How to Compromise with Your School District Without Compromising Your Child: A Field Guide for Getting Effective Services for Children with Special Needs

By Gary Mayerson

Book Overview

The guide that every parent must have! Gary Mayerson has devoted his career in law to helping children with autism get the fair and appropriate education that they need and deserve. In this field... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0966526686
• ISBN13: 9780966526684
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: DRL Books
• Length: 140 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.5" x 0.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

How To Compromise with Your School District....

This book is an invaluable resource, whether you are completing the Initial IEP or are updating your child's IEP. The book gives straightforward, honest advice, and helps to educate parents on ways of approaching sensitive issues, without becoming confrontational. Written in easy to understand terms. Incredibly helpful!!

A Must Read

A must read for all parents of children with developmental or other disabilities. The author's extensive experience and easy to read writing style combine to make this an extremely informative and, in practical terms, an extremely useful book.

Excellent Resource for all parents of Special Needs Children

I have a copy and shared it with participants in my Advocacy training. They expressed a lot of great feedback. Very empowering tool for parents, especially those just entering the system. Examples of letters included, what not to say and say, how to help secure extended day services, language of intimidation Districts try to use (most of the quotes I have heard my district say!! It was funny because I was reading them aloud to some of my training partners on our way to Albany on Amtrak, a women in the seat in front of me looked horrified, stood up and turned to us and said, "People actually say things like that???!!" I was like "Yup. These are the reasons and explanations we get from many of our school districts when we trying to secure an appropriate education for our children with developmental disabilites") It is very easy to read and understand. I loved the inspirational quotes at the beginning of each chapter, really driving the point home. Mr. Mayerson has a very engaging writing syle, the analogies and examples make this book extremely comprehensive.

Knowledge is necessary

Gary Mayerson has produced a book that all parents facing school-based programmatic decisions should read. The education review process is often far from rational, and sometimes far from fair. Parents who don't know what their rights are, and what their CHILD'S rights are, may not be able to advocate for educational programming that maximizes their child's potential. This book shows parents how to be assertive, without being aggressive and making the process emotionally antagonistic on either side. This book is an exceptional guide to highly specicialized knowledge, knowledge you may not be able to come by any other way. The Einstein quote that ends the book sums it up: peace cannot be maintained through force but only through understanding.

Essential Guide for Parents

Parenting a child with Autism is challenging enough! Having to fight with your school district to get what is "APPROPRIATE" for our children is a whole other battle. Many of us so defeated from the day to day struggles of therapy schedules, doctor visits, and caring for our other family members, we rarely have the energy to start fighting for services that our special children really need. Most of the special education law resources are very complex to sift through, and retaining a lawyer to guide you can be a very costly and a financial impossibility for some families. Sometimes solutions to these problems may be as simple as writing a letter to the CSE chair. Gary has presented us with a powerful and simple tool to help parents get started in the process!!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOOO! I LOVE IT! How wonderful to share the secrets of the system! Because I run an educational foundation for children with Autism in New York, my phone rings several times on a daily basis regarding these exact issues. How can I get extended hours? Why is the district telling me they don't have the money to pay for the services? Do I have to send my son to the Special Ed school they recommended, why can't he be in the regular ed setting? etc.etc. it's endless. I keep this book in my office, so that I can easily grab it when helping families on the phone. I also keep an extra copy at home for my personal use. It's not expensive, and it's not an encyclopedia. It's simple and to the point!!! Thank You Gary for sharing your information, it is a wonderful gift to us all.