Guaranteeing Special Education Rights: Individualized Education Plans

Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc.
"Making life better!"

• Special Education Rights Home
• Intro to Special Ed
  • Who Receives Special Ed
  • Parent-School Communication
  • The Teachers' Role
• Legal Rights
  • Rights under IDEA
  • Why we need IDEA
  • New Rights under IDEA
  • IDEA: Learn more
• Individual Education Plans
  • YOU and the IEP
  • Parent & Student Involvement
  • Signs of a Good IEP
    • A good IEP (continued)
• IEP Example: ADD
  • Student Needs
  • Services for ADD/ADHD
• IEP Example: Learning Disabilities
  • Modifications for LD
• Parents' Role
  • Preparing for the IEP
  • Services on the IEP
  • Protecting Children's Rights
  • Effective Parents
• Special Education for Youth
  • School to Work
  • Advice from Tribal Programs
  • School to Work:The Details
  • School to Work: The ABCs
• Virtual Library
• Commons Area
• SLC Home

INVOLVED PARENTS IN THE IEP PROCESS

Tried and True Tips from Experienced Staff Members

(See picture of some experienced staff members at right!)

1. Make sure you know every time the staff plans on having a meeting about your child. Remind the staff that sending a note home in a child’s backpack is not sufficient to guarantee communication with the home. Encourage them to use non-traditional means of communication. Send notes with the bus driver. Visit with a social worker or the child’s teacher before the meeting and talk about what you want to happen in the IEP meeting. It is often easier to speak with people one on one than in a meeting. You may both feel more comfortable that way and then you can present in the meeting what you and the teacher already agreed was best for your child.
2. Ask for transportation. If you need transportation, ask if a bus driver can pick you up and take you to the meeting. Maybe you can just ride the bus in to the meeting when the child comes to school. If so, make sure the school staff remembers that you need a ride home, too!
3. Does the school have a special education aide who can watch your younger children during the meeting? If you cannot attend the meeting during the school day, or your other children are very young, the school may need to pay an aide to stay after school and watch small children, or arrange for drop-in day care on site.
4. If you are asked to come during the lunch hour or bring children around dinner time, ask if there will be refreshments available or if you should bring your lunch. Children, and even some adults, will be more distractible and in a worse mood if they have to go without eating. If you are a good cook or could bring something extra to share with the school staff, although it is absolutely not required, it is a kindness they would not expect and would certainly get the meeting off to a good start. In many native cultures, it is traditional to offer food to visitors, but the staff may not know this. Because it is really a meeting for your child, it would be appropriate for you to bring food, if you so choose.
5. Some staff immediately assume the parents are not interested when the truth is that they did not know about the meeting, have transportation and child care. If you need assistance from the school to be able to attend your child's IEP meeting, make sure the school staff knows this. Standing up and asking for what you need in an appropriate way is being a great role model for your child.
   

Information on Parent Involvement Special Education in the Virtual Library

Short article by Spirit Lake Consulting on involvement of parents.

Fact Sheet from the National Dissemination Center for parents on communication through letterwriting, includes sample letters

NEXT: Special education programs for youth