When a Simple Request for PDA Accommodations Turns Into a Denial of Rights
What every PDA parent needs to know about IDEA, FAPE, and the legal protections your district isn't telling you about
This week something happened that I cannot fully share every detail with you.
It was a lived representation and big reminder for me why I’ve been pulling back from the school system the past year after discovering my daughter was Autistic with a PDA profile (and more so after the complete lack of support for a PDA profile within the public school system in my district.)
While I can’t share every detail, I can tell you how you can effectively advocate for your own kids within the U.S. educational system, if that is something you choose to pursue.
My daughter has been asking to return to school after over a year of unschooling. With the several issues we’ve experienced with the school system in the past few years, and the lack of meaningful supports for a PDA student, at first I was very much against this idea. We’ve been gaslighted more times than I can count, blamed for our daughter’s disability and inability to access school (even though they weren’t providing the appropriate accommodations we suggested), and most recently — were told that WE were overstepping our place as parents and that we were unable to “dictate” the terms of our daughter’s IEP. (Ok, good luck with that one. Because it’s within parents’ rights to meaningfully participate in the IEP process. It’s actually a law under IDEA.)
