Conciliation Conference Recap

I left work at 2pm with fear emanating to my fingertips. A tingling that seems to interrupt normal thinking and rational reactions. Blood sugar? 203….haha, I hadn’t been responding well to corrections all stinkin day. The conciliation conference was scheduled for 2:30pm. My bundle of nerves, the school, all these people, all these important high up in school people…..My son and his future….I felt as though I was walking the plank, ready to jump.

I felt as though I had prepared my entire life for this one meeting. This one meeting, myself up against what feels like the world. What difference can I make? I have spent weeks writing letters (letters upon letters upon letters). When I began writing these letters I posted them on this blog, but it became readily apparent that I was writing too many letters to post them all. I was a letter writing machine. And I had lists. And evaluations covered in highlighter and scribbled notes. And lists. Oh the lists. Sheets of paper folded in half. Lists of needs found within evaluations. Lists of goals, functional needs, lists of what is missing, and the whys…..And then I had notes. Pages upon pages of notes upon notes. Notes of phone conversations with Sandis’s teacher, his case worker, his mental health county social worker, my advocate from PACER. So much paper.

I walked into the room carrying a briefcase that should injure my back temporarily if not permanently. I walked in with a paper trail to convince the masses of the school’s complete disregard of federal law and mandates.

And next to me? Next to me was my PACER advocate. My angel in a business suit. My angel warrior with a smile, but also a bite. An intelligent bite that knows federal law backwards, forwards, dyslexic, and upside down. An intelligent bite that doesn’t care one iota if everyone at that table thinks she is the devil. My warrior angel. My PACER advocate….(My new hero!)

Do you think things went well? The next couple of weeks will truly convey how well this meeting went. I can say this: When my advocate advised me during the meeting (so all could hear) to file a complaint with the state department of education as the school district has violate my son’s personal rights and violated federal law repeatedly without conscience , well……That is the point in a meeting where school staff stops dictating policy and starts asking: “What can we do to make this better?”

What can we do to make this better?

Finally on the right track.