Special Education Changes, Special Education Advocates

This meeting is to review the proposed changes to Special Education rules in Michigan. (MARSE) 

If you have a child in Michigan schools with an IEP, you ARE affected by these proposed changes.  

The meeting is of the Special Education Advocates in Dexter, but the meeting is open to anyone who is interested in the topic.   The changes are being sold as a "minor rule clean up' but are in fact a major change.  The State of MI has also LIMITED the public comment period for people to respond.  
The potential effects are: 

•  Eligibility for Services of children on the upper end of the ASD / Autism spectrum are severely limited by mandatory symptomatology display with NO relationship to ASD accepted diagnostics.  
• Short Term Goals and Objectives are eliminated from all IEP's.
• Hearing or Visually impaired students will see changes to staff qualifications.
• Multidisciplinary Assessment teams are eliminated
• Parents are required to sign contracts prior to IEP's being completed
• The dispute period is reduced by 50%
• Staffing levels for Special Education will be left up to schools and the ISD - no state minimums will apply.

We will provide references to the actual documents of proposed changes so people may determine for themselves what will impact their children and families.