When we think of those in charge of crafting a well-written Individualized Education Program (IEP), we often think of the special education teacher, general education teacher, speech language pathologist, occupational therapist… and so on and so forth.
If we limit our “team” to those working in the school, we are missing out on a huge asset and a crucial communication opportunity! Keeping the student’s FAMILY included in the IEP process can make your life easier, create a more holistic IEP, and make the actual execution of the IEP so much smoother.
Here is a short snippet from one of the trainings inside The Intentional IEP about involving families in the IEP process.
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From the beginning
Start involving families from the beginning of the IEP process. When you’re beginning to draft the annual update of the IEP, send home some surveys to family members.
You can ask questions regarding what they would like the annual goals to be, if they feel any accommodations might support their child, and how they feel about their child’s current placement or number of inclusion minutes.
There are many (arguably, all!) areas of the IEP that families can add in their input, thoughts, and requests. When they’re looped in from the start, you gain input from another expert of the child.
Seeing families as co-creators
Seeing families as co-creators of the IEP can not only lessen the load for you, but it makes families feel heard, and makes the actual IEP meeting go smoother.
We often write IEPs on our own, and consider them documents that we create, and then loop families in on at the end of the process. If goals and benchmarks are written WITH families, including their requests in the document from the start, it can help mitigate future communication gaps.
Scheduling
Our time is precious as special education teachers – we are busy bees all day long! The IEP team is often quite big, and scheduling in general can feel like a logistical nightmare.
If we are to think about the key players in an IEP meeting, we likely think of ourselves and the student’s family as the most crucial members of the meeting. Starting the scheduling process by finding several times that work for you and offering them to the family to choose before asking anyone else can really help ensure that they can make the meeting at a preferred time.
If your preferred times don’t work for the family, get creative! Creating a flexible plan that will work to ensure that the student’s family can be physically present for the meeting helps them see how important they truly are in the IEP process.
Communication is key when it comes to scheduling and having successful IEP meetings with the parents. When you join The Intentional IEP, you will ave access to all the resources you could need to keep up with your parent communication.
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Setting the tone
School teams notoriously see families as “the enemy” in the IEP meeting. There are often families that are more litigious, combative, and inflexible throughout the IEP process. It can be hard to see them as team members. But as the special education teacher, YOU have the ability to set the tone for how families will be viewed, and ultimately treated, during and after the IEP meeting.
When we involve families from the very beginning of the creation of the IEP, we are looping them in, getting their input, and leaving few surprises for the meeting. While IEP meetings aren’t often a party, they do not have to hold a tone of stress. Keeping the child at the center of the meeting, keeping all data as fact rather than opinion, and always validating the feelings of the family can really help the meeting stay calm.
Not every meeting will be stress free or void of discord, but remaining professional and student centered can help to alleviate unwanted and unneeded drama.
Allowing for space
Families do not have to sign the IEP in the meeting, though some families do this. Why do families wait to sign? They often want to take some additional time away to read the document again and/or share the document with a trusted advocate or outside therapist.
This does not mean that they do not trust the expertise of the team, and does not need to be taken personally – though that can be hard after a lot of time and energy have gone into writing it. Allow the space that families legally deserve to view and digest this big document.
While we know families are a member of the IEP team, special educators often keep families more in the dark than needed until the actual IEP meeting. Keeping them included throughout the entire process can really make everyone’s experience so much more positive and meaningful!
