Michelle She Her (00:00.942)

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Empowered to Advocate podcast. I'm Michelle, and I'm so, so happy that you are here joining me today. I am flying solo today, just like Dana Marie did last week with her episode about some of the important service providers for you to know about when thinking about your child's IEP team. Today, I want to discuss with you some reasons, so five to six reasons that you might want to request a team meeting, a meeting with your child's IEP team, either the whole IEP team or parts of the IEP team outside of the annual review and the reevaluations that happen every three years. So you should be meeting with your child's team at least once a year to discuss progress, to discuss what goals and services are going to be going forward to support your child accessing their free and appropriate public education for the next year. Then every three years, your child will have a reevaluation to redetermine eligibility for an IEP, as well as to redetermine some of those more standardized scores on the more formalized assessments. So, many caregivers don't recognize or don't realize that they can request a meeting in between those annual reviews. And there's many reasons for this, but I've put together six. I think I have six here that are pretty good reasons for having a meeting.

While there is no federal or even in the state of Massachusetts anyways guideline for when a parent or caregiver requests a reconvene of a team, so that's like the technical term, I want to reconvene the team to discuss X, Y, Z. Many districts that I am familiar with in the state of Massachusetts live by the reconvene the team within 10 school days of a caregiver requesting to reconvene the team. So there is again, no federal or state in the state of Massachusetts timeline for this, unless it is to review an independent evaluation or outside of all that you have shared with the team, but we'll get into that a little bit.

Some of the reasons that you might want to request a team meeting are if you notice that your child is struggling to make progress. So maybe you got the second quarter or second trimester progress reports for your child's IEP goals and it says not making progress or struggling to make progress. Or you notice that if perhaps by the end of the IEP period your child is supposed to be reading 100 words per minute by the end of the IEP year. And you notice on this progress report, it's halfway through the IEP year, your child's reading 50 words correct per minute, and that's up from their baseline of 30 words per minute. You might be noticing that maybe this goal was too challenging, or your child is not making the progress that the team had anticipated them making. You can email the liaison or the educational team leader, team chairperson, whatever your child's district calls that point person at the school to request a meeting to discuss your child's progress. Because this could be happening for any number of reasons. Your child might just be having a little sticking point. If we stick with this example of reading with a particular phonics rule or something that they're having a little bit of trouble getting past maybe are going to catch up once they get past this little mini hill, right? Or it could be maybe the special education teacher has been on a maternity leave and there has not been a certified special ed teacher to provide these services for your child. So maybe your child is not getting the services that they need to make the progress that they should be making towards that goal. Or perhaps they're not getting enough of the service, so maybe they're getting five times 20 minutes reading service, so five days a week for 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes would be a more efficient, more appropriate prescription for services to help your child reach that goal.

So a big reason to request a reconvene of the child's team is if you notice, if you see that your child is not making the progress that they should be making by this point of the IEP period. Likewise, if you get those progress reports and it says that your child has mastered that goal, they have now mastered that goal, they've met that goal, check. And if that's, especially if that's happening with many of the goals, you're gonna wanna reconvene that team, especially if it's only after the first or second quarter because perhaps the goals were too achievable and not challenging enough. So if we think about IEP goals, we want them to be challenging but achievable. And sometimes it's hard to always exactly pinpoint that because we are, your child is a human being who at different times is going to learn some things more quickly than other times, right? And that can be for any number of factors. So It's not an exact science when we are determining goals as a team, right? So if you're noticing that your child has now mastered or met all or many of their goals and there's still a quarter or two quarters or goodness, three quarters left of that IEP, request a meeting to make new goals. You want your child to keep progressing, right?

So two reasons. So you want, you can request to reconvene the team to discuss progress, either because they are struggling to make progress or they have mastered their goals. Either way is a great reason to pull the team back together and have a discussion about updating the IEP.

