We are not experts on this law and have not spent hours studying it.  We are writing because we are concerned about how the changes brought about by this legislation may affect our daughter and others like her in the future.

We are in the process of finalizing an IEP and 504 plan for our middle school daughter.  Without being specific, her learning and physical disabilities are more subtle, not easily seen by her teachers and administrators on a daily basis.  She tends to have good days and bad days.  However, as her parents we see her at home struggle with her physical and learning disabilities everyday.   We believe that without the simple accommodations provided by an IEP she would "slip through the cracks" and not reach her full potential.  

Though I believe the school staff has good intent, it has been a two year effort on our part to get to the point of actually putting a formal plan in place.  We believe that without her doctors (writing letters and coming to the school to meet with the administrators and explaining her condition) and us acting as her advocate, the IEP would not have been written.  Under the proposed law, we believe that the school administrators, now given greater control in the process, would have deemed her IEP unnecessary.  

It is for this very personal reason that we believe the changes in the regulations that remove or limit parental involvement and consent in the development, implementation, and requirement that school track and report IEP results is a mistake.   Please do not change the law so that parents have less involvement and consent in the process.  Please do not change the law just to make Virginia's law the same as the rest of the country.