get a special education advocate or lawyer. Before you pick up the phone or go online, consider the following:

First, make sure you get a lawyer with experience in the arena of education and special education law. Special education law is a specialized field requiring specialized knowledge. You are more likely to have a favorable, timely, and less expensive outcome if you pay for these skills. Although you are the expert on your child, an advocate is an expert in special education law and can help.

Second, be sure you remain in control of the decision making process. Don’t abdicate your rights and responsibilities to a lawyer. Make sure he knows that you want to be kept informed of all communication with the school. Ask for copies of any documents or correspondence sent for or received by your advocate.

Very often by the time a parent has asked for an advocate, they are emotionally overwhelmed and feel angry and resentful. Ask yourself why you want a lawyer. Are you angry with the school and trying to show them that they can’t intimidate you? If so, you’re probably going to make poor decisions for your child. A lawyer can help you by taking the excessive emotion out of the process. A lawyer should help you focus on the educational objectives and goals for your son or daughter. Remember winning the fight is about accessing what your child needs, not revenge.

Discuss with your advocate what your goals are. Be realistic. Think about what your child really needs, not about what seems to be the most exclusive or expensive. Many parents have hired high-priced lawyers who intimidate schools into paying for private specialized schools. While these schools provide an invaluable and much needed service for many students, they are not right for all students. Keep focused on the objective: helping your loved one become a functioning adult.

Once you have engaged an advocate, let your school know. Although there are some pitfalls to using an advocate, many school systems welcome their involvement. Sometimes parents have unreasonable demands or demands that really aren’t in the best interest of the child. Presumably, an advocate is working on behalf of the child and may be able to help the parent understand the issues more clearly. In truth, sometimes schools don’t do what they are supposed to do. An advocate may be able to ask the right questions and make the right demands to facilitate compliance with special education law. In some cases, the relationship between the parents and the school has become so difficult that an advocate can help put the process back on track. Good advocates are able to focus on how to get things right again and not on how things went wrong.

Finally, be aware of some advocate pitfalls. Some advocates will only attend meetings for a minimum of two or more hours. This is often unnecessary and wasteful of everyone’s time. Let your advocate know that you are interested in results and not spending excessive time in meetings. Be willing to pay for the minimum and to walk out before the minimum if the job is done. Also, be aware of the lawyer who lives for the marathon meetings. Believe it or not, but some special education meetings have been as long as the entire school day; most of that time bickering over small and irrelevant details. After two hours meetings typically become unproductive and create resentment.
Marathon
meetings are a way of intimidating schools into giving in to demands. Also, be aware of the advocate with the ‘take no survivors’ mentality. The focus of the meeting should be on promoting an effective plan. If your lawyer is arguing over whether to spell color as ‘color’ or ‘colour’, then they are employing what I call the SPAM LAWYER TACTIC. Help your lawyer get refocused on your child’s needs!
Good Luck! Look for my next article on “Understanding IQ Tests”