Second reason to request a meeting is if your child had some evaluations completed independent of the school, so any outside evaluation at a neuropsychologist, if they had an outside occupational therapy evaluation, an outside speech and language evaluation, any of these things. If your child already has an IEP and you get an independent evaluation, an outside evaluation, and you share this report with the team, the team, this is where there is a timeline and guidance by law for this, your team should reconvene within 10 days of receiving that outside report to consider the recommendations of the outside evaluation. It's also important to note that by law, the team needs to consider and discuss the recommendations of the evaluation, but it does not automatically mean that the school is going to do all of the things or propose all of the recommendations from that outside evaluation into a new IEP or amendment to the IEP.

Okay, the school district does not need to agree with all of the recommendations. They should obviously have data to support why. They don't consider these recommendations. And in the N1 letter after the meeting, any accommodations or services or even placement that this outside evaluator has recommended in their report, if the school district is not proposing those in an updated IEP for your child, it should note why they are not recommending those. So for example, if an outside evaluation, you get an outside evaluation done at a neuropsychologist, the neuropsychologist recommends five times 45 minutes of reading services outside of the general education classroom. The team meets, they have a discussion. about the report, about that recommendation. And then the team might say, look, Sally has five times 30 minutes outside the general education classroom for reading. She is excelling. She is really, she's moving very quickly through this program. She's making excellent progress with this 30 minutes a day. At this time, data indicates that this is the right dosage of this service for this child to make progress. We are not proposing this 45 minutes as recommended in this report.

That doesn't mean you need to agree. This is where this process is always ongoing, right? So again, if you have your child evaluated outside of the school district, you get the report. You choose to share that report with the school district. The school district will then reconvene the team within 10 school days of receiving that report from you to discuss and consider the recommendations made from that outside evaluator.

Third reason to request a reconvene or to request the team meet. Again, sometimes all of the team members, it's important for the entire team to be there. Sometimes only certain members need to be there. And when, and I'll get to this at the end of the episode, like how to write your note or your email or your letter requesting this meeting. You may not need everybody at the meeting But this third reason to request a team meeting would be as if your child was just discharged from a hospital or just had a change in diagnosis or there's been changes. Perhaps your child has a medical condition, a medical diagnosis, and now the symptomology has changed, which is now changing how they're presenting at school, which might then change what sorts of accommodations and services they might need in school to support them. This might also include different medications. So it could be important if your child has been in the hospital, if they have a certain medical condition, depending on what their disability is, how this is then going to impact them in school, making the school team aware of these changes and having a conversation about how to support them.

So upon release from a hospital a child might need new accommodations, even if they're short-term, like being able to use the elevator, right? Being able to take naps at the nurse's office or having access to a quiet, dark space when maybe a migraine or something comes on. And some of these might be long-term or short-term plans. Doesn't necessarily, again, mean that there'll be a change to the IEP, but it might be even like, hey, I want to let you know that my child, based on this new diagnosis or this hospitalization or on this most recent medical appointment, we're trying a new medication. Want you to be aware that these might be some of the side effects. These might be some of the things that we see. Can we stay on communication about this so that we can then perhaps might need to update some things for how my child might need to be supported?

So again, if your child has a new diagnosis, diagnoses change, medications change, discharge from the hospital, anything like that could be a really important reason to request that the team comes back together to have a conversation about how these could impact your child in school.

Fourth reason, this kind of could go in line with number three, is if your child has had any behavior or social emotional changes. So sometimes,

I mean, and this can be from a life event that has happened. This could, if there has been a death in the family, if your marital status has changed, if you are separating from a partner or there's a new partner involved in the house, if you're combining families, sometimes this can, depending on a student's disability and just, that's a normal part of life is adjusting to family changes, right? If there's been a new medication. If there's any sort of behavior or social emotional change that you've maybe noticed at home, or if you're noticing that you're getting more reports from school about either new behaviors or an increase in behaviors that could be unsafe or disruptive to your child's learning or anything like that, requesting a meeting to discuss this with the team to see if there were any other ways that you can support your child in school will be really important. Okay. Remembering that we're always going into this team meeting in a viewing it as everybody there is in there for the best interest of your child and has the best intentions. So wanting to work collaboratively to support your child in school. So coming together to have a conversation about new challenging behaviors or an increase in challenging behaviors is really important to be all on the same page about for consistency across settings especially.

