Negotiating The Special Education Maze: A Guide for Parents and Teachers

The book covers all the crucial components parents and advocates need to consider from anticipating a child is not succeeding in a program or school to seeking an evaluation; from planning an Individualized Education Program (IEP) or Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP), to understanding classroom placement options and monitoring progress.

Key topics include:
Eligibility for services
Understanding the IEP process
How to write effective goals
Tips on participating in IEP meetings
Making sure IEPs are carried out and effective

The new fourth edition provides expanded information on:
Transitioning from high school to adult life
1. Employment
2. Independent living
3. Self-advocacy
4. Continuing education
Required statewide assessments for all students
Problem solving disagreements between families and schools
Due process and other legal recourses

Invaluable forms and charts help parents plan their IEP strategy, keep records and key contacts, log conversations and correspondence with important players, and track progress. This guide is one of the best tools available for understanding how to navigate the special education maze!

This review appeared in the Annotated Bibliography Section of Learning A Living; A Guide to Planning Your Career and Finding A Job for People with Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder and Dyslexia by Dale S. Brown


Don't Go To An IEP Meeting Without It!   March 23, 2001
 60 out of 63 found this review helpful

If you are the parent of a child with special needs, and she is a student n public school, be ready to do some big-time advocating to ensure that she gets the special ed. services she needs. As a special education teacher I am amazed at how little parents know about their rights under the IDEA '97 legislation, and how little they advocate for their child at IEP meetings.

This book is a good start to get you, as the parent-advocate, in the frame of mind you need to be in when "negotiating the special education maze." My brief experience in the field has taught me that the most frustrated parents are those that are the least informed about what their rights are. Like trading stocks on the stock market, operating within the criminal justice system, or living in a foreign culture, the domain of special education has a culture, and rules all its own. If the parent does not know how to "play the game," you will be rolled by school districts that pay a lot of lip-service to providing an "education for all," but in practice are only concerned about the "best and the brightest."

I would also highly recommend doing two things if you are a parent of a special needs child, and you are just about to enter "the maze;"

(1) I would look in your local phone directory for a special ed. advocacy group, or some type of parent group, where you can join with other parents and learn about the special ed. field, and what is available in your area. (2) I would also join the Council for Exceptional Children as they are an excellent source of special ed. info. re: legislation, parent rights, advocacy, etc. I hope that this review helps in inspiring you to become better informed about the "system" so that you can obtain the best for your child. I want to stress again how important it is to (a) become as informed as you can regarding your rights as a parent, and your child's rights to a free and appropriate public education as stipulated by federal legislation such as IDEA '97. One of the frustrations I have had as a special ed. teacher is seeing how much lip-service school districts pay to special needs children, but how little is done for them in actual practice. I call special education "the last bastion of discrimination in the public schools." I want to write a book about this some day and call it "Separate and Unequal." ;) And I also want to stress (b) how important it is to become actively involved in a local parent advocacy group. There is strength in numbers, and there are battle-scarred veterans of the special ed. wars who have had to go at it with recalcitrant school districts hammer-and-tong to get even the bare minimum services for their child. I don't mean to be "negative," but I know what I am talking about.