response

Week Five Instructor Guidance
Welcome to Week Five!! Last week you practiced introducing the required team members at a mock Individualized Education Program (IEP) team meeting – Way to go!  You are making great progress in your understanding of the laws and requirements in special education.
This week you will be introduced to the Procedural Safeguards as outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and will identify how they protect the rights and of children with disabilities.  Another key point of this week’s learning is to demonstrate your understanding of the issues that may contribute to conflict between parents of children with disabilities and school personnel.  There is one discussion and one assignment during this week’s studies.

Different Perspectives
Osborne and Russo (2012) state, “In enacting the IDEA, Congress intended to make parents partners in the development of appropriate educational program for their children, whether in their schools or homes” (p.95).  As mentioned earlier in this course, the IEP team must include certain required participants who make decisions for the education of each child with a disability. 
As you might imagine, these meetings are not always easy, nor do they simply end in absolute agreement. Each party may have different opinions, ideas, or recommendations resulting in disagreements on selected sections of the IEP or on the school district’s recommendations as a whole. Various viewpoints can contribute to differences of opinion.  Like any human process, there are bound to be disagreements and certain individual factors that contribute to conflict. 
Researcher, Jeannie Lake conducted a study of various participants of IEP team meetings in the state of Massachusetts in 2009 (“Factors Contributing to Parent-School Conflict in Special Education,” n.d.). Her goal was to identify elements that escalate conflict between parents and schools.  In her study, she discovered eight categories of factors.  They are listed below:
· Different views about a child or a child’s needs
· Knowledge
· Service delivery
· Reciprocal power
· Constraints
· Valuation
· Communication
· Trust
Ninety percent of the participants identified the first factor in this list, “Different views about a child or a child’s needs” as a cause of conflict.  She concluded from her findings that more than one of these categories could be operating simultaneously to escalate conflict and lead to more complicated and expensive court proceedings. 
Understanding the parental perspective, especially when dealing with complicated terminology and processes can exacerbate the confusion that parents may experience.  Often, parents of students with disabilities will arrive at the IEP meeting feeling intimidated or threatened by the professionals who are responsible for working together with the families to develop the student’s specialized program.  Because of differing perspectives and assumptions that may be made, escalation of miscommunication leading to disagreement frequently occurs (Wellner, 2012). 
Collaboration
Collaboration in an IEP team meeting can be of utmost importance for the success of arriving at consensus and resolving conflict.  Think of the ways that collaboration can be beneficial for you in your own work; for example, you can gain the perspective of another person, you can learn new ideas about a particular concept, and you are able to obtain opposing input from your peers as part of the learning and sharing process. 
While we may not completely agree with the feedback or viewpoint that is obtained, when considering this information it has the potential of greatly informing our work and in ultimately creating consensus in making sound decisions that affect the students in which we serve.
Procedural Protections
Inherent in the IDEA are elaborate procedural protections to ensure that schools meaningfully include parents in all education decisions. However, if parents believe a school district has not followed the procedures or if they disagree with actions involving the identification, evaluation, or placement of their child, parents have the right to employ dispute resolution mechanisms. 
The law is intended for parents to be involved in the process of designing and appropriate education for their child, but they may also serve as the stimulus for forcing school districts to comply with the laws.  Each state, in accordance with the IDEA, has a complaint investigation and resolution process (Zirkel& McGuire, 2010).
Conflict
The cost of conflict can be high.  This means that consequences of conflict are dreadful both in terms of the financial burden and also in the trust and long term relationships that can be damaged.  The following three-minute video explains conflict and how to manage it.  While basic, this video provides a good basic understanding of what can happen as a result of differing perspectives resulting in disagreement. 

Conflict Resolution (Links to an external site.)

Week Five Discussion Guidance

Conflicting Views is the title of this week’s discussion. After reading an article that is linked in your course, you will create an initial response based on the beginning letter of your last name.  One group will respond to Destini’s parents by supporting their specific request and the other group will oppose this position and deny the parent’s request.  By using the evidence from your textbook as well as the Instructor Guidance your position will be supported.
Your response to at least two peers will be focused on those who have a differing role as your own.  Use the article and other reading to provide suggestions to reduce the impending conflict.
Please review the discussion board rubric prior to your initial post to ensure you are fully meeting each of the set criteria to earn full credit. As per the rubric requirements your initial post should include relevant professional, personal, or other real-world experiences in a manner that is rich in thought and provides valuable insight into the topic.
Additionally, all elements of the discussion board prompt should be thoroughly addressed with strong and precise connections to previous and/or current course content, or to real-life situations. When substantively replying to your peers’ post, be sure to provide a thorough and constructive analysis relating the response to relevant course concepts that incorporates pertinent follow-up thoughts or questions about the topic, and demonstrates respect for the diverse opinions of fellow learners.
Finally, while it may difficult to do for all the responses to your posts, please make an effort to respond back to those who took the time to respond to your initial post.  It is the courteous and gracious thing to do, and has the potential to make our classroom community discussions more interesting and thought-provoking. Answering questions posed by your peers invites continued learning, meaningful application, and relevant extension of the discussion.
Week Five Assignment Guidance:
Mr. and Mrs. Marlow make a demand of the school district to provide expensive outside supports for their daughter, Destini, because they are not satisfied with her level of progress and her current grade of a “C”.  They feel she should be earning an “A” and that the school district is obviously not providing her a FAPE.  Additionally, after receiving the Procedural Safeguards, Mr. and Mrs. Marlow admit they do not understand their rights.
This week’s assignment, Procedural Safeguards, is your opportunity to explain the Procedural Safeguards in written terms so that you can demonstrate your ability to identify how they protect the rights of children with disabilities.
There are specific guidelines for the written portion of this assignment as well as the content.  In order to maximize your score, it is essentially that you follow these instructions closely.
Make sure to use the Grading Rubric as a self-checklist before submitting the final copy of your assignment to confirm you have met or exceeded each required expectation. The highest level of achievement on the rubric is “distinguished”, which is only earned through exceeding posted expectations at the proficiency level. Please remember you are in a masters-level program. Therefore, your writing, research, and content are held to graduate-level expectations.
ePortfolio
Save this written assignment in your electronic portfolio (ePortfolio).  As you recall, your ePortfolio serves as a collection of evidence to support the development and mastery of competencies as you progress through this program and you will re-visit it in ESE 699, your MASE program capstone course.
References

Conflict Resolution (Links to an external site.)
 [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY5TWVz5ZDU

Factors Contributing to Parent-School Conflict in Special Education (Links to an external site.)
. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.advocacyinstitute.org/advocacyinaction/Parent_School_Conflict.shtml
Wellner, L. (2012). Building Parent Trust in the Special Education Setting (Links to an external site.)
.Leadership, 16-19. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ971412.pdf
Zirkel, P.A., & McGuire, B. L. (2010).A roadmap to legal dispute resolution for students with disabilities.Journal of Special Education Leadership, 23, 100-112.