Kate’s Law (formally known as Kansas Senate Bill 12) remains stalled in the Kansas Senate Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee.  If passed, the bill would require health insurance to cover the diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders in Kansas.

To read more about Kate’s Law, and how you may advocate for its passage, click the following link for the Kansas Coalition for Autism Legislation .

Our children in special education narrowly dodged a drastic cut in funding under the Economic Stimulus Bill.  Instead, the final passed version of the bill seems to increase funds for special education.

I’m still studying the final results, but here’s how it looks.  The Senate stimulus bill would have allowed school districts to use federal funds to supplant local funds.  That would have resulted in an overall decrease in already underfunded programs for children with disabilities.

The final version eliminated that provision.  Instead, the final law included $12.2 billion for IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).

The Heartland Association of Legal Assistants invited me to be their featured presenter at their monthly membership meeting.  I had prepared a detailed power point presentation on special education issues:  eligibility, IEP requirements, and school discipline.  I printed the slides and distributed them before I began the address.

We never saw the presentation.   In my introduction, I started talking about juvenile justice for children with special needs.  As expected, this audience consisted of intelligent professionals.  They engaged me in a constructive dialogue about how inadequately our juvenile justice system handles cases for children with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses.  Our dialogue took the entire allotted hour, so we never returned to the original material.

Over time I will blog my thoughts on juvenile justice for children with disabilities.  In the meantime, I received a thank you letter from the Program Chair.  She wrote that she heard great feedback about my presentation.  She said the only negative was that they wished for more time so they could have seen my presentation.

Maybe next time.  I’m open to an invitation to return on another occasion.

Three families consulted me this week to prepare for their IEP meetings.  In each case, we emphasized the importance of preparing for the meeting.  Preparation can help you better advocate for your child to obtain special education services.

Here are some of the ways you can prepare for your child’s next IEP meeting:

• Designate in writing additional members of your IEP team.  Parents can designate members of the IEP team who have knowledge of your child or expertise regarding your child’s disabilities.
• Prepare a statement of parental concerns.  Bring copies for everyone at the IEP meeting.  Request your statement to be included with the IEP and the conference notes from the meeting.
• Review your child’s most recent educational evaluation.  If your evaluation is inadequate or out of date, make a written request for a re-evaluation.  If the re-evaluation is inadequate, you might be entitled to an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at public expense.

These are just a few of the many other ways you may prepare for your child’s IEP meeting.  Use the resource box at the right to contact me about your specific situation.

Gov. Palin spoke last Friday in Pittsburgh about how she proposes to assist families raising children with special needs.  She proposed

• School choice for parents and caretakers of children with special needs;
• Portability of federal and state funds to follow the child to private placements;
• Full funding of IDEA (special education).

Some voters in the disability community aren’t persuaded.  As Governor of Alaska, she cut funding for special needs education by sixty two percent.  For a criticism of Palin’s speech, see this editorial published by commondreams.org.  To see a brief excerpt of Gov. Palin’s speech in her own words, watch this video: