Many thanks to our great speaker Dr. James Irby. We had our largest turnout ever for this meeting and we will ask Dr. Irby to return annually. My notes in no way reflect the wealth of information packed into our hour long meeting. It was good to hear that he is on the side of children trying to get their �appropriate� education from public schools.
Dr. Irby was school superintendent in two systems in Alabama�Roanoke, AL and Athens, AL and earned his law degree while he was superintendent in Athens. He says he was proud of helping children with special needs and proud of the pass rate for the graduation exam while he served as superintendent.
The acronym FAPE stands for free, appropriate public education. FAPE is US law which required an �appropriate� education for children�Dr. Irby says that appropriate means not a Cadillac education, but a serviceable Chevrolet. He says the Alabama law provides for a due process hearing request to be filed with Alabama state school superintendent Ed Richardson in Montgomery. Three lawyers trained in due process handle all the cases for Alabama, one from Athens, one from Huntsville, and one from Montgomery. The lawyers are the hearing officers who run the due process hearing. The point of the due process hearing is to provide services to the child quicker and to save the schools systems which would have to pay for a lawsuit. Dr. Irby said �miraculous improvement� occurs AFTER he files a due process complaint against a school system�grades go up; teacher is overly friendly, school administrators eager to point out improvement. Also when re-evaluation time comes up after three years school systems claim the child is �cured�.
An IEP, individualized Education Plan, is crucial for helping your dyslexic child in public school. Dr. Irby recommends that parents must specify class size, the teacher-child ratio. He says to make sure you ask and push for what your child needs, for example, a computer. No matter how insignificant an item might seem, Dr. Irby encourages parents to include it in the IEP. Most IEPS are pre-made BEFORE parents can give their input, BUT the law requires that parents are treated as an equal party in the IEP process�.no matter if it is one or two parents present against 12 educational �usual suspects� of teachers, counselors, special Ed teachers, administration.
Lack of money is no defense for a school system to NOT provide services to children with dyslexia, according to the Supreme Court. The law that dyslexia comes under as a specific learning disability is IDEA, and Dr. Irby told us the I in IDEA stands for individual and IDEA does not mean �I did enough already!�
Evaluations: school systems can evaluate your child and you if are unhappy with their results you can request that the system pay for a second opinion from a private evaluator. Schools have 60 days from the date of the referral to do the testing plus an additional 30 days (calendar days on both) to implement an IEP. Dr. Irby recommends having the 60 day period run consecutively with any work done by the �BUILDING BASED STUDENT SUPPORT TEAM,� of teachers, special Ed teachers, counselors, administrators.
Records: within a reasonable time you should have yearly the school records for your child and Dr. Irby recommends that parents ask each year for records. That might take 45 days to get from the school system.
TAPE all meetings with school officials about your child. You do not have to notify the other party in a private conversation that you are taping them and tape is good backup.
Dr. Irby told one mother that the public school system should reimburse her for mileage at 31.5 cents per mile between the private school her daughter attends and the public school where she receives services in special education. �Free means free� and parents should not have to pay these kinds of costs.
Dr. Irby says he charges 200 dollars and hour but the parents don�t pay. If he wins his case then the school system pays his fees.
Dr. Irby�s website is www.jamesirby.org
And his phone number is 256-232-0202 in Athens