504 Plan pt3

Collecting & Understanding the Information you need

The American Diabetes Association has a detailed sample 504 plan on their site.  The JDRF also provides a link to various plans here. 

Download these documents, print them out and read them with a highlighter in your hand.  Highlight everything that you think pertains to your child.  Keep in mind that if your son or daughter is too young some of the testing language may not pertain to them right now but you still want to include it in your 504.  Including items that aren’t relevant this year but will be in a year or so is an easy way to get important concessions into the document now that you’ll need later.  This step should save you some hassle in the future.  

Next cut and paste your document together, I made changes like removing, “student” and replacing it with “Arden”, stuff like that.  I rewrote some languageto read as if I wrote it from scratch to avoid the school feeling as though I was coming at them with a formatted document and to make the plan feel more personal and less “legal”.  Some sections we (Kelly and I) wrote completely over to tailor to Arden. 

Next, put yourself in the school’s shoes, more specifically try to think like their attorney.  If anything feels extraneous to your child, take it out but don’t cut something important just to make it shorter...  Anything over a page or two is going to throw the liaison into a tizzy anyway because most parents use the schools too short and too vague form that they provide.  So pare it down as much as possible so that it doesn’t feel too overwhelming to them.  Lastly, cut but don’t cut too much, you may need to have something to use as a concession when the bartering begins (and it will).  

Okay that’s enough for now, except to say that you can’t begin this process early enough. If it is your goal to put a comprehensive 504 in place for your child, one that will keep them as safe as possible, that affords them the best chance to learn, it’s going to take time and a bit of back and forth.  I found starting over the summer break to be ideal, it’s slow going in the beginning but worth the effort.

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The following are archived comments from this post. You can post new comments below.

Anonymous

We began with the ADA's sample 504, using it as a guide.  Unfortunately our school insists on using the ADA template, in its entirety.  We've ended up with a 9 page 504 that is constantly being violated simply because it's so long no one knows what's in it.

Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 10:05 AM