Dear Moms,
Let me lead with this line: Your child is more than her IEP.
I assure you of this.
She is unique, creative in her own ways, noticed for characteristics that are all her own: the way her eyes crinkle when she laughs, the way she excels on assignments that are meaningful to her, how she is the first to help her seatmate pick up a pen when it rolls to the floor. She is a student, like those who sit around her, who prefers one subject to another, who has bad days, sleepy days, and days when it is hard to even sit still. She has her friends, her favorite lunch, and a custodian who calls her by her name and has a special handshake just for her.
Your child is more than her IEP, and we all notice it and value her for being, well, her.
I will be starting my third year in special education when we go back at the end of the summer. The students who I began my journey with, at the same time as they began their own high school journey, will be graduating this year. I have had the opportunity to watch them progress from scared and easily startled, sometimes immature, and largely in need of a boost of confidence sophomores to more mature, self-aware seniors who have built a community of friends and supporters within the high school and who have learned how to take charge of their learning: what supports they need and when, what organizational methods work best to be successful, and most importantly, how to advocate for what they need. I have learned just as much along the way.
I have fifteen students on my caseload, meaning, fifteen individuals who I act as their Teacher of Record (TOR) and am therefore legally responsible for ensuring that they are provided with the accommodations and/or modifications listed out in their IEP (individual education plan) which is the blueprint created to ensure that they receive a “free and appropriate public education” (FAPE). (If you are unfamiliar with special education, these acronyms may seem like a vegetable soup word collage, but, if you are familiar with special education, they are a part of your normal conversations.)
In my own way of thinking about it, I have the privilege of making sure that these fifteen kids are doing ok in school, that they are getting the help that they need, and that they do not feel alone in the vastness that is the large school where I teach. I seek them out daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the child, and check in on how they are dealing with the grind that is public education. I meet with their teachers on their behalf, I advocate for them, I build relationships with their families. I am the middleman between home and school and also between school and what comes after (known as transition, where all SPED students have to have a plan, either employment, enlistment, or enrollment-the same for all Indiana high schoolers, but in the case of SPED students, carefully planned and prepared for with supports built in to ensure success).
I am always available to these fifteen kids, and I know them so much better than their general education teachers in the classroom. They are my kids through and through.
This is why I wanted to tell you, those of you who have a child in special education, that your child is so much more than her IEP. There is a stigma in the general public that exists around special education, that these students are labeled and never outgrow or outpace their label, that students with an IEP are treated differently and viewed as not capable of learning, and even the old jokes about “riding the short bus” that seem to permeate through time (although sidenote here: one of my fifteen has alternative transportation, also known as a shorter yellow school bus because of his anxiety, and has never once encountered any negativity about it).
My advice from teaching in an urban school with an incredibly diverse student population of 3,400: do not fear your child’s label. Instead, view their IEP as a positive, as a way to make the one-size-fits–all attributes of public education more equitable to your child who is wonderfully unique in her own ways. Her IEP does not determine her social status or her ability level. Her IEP does not limit how high she can fly; it exists to give her the boost to reach the greatest heights she can. Further, her IEP comes with someone like me, a TOR, who is there to assist your child when you cannot. Lean on this person! Your child’s TOR knows the system and knows your child. Your child has an advocate, a cheerleader, a person in the building she knows she can come to and count on when problems may arise.
Dear mom of a child with an IEP: please know that your child is in good hands, and more importantly, your child is in the hands of someone who cares about their well-being in school and in general life. What more could you want than sending your kid into a building where another person is as invested in their success as you are, where that person is checking in on their progress, where that person is noticing them and seeing them for all they bring, not just the words written in their IEP.
We in special education see your child. We love your child.
Sincerely,
A Special Education Educator
