Hearing impairment is difficult, because you want to communicate with your daughter about what she did that day, and if she cannot tell you, then you are stuck, is that right?
Unfornately, if you were told by the team that you "intimidate" and her IEP is at a standstill, you may need to work really hard to repair the situation. If they see you in this light, they have probably consulted someone on how to legally handle you.
In every IEP, the school is required to spell out when they will report progress to you, and must do this at least as often as they report progress with children's parents who are in regular education. They are saying that daily communication, email, and texting is a "progress report" so you are speaking two different langagues, really. It is a technical, legal, symantic strategy to shut you down because they find you an annoyance.
You need to reframe the argument and tell them that you do not want a progress report, you want daily functional communiciation, IE, you want to know what signs she worked on, an activity she did to talk about, what her homework is, so that you can communicate with her about her day, since she cannot tell you. An IEP goal for her to become involved in putting this information in the log for you may be one way to go, and thus it becomes educational too.
If you think that your daughter has an educational need for daily communication about her activities, then you will have to show that with evaluation data. A daily calendar or notebook communication system is common place, so I would be suspicious that you have really anlienated them that that would seem like a common accomodation for a child with a hearing imparment. Do you tend to have difficult negotiations for the IEP anyway? Is this a symptom of a difficult relationship, or a reaction to only one issue with you? I am further perplexed that you were surprised, most parents have an idea that the IEP team is not happy with them before they get to a meeting.
I would advise you to do two things, first, do some reading on www.wrightslaw.com and read about effective advocacy and IEP relationships gone bad. Be very critical of your own actions here, if you abuse email, and used texting, you probably did over step the boundaries and drive them nuts and they obviously sought legal advice on how to stop you, which is why they are using the IEP langauge to do so. Next, I would hire an advocate to help you repair the relationship and see if you can negotiate a daily log and IEP goal for one, if you promise not to text or email unless it is an emergency and respect the teachers heavy work schedules. My initial thought is that you need to gain some skill in how to deal with the team without becoming a burden to the teachers. It will be a win, win for you if you can. You may have to agree to not put the log in the IEP, as once it is listed in the IEP, they must do this daily and you really do not want them to just write anything to fulfill an IEP accomodation. You want real, helpful information, and you need them to know that you are on the same page with them.
The biggest question is why were they taking such a hard line with you? If you truly think that you were not being unreasonable, then you need to proceed carefully. If you have any suspicion that they are hiding what is going on at school, then you need to be more agressive and proactive. That is a bad sign that is not good for her safety or education.
Do you have your own evlauation data or are you relying only on what the school has? If you have a private audiologist, you might try to get a recomendation from them for a log. If you don't supplement her communications with private services from a sign language intstuctor or with private speech therapy, please start! The school is only obligated to make her functional, and she will always need more to be what you want her to be! It may be too that the teachers would be willing to communicate with your private therapists so that you have a continuty of service, and you can get the information from the private therapists.
If I were your advocate, my first order of bussiness would be to try to repair the relationship.
Martha