02/07/2000
(Commissioner's Name Here)
Commissioner of Education
(State Name Here) Department of Education
(State Commissioner's Address Here)
(Commissioner's Name Here), This letter is a written formal complaint in regards to actions taken of the (Name of School District Here) School District in their failure of implementing a signed IEP written for our daughter (Child's Name Here). We are asking that a full investigation be implemented in regards to said stated violations that are written in this letter.
On 11/30/1999, an IEP meeting was held at (Name of School) School in regards to our daughter (Child's Name Here). In this meeting, my husband and I rescinded our signature to (Child's Name Here)'s Previous IEP signed 5/17/1999. It was felt that as written, this IEP was not in (Child's Name Here)'s best interest and did not reflect all services that she needs at this time. At this meeting, it was decided that (Child's Name Here)'s placement needed to be changed from a full inclusionary placement with modified (BH) resource room intervention to a Special Education Learning Disabled/BH room placement. These changes are what we, as well as all of (Child's Name Here)'s teachers, and her case manager for (BH) program all agreed upon. This was the IEP that we signed on 11/30/1999 and that the (Name of School District) School District has in their possession.
First Violation: As of 02/07/2000, we have yet to hear from the (Name of School District Here) School District in regards to when implementation of said change of placement and services that we asked for in (Child's Name Here)'s revised IEP, will occur. We have never received a letter of any kind from the school district, and I now believe that they are in violation of (time frame) of implementation of said new revised IEP. We called the school district 4 times since 11/30/1999 and have physically gone to the Special Education office (in person) to ask when our daughter's IEP would be implemented. We also have yet to hear from the school district in regards to said phone calls or even our personal visit to their office.
Second Violation: We have heard in an indirect way through (Child's Name Here)'s School (Name of School Here) that the program we have asked for our daughter to be placed in is full to capacity and since this placement is full, that our daughter cannot be placed into this program for now.
Without prior written notice, the school district had taken it upon themselves to supply a one on one aide (this was implemented 2 weeks ago without our knowledge) and also to have our daughter, (Child's Name Here) to stay in full inclusion class placement with
(BH) Resource room intervention at this time. This placement and implementation of a one on one aide is not what we wanted and it was not written into her new and revised IEP. I firmly believe that the school district is now out of compliance in regards to making this formal decision. The district did not take into regards our wishes as (Child's Name Here)'s parents and a member of the "team" in regards to making a decision of the best placement for her.
I want to make it very clear that we never signed any legal form that stated (Child's Name Here) would stay in the same class placement and that a one on one aide would be given to her. The school district made this change with out our written consent.
As it stands now (02/07/2000), our daughter (Child's Name Here) has been placed in a program with modifications that we never consented to. We were never told that said modifications were to take place with prior written notice and that the signed and revised IEP (dated 11/30/1999) has not been implemented in a reasonable and legal time frame.
Respectively yours,
(Your Name Here)
Just a note to this letter: I am not sure if this is a state law, but we were informed by our State that, if at an IEP meeting the discussion will be about change of placement and program, a repesentive of the school district has to be in attendance at all times. This does not mean the principal of the school your child is attending, but a repesentive of the special education department themselves. In our case, the special education department knew of this IEP meeting (11/30/1999) because they set up the meeting at our request and we received a letter of prior written notice from them. They still sent no one from their office to the meeting. The district in our case cannot use "We did not know about this meeting" as an excuse.