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Rochelle’s Special Education Tips
You Do Not Have to be Nancy Reagan to “Just Say No”
Our prior First Lady Nancy Reagan advocated teaching children to “Just Say No” when confronted by peers seeking to involve them in illegal drug use. That is a very hard communication for many children. Not quite as serious, but nevertheless important is learning how to say “No” when demands are made in an IEP team meeting to broaden the IEP (or in a 504 meeting to broaden the 504 Plan). For instance, IEP teams are frequently asked to consider outside assessments, such as Neuropsychological Reports, which include a lot of boilerplate recommendations. Not surprisingly, the parents or their attorneys and advocates will ask the IEP team to include all of the recommendations in the IEP. Your obligation is to consider each recommendation. Accept, reject, or modify each recommendation. Do not ignore them. The minutes of your meeting should record your response to each recommendation. Your rejection may be for myriad reasons. For instance, the student does not need the recommendation in order to receive a FAPE. Or the recommendation is already included in Supplementary Aids and Services. Or you have already tried that recommendation and the student rejected it. You may get continued push-back and encounter a lot of anger. But hold your ground and state you will record the parent’s disagreement in the PWN. The world is not going to come to an end because you said “no.”
