Preparing for Your Child’s IEP Meeting
Children with disabilities are entitled to a free and appropriate public education; however, to succeed in school, these children often require additional assistance and support. A federal law, the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), compels schools and school districts to provide significant assistance and support for these children. Before Congress passed the IDEA, schools were not required to hold these meetings. Parents had no recourse or remedy to ensure that their disabled child received essential services for his or her education.
The IDEA requires each disabled child to receive an Individualized Education Program (“IEP”). The IEP is developed by parents, teachers, school officials, and experts for the purpose of providing appropriate services for each individual child. The season for IEP meetings is usually in the spring. Many schools notify parents about their child’s upcoming IEP meeting. At this meeting, a formal plan for the child’s education for the next school year will be finalized. Once completed, the IEP lists specifically the special or additional services that the child will and must receive during the next school year. The IEP binds the school. Know this: Before the IEP meeting for your child, the teachers, administrators and their experts will have met and discussed your child and what the services that the school prefers to provide or not provide. School officials are prepared for the meeting and have a plan that they will implore you to accept.
When the IEP meeting date arrives, school officials generally set the agenda, and parents often feel outnumbered and overwhelmed. The school has a proposed plan, and parents, often unaware of their rights or what is best for their child, often accept the school’s recommendations for their child with few, if any, changes to the school’s plan. But you do not have to accept what the school system suggests. The school or school system probably chose its own experts. Neither the school’s teachers, administrators, nor experts answer to you; they answer to the school system’s principals, administrators, and beauracrats. Often, their recommendations are made in light of the school’s system overall plan to deal with disabled students and not on what is appropriate for your child. Parents do not have to accept the school’s recommendations or its experts or their assessments.
Before the IEP meeting, you should prepare and prepare thoroughly. Think carefully about the services that your child needs to succeed, and if possible, talk to, consult with, or obtain reports and evaluations from your own independent experts (doctors, experts in learning disabilities, speech and language disorders, occupational therapists, teachers in other school systems, and others), advocates, and allies, who are not associated with the school or school system. In short, when doable, have your independent experts assess your child and specify which services he or she needs. If your experts’ reports assist in your demands for services, provide the school with a copy at the meeting.
Before the IEP meeting, parents should ask about other assessments and tests that the school performed or may use during the meeting and request that the school share its reports beforehand so that you can review them and prepare counter-statements, if necessary. Parents should also collect and review evaluations, progress reports, notes, emails, texts, incident or discipline reports for their child from teachers or other school officials sent to them during the school year and review them regardless of whether they are positive, negative, or in-between.
Critically, before the meeting, parents should outline or prepare a report about their children’s progress during the school year, write their own vision statements about their child’s possible future, remind other attendees that the meeting is focused on one individual (your child), and select the most important goals for their child to achieve in the next academic year and prioritize them.
At the IEP meeting, parents should ensure that an accurate record of the meeting via a suitable recording device is made or ask a trusted friend capable of taking notes well to take notes. The school will usually have its own note-taker. Parents should speak up, ask questions insist upon clear answers, and press so that their child to receive the services that they need. For example, parents should ask: Are the child’s needs currently being adequately met by the school? Ask the school officials to explain. What else or what other services would help your child learn and function better in school? Did the school meet its obligations under the existing IEP?
Your child may not need certain services the school offers to provide, may need different services altogether, or need more or less of the services offered. Analyze the proposed services in light of your goals for your child. Parents however should not agree to unrealistic and unattainable goals or to their children’s placement prior writing the IEP’s goals.
Read the proposed IEP carefully before signing it. You can ask to take it home and review it. Don’t be pressured into signing it on the spot. Remember, parents do not have to accept the school system’s proposed IEP. If you disagree, you can challenge it. Fight for your child.
IEP meetings are often complicated and confusing. Parents should not attend an IEP meeting alone. When possible, hire a lawyer familiar with the IEP process to assist you. Meet with your lawyer before the IEP meeting and ask your lawyer to attend with you.
Admittedly, the IEP is complex and confusing. A lawyer can assist and fight for your child’s rights at the meeting. If you are a parent of a child with a disability and have questions or about IEPs or IEP meeting, contact Attorney Perry A. Craft. He will answer questions and help ensure that your child’s rights are protected.
