The Individualized Education Plan (IEP) can be an intimidating document. It can also make or break a student’s experience in special education. Parents often sit passively in IEP meetings where pre-written goals are recited to them. It can often feel like you have no input, but it doesn’t have to.
Parents are often their child’s best advocate. Use your expertise to become the mastermind of your child’s IEP. Don’t leave it to school staff to write the IEP from their perspective. Interject your wants and needs for your child. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) gives parents the explicit right to be an equal member of the IEP team, and have their requests considered.
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You might be thinking: “I do this. I’m always making requests and the school staff always say no.” But are your requests in writing? Are your requests formally made before and during an IEP meeting, not just in an email? Are you asking for Prior Written Notice explaining the school’s decision to accept or deny your requests? You’ve heard the saying: If it’s not in writing, it doesn’t exist. You must formalize your requests, and require the school staff to formalize their denials. This last part is really important; most schools don’t want to formally deny parents’ requests because it creates a paper trail that parents can use in dispute resolutions.
Read on to learn how to formalize your requests:
You should be asking for a draft of your child’s IEP at least a few days before the meeting. A few days before the school sends you a draft IEP, send them a parent input form (see a sample parent input form below). Ask the IEP author to copy and paste your concerns into the IEP. It’s important to have your actual words inserted into the legal document. I do this for my own son and the families I advocate for, and I’m always amazed at how many of our requests are inserted into the draft.
Sending it ahead of time gives everyone a heads up of what to expect at the meeting. It cuts down on the time of the meeting, and allows the team to get to all of the parent’s concerns. For example, I notice in a lot of meetings the IEP team will spend so much time reading word for word about the present levels. Many parents have already read and accepted this information at the evaluation meeting. Present levels are often copied and pasted from the evaluation report. If you send in requests and get a draft IEP ahead of time, you might feel more comfortable skipping entire sections that you agree with or have already read.
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Often the IEP team never gets to topics like Extended School Year (ESY) and special transportation, because they used up all the meeting time on the first half of the IEP. But if you wrote in the parent input form that you have concerns about these topics they must address them, either at the meeting or in a Prior Written Notice (PWN). Always ask them to answer all your requests in the PWN, even if you didn’t get to those concerns in the meeting.
Check out an example of a Parent Input form that I use for my own son and the families I advocate for. I got this from fellow advocate, Helen Caldart, at the Special Education Advocates League of Pierce County, WA. It’s easy to use and follows most IEP formats. Feel free to share and use with credit to Helen Caldart. You can find more of her amazingly helpful documents at www.sealk12.org.
Many state Department of Education websites also have model parent input forms. You might check your state’s Parent Training and Information Center.