Number five, again, kind of loops into number four. If there has been any transformative or even traumatic life event for the child, if something has happened or your child has witnessed something that has been traumatic, if there is a change in the household, if there is a change in routine for your child that might then impact them in school, that kind of conversation you might want to have with at least some of the team members, depending on how personal, how sensitive of a matter this is. Again, coming at this from a place of if my child has experienced something or witnessed something or something has happened that has been very traumatic in our lives, my child's life, the family's life, something like that, making sure that the team or key team whatever, whoever you are most comfortable sharing with, is aware of, and again, not all every single nitty-gritty detail needs to necessarily be shared. But anything that might then impact your child in school so that the team can then be ready and prepared with resources and accommodations and services and supports to help your child while they are in school, help them get supports outside of school, help you get supports and like wrap around services, wrap around counseling, big brother, big sister, therapeutic, mentor, in-home counseling, things like that. The school has access to and knowledge about resources that if you request a meeting to discuss any sort of event that may be happening, they can potentially help connect you with people who can help you and your child during this time.

And the sixth reason to request a meeting that is not the annual or a revaluation meeting would be for a transition meeting. Many school districts and many schools kind of do these naturally during certain periods of time to help be supportive, but not all of them. And it's good to know that you have the right to request this meeting in case that they don't.

So a transition meeting would be something like maybe from preschool to elementary school if it's moving from a different school. So or from elementary school to middle school or middle school to high school or high school to transition programming, okay, any sort of these life transitions, these school transitions that happen. Perhaps your child is moving to a new placement, a full inclusion setting and they're going to an in-district kind of program, or they're going from a program maybe to a new specialized therapeutic school out of the district, or maybe they're coming back in to the public schools from an out-of-district program, requesting a meeting with the old team and the new team to have a conversation to help ease that transition. How is this going to work? It also helps you meet the new team. It helps the new team meet you. Okay. So sometimes it's helpful, depending on the circumstances, to have this meeting before the move happens. And then sometimes it's helpful to have the meeting like after the move happens to kind of get to like let your child settle in and then have a conversation about, okay, so what are we seeing now that they're in this new setting? Sometimes it's helpful to have this meeting before the move and eight weeks after the move. It's all gonna depend on your child's circumstances and like how major for your child this move is. So again, the more communication you can have with the team, the more collaborative you can work together. Again, this is all about supporting your child with what they need to be successful.

So, outside of the annual review meeting, outside of the three-year reevaluation meeting, six reasons you might want to request, and you have the right to request, the team come back together, either the full team or part of the team, to discuss progress either if your child is struggling to make progress or is mastering goals left and right and needs something more challenging. Two, to discuss outside evaluations. If your child has had an outside evaluation and you choose to share this with the school, which I always recommend that you do that, it's important that you share that with the school and that they offer a date within 10 school days of receiving that outside evaluation (This is the only circumstance that there is a timeline regulation around). Another reason to request a team meeting is if your child has recently been discharged from the hospital, if they've had a change in medical diagnosis, if there's a change in medication, if there's a change in symptoms or side effects from medication or from a medical condition, anything like that that will be important for the team to know how they're going to best support your child at school. Fourth, any sort of behavior or social emotional needs that have changed. If there is new challenging behaviors, if there are new social and emotional challenges your child is facing, either new or an increase of, these could be really important reasons to have the team come back together to have a conversation.

Next reason is very much in relation with number four is if there is some sort of like transformative or traumatic life event that is impacting your child or could impact your child. This could be a good time to have a conversation with the team to make sure things are in place and also the team could then connect you with outside service providers who could be very helpful at that very difficult time. And lastly, if your child is having a transition, either to a new school, a new placement, sometimes even a new grade level can be really beneficial to making sure you meet the new team, the new team meets you, making sure there's a plan for your child to transition if transitions are difficult for your child. Okay. So how do we request this meeting?

