IEP Meetings

IEP Prep Clinic: April 4, Olympia WA

By Bonnie Yates, Esq
In the words of the younger generation, a big shout out to beautiful Olympia, TACA Washington and Fertile Ground Guesthouse for hosting our Washington IEP Prep Clinic. The event video will be available soon at this site.
I especially want to thank Karen Nelson and Gail DiManzo for allowing us to hold the [...]

Spring IEP Season: Defend Your Child’s Rights In The Face Of Budget Woes And Program Cuts

Parents in Los Angeles Unified School District have raised the alarm that the district is closing many of the special education programs in neighborhood elementary schools and will be busing children to centralized school sites, a money-saving measure that will help the district accommodate staff reductions. If the changes are instituted, children in these programs will be forced to deal with transportation difficulties and transitions to new settings with higher student:teacher ratios, and will be denied the chance to go to their local school with their neighbors and siblings.

Housecleaning For Springtime (Or how busy, overextended but effective parents can prepare for IEP season)

I guess the crazy busyness of Spring IEP season is just around the corner. For the newly initiated members of our special ed family, what this means is that the District has 3.5 months to finish all of its annual IEPs that it didn’t get to in earlier months. Not too surprisingly, this results in calendar logjam and lots of rushing to complete assessments and to compress complex meetings into short amounts of time. If you are a parent and you are preparing for an IEP at this time of year, here are some things that I hope will help a lot.

Assessment Basics under IDEA

Standardized tests (assessments) are the part of the IEP process that parents most often have difficulty understanding. Here are a few of the most frequently asked questions that parents have regarding assessments and their use at IEP team meetings:

What are a school district’s obligations with respect to ensuring that students with special needs are assessed?

What does IDEA mean by “trained and knowledgeable personnel”?

What qualifies as an “evaluation” under IDEA?

What data does the District have to consider when conducting an evaluation?

Can the District change my child’s eligibility without conducting an evaluation ?

How We Win

It may seem surprising and counterintuitive, but the legal standard in IDEA cases requires the parent to prove that the District’s offer is inappropriate. The District can win the hearing merely by showing that its offer conferred more than de minimus educational benefit for the student. Not surprisingly, therefore, many decisions are decided in favor of the school district.

IEP Meetings

Representation at the earliest stage helps lead to sooner implementation of an appropriate educational program for your child, and establishes a pattern for effective advocacy throughout the your child’s school career.