Any of you that have been reading my blog  know I have written a book on how to prepare for your child’s IEP.  I met with the teachers, was very assertive, very engaged and I’ve done everything that I tell everyone to do. But, despite all of it all of it, they still did not follow my children’s IEP . I reached out to Parents Information Center of Delaware (PIC) who advised me to put in a complaint. I didn’t want to. I thought I had a good relationship with the school. But the bottom line is they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do and the document is a legal document and they should be held accountable. By December 2019 I was done.

What I learned throughout this process is a ton of information that may surprise you as it surprised me. I want to share it with all of you in case you find yourself in the same situation.  My goal is not to hurt the school, but to point out the flaws that exist in the process today. I was shocked on what happened to me. Keep in mind each state is different so I am hoping my experience is unique. I would love to hear from others who may know. I do encourage you to find out how your state works and share if you have additional information.

Our Complaint
I wanted to set the stage for what our complaint ended up being first before explaining the process. Both of our children have IEP’s and we had been seeing the same issue with both of them. It was simple. They both suffer and need assistance with Executive Functioning. One of the many supports we have in both of their IEPs is that the teachers sign their agenda books to make sure the children write down their homework correctly. Unfortunately, they do not do this. The concern with both my husband and I is if they do not do something that comes home that we can see, how do we know if they provide the supports they should get at school? Each week, either myself or their after school support would look at their grades, and send questions back if the homework that is marked incomplete for example, was ever in their agenda and signed. Most times we found it was not. If we missed a week or two, their grades would suffer dramatically.

Most People Do Not Complain
Of course this one was not a surprise to me because even I didn’t complain. It took me three years of doing the job of the school for me to say enough! I had already taken the time to understand the process of what could happen if I did complain. I spoke to PIC of Delaware and understood what we needed to do. We’re all human we don’t want rock the boat. The last thing I wanted was for my children to be “those children” whose mom caused a blemish against the school. I was afraid that this could end up make things worse not better. After a while though I really started thinking about the fact that if I didn’t complain; especially me who want to help others, nobody was going to complain. I also honestly got tired of the fact that I was doing a second full-time job which was managing my children’s IEP. Finally December 2019, I wrote out the complaint.

Which Form?
Once I decided to put in a complaint I reached out to the PIC of DE asking them what I should do and they sent me the state complaint form. I filled it out and I submitted it. But then I was asked if it was a state complaint or Due Process Complaint. I had no idea what they were asking. I reached out to PIC of Delaware and was told “The state complaint is completed by the Department of Education, Due process hearings are heard by a panel including Judges and an attorney. ” This was news to me. Why was I only told about the one and not the other? Which is better? I do not know. Here is more information that I found out : ” Students with disabilities and their families have a right to file a due process complaint. By filing a due process complaint, one is requesting an impartial due process hearing regarding a student’s education services under the federal IDEA and Delaware law. LEAs may also request a hearing. A due process hearing is a legally binding way to resolve disputes whenever a party feels that a student’s special education rights were violated.
A parent or public agency may file a due process complaint related to the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of a child with a disability, or the provision of a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) to the child. All due process complaints must include sufficient details of the violation(s). A due process complaint must be received within two (2) years of a violation. 
The hearing panel must conduct the hearing and issue a decision within 45 days after the 30 day resolution period. At a due process hearing, the complaint goes before a three-judge panel composed of a Delaware attorney, an educator with special education experience, and a non-educator familiar with special education.
Due process findings can be appealed to the Federal District Court or Delaware State Family Court within 90 days of the decision.” At this point it was too late for me to do anything different but if you want to put in a complaint it may be worth asking.

Mediate. Mediate. Mediate!!
The other thing that stated happening is I started to get emails, phone calls and even texts encouraging me to mediate. All of them have the same theme thank you for submitting your complaint do you want to mediate? I reached out to my PIC of Delaware who said I don’t have to mediate. But I continued to get emails phone calls and letters all encouraging me to do so because I was told that if you mediate you’ll be able to get this resolved faster for your children. I was frustrated. I again started researching. What I found was in Delaware if you go all the way through the process and the state finds against your school or district this is posted on a public website. You have no idea how long it took me to find this webpage. It is burred to say the least. It does not mention the children, or the school or district but it is public. If you mediate though, the charges are dropped and nothing is published. It caused me to struggle. Obviously, helping my children was important but what about all the other children who had families that did not put in a complaint? Could I bet that selfish? No, of course not! So, I decided not to mediate which pissed everyone off I’m sure.

Good Grades means no problems
Throughout the process I had phone meetings with the person researching our case. She was an attorney who was supposed to look into each side and be part of the decision. She was the person that expressed the next item that shocked me. She would tell me multiple times that in cases like ours really the only thing that will typically happen is the school will be required to do more training especially since my children got good grades. What does that mean? Well apparently if your children are getting good grades the school assumes, and so does the state, that the school is doing their job because the children were able to get good grades while having an IEP. What I tried to explain to her and to others is that the school is not doing a good job I am doing their job by making sure of my children get the grades they deserve. If I stopped so would their good grades.

What Really Happens with the Complaint?
I again started to research. This person, who has been researching problems like ours for years not only pushed us to mediate, she told us not much would happen. I read articles which said that even though this is a legal document no one would really get in trouble. Part of our complaint had to do with our son’s special education teacher. She was his teacher for 3 of the years at his school and was part of the problem. Twice in IEP meetings she said she would not follow his IEP. This teacher, who basically signed her name against the IEP form verbally told us she would not follow it. How could that be ok? I am still not done fighting that battle. There will be more to come of that.

The verdict is………
In the end, nothing really happened. Our district was written up training was required of the school and my last IEP meeting for my children seem to go much better but they usually do. Only time will tell.

 I needed to be the person that complained and didn’t mediate so that others may follow my lead because no changes are going to happen if the school or the district or the state are not held accountable. If I didn’t complain no one would’ve known. If I didn’t go all the way through no one would’ve known. If I had mediated no one would’ve known.

My hope is that if you are having a challenge with your school following your child’s IEP that you also take your case to the state and go all the way through. It is going to take strong parents to do this but change cannot happen if we continue to not bring attention to this broken process. Please, make your children and other children the priority. Put in a complaint and go all the way – do not mediate. Maybe, just maybe, if enough of us do this, we can make a difference.