Turns out naming electronic files “vision” and “concerns” doesn’t work very well if you have two kids on IEP and they have a new IEP each year, especially if you want to keep the old files intact. Now I’m naming the files as follows “name-year-vision” or “name-year-concerns.” (example: “John-2010-vision”, or “Jane-2010-vision”). That should make it [...]
The IEP Process – Special Education Advice for Parents (Part I – The Beginning)
Learning about special education is a daunting journey. I’ve been doing it for over four years now and I’m still learning. I can barely remember the very beginning and how confusing it all was. That’s why when I read a call from Karen Nowicki (an integrative coach) for tips for parents with children on IEPs, [...]
Ethnic background and attitude toward Special Education
While I have known for a while that some parents will look the other way when a child is struggling and will not have the child tested because they’re afraid or ashamed of the “special ed kid” label, I had not realized that minority families seem to be much more wary of that, until I [...]
Change.gov is closed, whitehouse.gov is up(dated)
I slightly panicked when I went to change.gov today and saw only a plain-looking box referring everyone to whitehouse.gov. I was afraid all the links I created to change.gov in my previous posts were broken. (“Citizen’s Briefing Book at change.gov” from January 13, 2009, and “Citizen’s Briefing Book update” from January 20, 2009) But I [...]
Citizen's Briefing Book update
The Citizen’s Briefing Book, which I mentioned in the post “Citizen’s Briefing Book at change.gov“ was closed on Sunday, January 18, 2009 (see “Wrapping up the Citizen’s Briefing Book“ entry on the change.gov blog). My comment “Revamp the Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program” got only 210 votes overall and two comments. My two other [...]
NTs or the Neurotypical
In her comment to my post “Why are white lies considered ‘politeness’?â€, Debra mentions “the NT world.†Responding to her comment, I wrote in the post scriptum “I doubt that anyone visiting my site would not know what NT, mentioned by Debra, means — but just in case — NT is short for ‘neurotypical’ or, [...]
Labeling kids
Way back in December a Washington Post article “Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label†caught my eye and I’ve been planning to write about that. (“Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label: Implications Concern Some School Parents†by Daniel de Vise, December 16, 2008) Of course this is old news by now, and covered widely by various blogs, including, naturally, [...]
Parenting Special Needs Children and Work
Boston Globe ran recently a two-article series by Maggie Jackson about working parents who have children with special needs. The first article, “A parental juggling job: Workplace stigmas add to struggles of people with disabled children” was published on December 14, 2008. The follow-up, “Bosses responding to special needs”, appeared on December 28, 2008. Jackson [...]
IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) – U.S. Department of Education Web Site
As the U.S. Department of Education web site titled “Building the Legacy: IDEA 2004†(http://idea.ed.gov/) says – “The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation.†The original law, titled the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed in 1975. Then in 1990 the [...]
Gifted and Special Education in Texas
Going over the news I’ve bookmarked a while ago I found a brief story from FortBendNow.com “FBISD Gifted and Talented Academy Students Connect with Real World,†by John Pope that talked about gifted students “learning about the nutritional perspectives of various cultural food items, including those representative of the Latino, Indian and Asian cultures.†FBISC [...]