Be a Practical Advocate for Your Child

Many parents do not realize that they are in charge of their child’s educational rights up to a certain degree. After having attended numerous Individual Education Plan (IEP) meetings during my teaching career, I quickly noticed how a parent could request privileges in the classroom for their child if it would assist in their learning. However, you have to have gathered information along the way to make certain requests that you believe will help your child in the long run.

If your child confides in you that they feel rushed when taking tests, then collect their graded tests when they are brought home and go over it with them. Check and see if there is valid data backing up their claim about feeling rushed, or if they just feel rushed because they did not study enough before the test. This is what it means to be a practical advocate for your child. If they actually need an accommodation, then ask the teacher for advice. If they are not doing so well because they are not trying their best, then no amount of extra time is going to help them with this problem.

A practical advocate is someone that takes a sensible and realistic approach to helping their child with learning and behavior difficulties in school. As a parent, during an IEP meeting, you are part of a team trying to determine beneficial ways to help your struggling child. The team will listen to all ideas about ways to help the student, but they have to fall in the realm of possibility in the classroom.

I once was instructed by the IEP team to allow five minutes of social time for a student after every fifteen minutes of class time. While they even admitted that it was not a practical request, they left it in my hands to figure it all out. It took me a bit of time to figure out a way to possibly do this in a class of 27 students. I finally brainstormed a way by allowing the student to work on a paper or project with a partner for those five minutes without having to stop everyone in the middle of the class. The student was still receiving their social time, but not at the expense of the rest of the students. After a while, the parent and I discussed cutting back on this time as the year progressed to help get the child ready for entering junior high.

This is another key aspect of being a practical advocate for your child. Most times you will not have to have big meetings of six or seven people to put accommodations in place. Quite a bit of the time, it can be accomplished by just meeting with the teacher one on one and brainstorming ways to help the child. Every teacher would like for the student to achieve their best. If a parent schedules an appointment, comes in on time, and meets with the teacher to discuss the best ways to help the child  but still hold them accountable, almost every single teacher will work with you.

Average Accommodations

• Sometimes the student can receive an accommodation of having someone come into the classroom and help them stay on task or assist them in any of their academic struggles. Other times, the student can be taken out of the room into a quieter setting where someone can work with them a bit in another room with less distraction.
• Requesting more time or a quieter location while taking assessments.
• Asking ahead of time for a certain teacher for your child because the educator’s teaching style will work better for the student. Be prepared to back up this request with specific information on why this would be the case.
• If your child is having to do equations in school and they don’t know their multiplication table by heart, it will be difficult for the student. The goal is for the student to know how to do the concepts for the equation correctly, so allowing them to use a multiplication table could be a reasonable accommodation. However, you will have to ensure them that you will continue working with your child on multiplication at home so down the road there will be no need for the table anymore.
• Most students have spelling tests every week. There are certain students that just cannot handle twenty new words every week. They study all week long, but still miss ten of the words. If this is the case for your child, you can ask for the accommodation of only having ten new words a week for your child. Then once they start getting good grades on it, switch it up to eleven or twelve words. Hopefully, by the end of the year, they can be ready for the challenge of the full twenty words.

These are some frequent accommodations that are made in every classroom. Once again, if your child is struggling and you believe one of these can make a difference, then schedule a meeting with the teacher to discuss. As a parent, you are your child’s best advocate. Figuring out solutions to assist them with their learning and still hold them accountable at the same time should be the ultimate goal.

Written by Ryan Crawley

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