IEP meeting?

[Anonymous]

I was told I could bring anyone I wanted to our IEP meeting? Did you bring a specialist and if so why? Is this going to be a contentious meeting? I have in mind what goals I have for DC and it seems pretty basic e.g. Self care, speech.

[Anonymous]

You shouldn't assume it is going to be contentious. Specialists can sometimes help make he case for things in a more persuasive way than a parent, who is understandably emotionally attached. They can also sometimes connect on a peer level with an IEP team member.

Is your meeting to determine eligibility for special education or does everyone agree the child qualifies for an IEP and this is a meeting to write goals? If it is the latter you should have a draft from the school ahead of time to review. That can help tell you how close or how far apart your vision and the school's are.

[Anonymous]

If you have specific concerns or questions that you think the specialist can address, or if you think the specialist will add some weight or context to your child's situation, then it might make sense.
But there's certainly no reason to bring along a specialist just to a regular IEP as a matter of course.

[Anonymous]

I didn't bring a specialist to my first IEP and it wasn't contentious. You don't have to agree to anything at the meeting. You can (and should) ask for time to think about the proposal. If you are unhappy with the proposal you can bring someone to future meetings.

[Anonymous]

What stage? The IEP development meeting or the initial screening meeting?

[Anonymous]

For the initial meeting, after the initial screening, we had my son's developmental pediatrician and his preschool teacher from his neurotypical preschool, and his speech therapist. It was not contentious at all but everyone had different experience and brought different skills/knowledge to the meeting.

[Anonymous]

Here is my advice...

My initial meeting -- where they decided whether we were eligible -- was not contentious. But then I didn't know any better. I didn't know what I was entitled to. I didn't know what types of options existed, what I could even ask for.

This is why it wasn't contentious... the county loves to operate with parents in the dark and pretend that parents are equal participants. But how can you be?

It was only after our first year, where we didn't feel we had adequate services and the proposed services for the upcoming year seemed inadequate, that things became "contentious."

Just remember: be friendly, but don't mistake these gatekeepers as your friends. Be polite but persistent. Reference any reports and evaluations you have. Ask for additional testing if the gatekeepers have questions or are unsure. Use the word "appropriate" in place of "best" for your child. You will be dismissed out of hand for using the wrong wording.

Do not become upset. They love dismissing the "hysterical mother."

Do not agree or sign anything at the meeting if you are uncertain. Make sure to schedule a follow-up meeting with all stakeholders at the table right then and there if you feel you need another meeting.

Bringing a professional like an OT, psychologist, educational consultant etc is highly recommended. My experience is that this type of support has carried weight in our situation.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone. This meeting to to put the IEP together. We've been to a number of meetings and she does qualify for services. Is this contentious in some cases because the parents want more services and the county wants to give as little as possible?

* If this is the case why doesn't the county just say "hey your kid is fine" during the evaluation?

Thanks again I am really trying to understand what is going on before this meeting. They make it sound like a big deal and if it is in fact I want to be totally prepared.

To the PP, I definitely will use the key words you suggested.

[Anonymous]

It really depends on the team you have, OP, and the principal/assistant principal/whoever heads it. In my experience, certain schools are terrible at providing adequate services because guidance is lacking from higher up on how to deal with these things, what the goals are, and who manages what.

We chose our MCPS public largely because it has the reputation of caring about its special needs population. We moved to be inbounds for that school. The principal rules with an iron fist and her mandate is clear - she wants the staff to be cognizant of the IEP process and as helpful as possible toward the parents and kids. So we never had a contentious meeting.
That's doesn't mean that we were always happy - far from it! But we could separate MCPS limitations with teacher resources from the actual goodwill of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks everyone. This meeting to to put the IEP together. We've been to a number of meetings and she does qualify for services. Is this contentious in some cases because the parents want more services and the county wants to give as little as possible?

* If this is the case why doesn't the county just say "hey your kid is fine" during the evaluation?

Thanks again I am really trying to understand what is going on before this meeting. They make it sound like a big deal and if it is in fact I want to be totally prepared.

To the PP, I definitely will use the key words you suggested.

Parents want the best possible education for their children; schools have to provide an 'appropriate' education. There can be a gap between those two things leading to contentiousness.

The reality is that schools have limited funds, limited numbers of specialists and have to juggle schedule and needs of all students with disabilities. So while they are not legally "ALLOWED" to take things like that into consideration when developing Susie's IEP plan, there are limits to all resources.

There can also be disagreements between school staff and parents over whether a disability is really having an educational impact. We fought for years to get social skills included for our child who had speech delays in his IEP. We knew this was done at other schools and it seemed obvious to us. The school argued that being able to communicate and interact with peers wasn't required to 'access the curriculum' and therefore not appropriate for an IEP. Eventually when things like group projects were part of the curriculum and he struggled with them, we got this added.

The good news is that IEPs can be updated, or amended more than once a year. You have to be the PITA parent, and call extra meetings, but you can.

Make sure the goals developed are specific and measureable. There are lots of good websites out there with sample goals. Look at the ones that seem to address your child's issues to get a sense of how they are written.

[Anonymous]

Our first meeting wasn't contentious. It was the second, third and fourth that were. They wanted to cut services for a child who was so very obviously delayed even to an untrained eye. Once we learned what was available and had private evals done that demonstrated (even to me) how behind our child was did things get problematic. And they still wanted to cut services. Seriously!

I don't think you need to bring anyone, but my best advice is to NOT sign the document then and there. Take it home an reread it. We had some goals that were basically the same - that wasn't the intent but as I re read it, it sounded like that. So we tweaked them a bit. Of course you can make changes later, but it is much harder than that. I also liked to pay attention to how they measure progress (charts lists or just notes.) It is hard to pay attention to all of this in a 1 or 2 hours meeting.

We moved to a better school district and it has been completely different!

And we do have social skills in our IEP.

[Anonymous]

It's great you got past the first hurdle. Yup, sometimes the school does say no your child doesn't qualify during the evaluation process so you're in a good place right now if you're at the IEP development phase.
I think there's usually a tension between the number of hours the parents believe their child needs and the number the school is willing to provide.

I think no one is technically supposed to add up the numbers until after the goals are written but we've found the schools push back on whole areas of need so they won't have to provide the services. For instance, you may have a private evaluation that says your child has speech delays and the school may have found some also. But when you get to the IEP meeting you're hoping for 30 minutes 1x a week and the school might argue it's not really impacting DC's education so they say no goals for speech which means no service hours for speech.

[Anonymous]

UGH! I wish I had brought someone. I'm a lawyer so I thought I could do it myself. They found my child eligible (after a lot of dirty tricks that I caught) but the IEP they gave her was crap.

[Anonymous]

We moved from a different county with an IEP and experienced non stop shenanigans in the new county. I wish we had an advocate from the beginning and would never go to an IEP meeting without an advocate now.

Op, record the meeting. Read Wrightslaw about this. Let them know you will be recording in advance. It almost guarantees you will have a professional meeting.

It's helpful to have someone there to help write down what is discussed. The most important items are the services your dc will receive and the amount of time. Do you know the accommodations your child needs?