Rochelle’s Special Education Tips
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
An IEP team meeting may not be your idea of heaven, but there are some things that can make it more heavenly. For instance:
- When an assessor reviews a report by summarizing it, instead of reading it verbatim. A technical report with a lot of detailed information is not readily understood when read aloud. Look around the room when this is happening; team members are looking into space. A good summary is much more useful.
- When you do not keep insisting that a student is reading based on test results derived from something that is read to the student. This is so misleading to parents and is just plain wrong.
- When written information reviewed by the IEP team is dated, including the year. Every single document put into a file should have a complete date.
- When page numbers are put on multi-page documents. So much time is wasted when going through draft IEPs that do not have page numbers. Let’s speed up the meetings by handwriting in the numbers if the computer program will not insert them.
- When you are trying to figure out who attended an IEP meeting and the participants actually legibly wrote their names on the attendance sheet. If you cannot write your name legibly in script, please do so in print. Why should your identity be top secret?
- Personal pet peeve: When you have not forwarded the 5-day documents to your attorney, but you sent them to the parents who forwarded them to their attorney who then spent days and nights picking them apart in preparation for the IEP team meeting.
Rochelle’s Special Education Tips (“Tips”) are designed to be helpful and thought provoking, but should not be considered legal advice as they may not be accurate for use in all situations. Tips are based on my opinions and positions in accordance with federal and Maryland law and my over 35 years of experience in the special education legal field. – Rochelle S. Eisenberg, Esquire
Copyright © 2020 Pessin Katz Law, P.A. All rights reserved.
Tips may be reproduced for distribution within the educational institution, the individual school or school system and is for use by their staff. Additional distribution must be approved by author.
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