Was this last year a particularly challenging school year for your child who receives Special Education?
You might want to start off the school year with an expectation setting Review Revise meeting in order to make sure all your children’s teachers are on the same page and to set expectations for the services your child is going to receive in the upcoming school year.
In order to have an IEP meeting you’ll need to request one in writing which can be as simple as emailing your child’s case manager with “Please schedule an IEP review/revise meeting.”
At the IEP meeting you will really want to highlight the challenges of the previous year and talk about how to improve things in school for the upcoming school year. You’ll want to make sure that the school staff is taking actions that will help fix the challenges of the previous year.
The beginning of the school year IEP meeting is common for high needs students and for students who’s needs are rapidly changing. If your child fits either of those you may want to consider planning for a beginning of the school year IEP meeting.
If you don’t have the beginning of the year IEP meeting you run the risk of small problems becoming bigger problems. The expectation setting that occurs in a beginning of the school year review revise meeting frames the school year in a way where you as the parent have more power. I highly recommend a review revise IEP meeting right at the beginning of the school year if any of the following are true: Your child has significant special needs, your child had a particularly rough last year, new diagnosis, your child had a period of rapid growth at the end of the last school year, and your child had their needs change.
If you need help with the IEP process feel free to reach out to Alex at nerad.alex.j@gmail.com.
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