Yes! You know your child best. Always go to your child’s meetings

A school administrator who will be important for “big” asks like transportation or a new school.

A special education teacher (always), general education teacher (if your child has one), and any therapists your child sees in school.

You and the school can invite people you think will help. Some examples are your child, your child’s aide, an outside evaluator or doctor, your lawyer/advocate, or a friend to give you support.

To get prepared you can:

• Look at your child’s work, grades, IEP progress reports, and test scores.
• Go see your child in her classroom(s).
• Ask for copies of any tests or draft IEPs before the meeting so you can read them.
• Before the meeting, write out what is going well and what is not working. Read this out loud to the team or ask for it to be put into the IEP.
• Ask a friend to come with you to take notes.
• Ask your child’s outside therapists to come to the meeting or write a letter saying what should change in the IEP.
• Get an attorney or advocate.

During the meeting, tell the team why you think your child needs this change. If the team doesn’t agree, write a letter saying why you disagree with the team. Give this to the school and ask them to attach it to your child’s IEP. You can ask for another meeting to fix the problem.

If the team still does not agree with you, see Equip for Equality’s “What to Do When You Disagree with the School” fact sheet for more options.

The IEP team can make changes to your child’s IEP even if you don’t agree. If this happens, you can ask for “stay-put” to stop the changes from taking place while you work with the school to fix the problem. Do this by asking for mediation or filing for due process. YOU MUST DO THIS WITHIN TEN DAYS OF THE MEETING!

See Equip for Equality’s “What to Do When You Disagree with the School” fact sheet for more information on “stay-put.”