Parental consent is the backbone that helps not only level the playing field but it is the very safeguard for our children to make sure that their IEPs are being carried out.  The parent is the only one soley in there for the child(ren) with nothing nothing more on their agenda than helping their child to receive FAPE.  On the other hand, the school system is there for your child only if it fits in with their budget plans, or their shortage of staff or their time constraints or their case loads.  We have the 65 business day timeline for evaluations but yet why does it take years and years to get those evaluations done?  The parents are the watchdogs to make sure that the schools are honoring the IEP contract otherwise there is no telling what all would go undone.  So many wasted dollars is not because of the chldren's needs in special education, it's because if the school had done what was needed to be done right from the start, it would avoid legal litigation, the child would be geting their needs met in a timely fashion and the school might not be paying for compensation and more evaluations if they had just done the job right in the first place.  When it takes over 4  years to get an evaluation done or needed equipment ordered and that is with parental consent as it is now pray tell how many years if ever would it get done without parental involvement?  The parents are the schools conscience and without that conscience who knows what kind of education our children will receive?  What these proposals say at least to me is that the focus is not on our children as it should be but on the schools and making it easier on them irregardless on how hard it is making it on our children.   Somewhere along the line we've lost sight of just what is important here.  We need to bring the focus back to the children who are the ones being affected by all of this.  When you are drafting these regs you need to keep in mind how these regs could adversely affect these children and stop saying well the parents can always go to due process.  That's like saying we are going to remove all low and middle class homes but you still have access to the higher end homes even though you can't afford them.  Bring common sense back into the equation along with a dose of reality.  Bring the trust back into the parent/teacher relationship and learn to think out of the box and be creative and many hurdles might just be overcome without the need to exhaust the budget.  BE a TEAM do not encourage ME  vs. THEm as is the way now. When we all work  together as a TEAM then together we can find ways to meet the needs of our children.  Be a TEAM player and stop trying to push the parents out, that's like throwing the baby out with the water.  It's a sad day when parents have to beg to be part of their children's education but maybe we should enact regulation that says when a school spends more money to deny services than what the services initially costs in the first place then that school shall receive a stiff discipline and that each and everytime the school is discipline it is announced in the newspaper so the world will stop blaming the children who need special education and start putting the blame where is really belongs back on the shoulders of the school district.  It seems to me maybe a little house cleaning wouldn't go amiss either starting at the top and working down.