I recommend that you request it in writing, either a letter that you then keep for yourself or even better is an email. You can attach a letter to an email, but then you have the timestamp. And when you send this letter, when you send this email asking the receiving person, so whether it is your child's liaison or the educational or evaluation team leader or a program manager or a school administrator, whoever you were sending this letter to requesting this meeting, asking them to respond and confirm that they have received this request. Because then if you don't hear back from them, you can just follow up, hey, I have not heard back from you in my request for a team meeting. Sometimes emails go to spam.

Sometimes emails get accidentally deleted. Sometimes emails get read and then unintentionally aren't responded to. Just because somebody doesn't respond to your email, like super, super fast or as quickly as you hope that they would, doesn't necessarily mean right away that it's malicious or they're ignoring you. But by sending that email and requesting that they confirm receipt of that email, and if you attached a more formal letter requesting that they confirm that they received this, that's just a good way to check in so that it's very comfortable to follow up with them. Okay? So putting it in writing, preferably email, because then you always have that record, I'm requesting this meeting because giving a reason so that the team understands what your concerns are helps the team be prepared to come into the meeting to have this conversation with you.

Okay, so it's very simple. Hi, so and so. I'm reaching out as the caregiver of, put your child's name in.

I would like to request that the team come together to discuss X, Y, and Z. Here are some dates and times that I am available. Do one of these work for you? Or I look forward to hearing some dates and times in the next two weeks that work for you.

Similarly, you can send in a hard copy of an outside evaluation if that's what's easiest for you. But then I recommend following up with an email that says, I just want to confirm that you received a copy of Jose's evaluation from Children's Hospital that I sent into school on this date. Then that way that you're confirming that they have received it. So that you are then confirming if they're scheduling a meeting within 10 school days of receipt of that report. Okay? So those are six reasons to request a team meeting, either the entire team or part of the team. And you can, in your request for this team meeting, you can even say who you want at this meeting.

I am requesting, because my concerns are around my child's challenging behaviors or behaviors that are impacting them in school right now, I am requesting that the school counselor and the behavior specialist are present at this meeting. I'm requesting that school administration is at this meeting. Because I am discussing a new diagnosis for my child, I am requesting that the school nurse is at this meeting.

That can be helpful. The more information you put into your letter about what your concerns are, your reason for requesting this meeting, and who you really want at this meeting, can help that point person that you're requesting the meeting from, make sure that everybody is there, and everybody is ready to have a focused conversation because you never know. The school team may have been about to reach out to you about something totally different. And then when you say, hey, I wanna have a meeting, they might be like, oh, great. They're also concerned about this too. And then you come together and you are both concerned, but then you have different concerns. And then that can kind of make the team that the agenda of the meeting feel a little flippy floppy and not quite as focused.

So I hope this was helpful for you. Again, really important that caregivers understand that you do not need to wait for an annual review to have a conversation or request a team meeting to discuss your child and their progress. Gave you six reasons that I think are pretty common and very important reasons to request a team meeting. You may have other reasons that maybe I missed.

We love to hear from you, EmpoweredToAdvocate@gmail.com. If you have something to add to this list, please share with us, share with our community. We love that. And things to include in your letter requesting this team meeting. Again, the importance of requesting things in writing so that you have that record of communication. And that's not to say because you're trying to do a gotcha or because we can just like always anticipate a school ignoring caregivers, I think in most cases, that's not the case sometimes, especially. So this episode's being recorded in May. This time of year and even the fall, like let's be frank, every season of life, every season of the school year, there was like a reason for things to be very, very busy. And sometimes things slip through the cracks and it's not necessarily intentional or malicious. So just having that record in writing can be very useful for everybody, for you, for the teachers, for the service providers, to just everybody being on the same page, organized and focused. Okay, friends, I hope that you got something out of this. Would love to hear from you and looking forward to chatting with you again on the next podcast.