Dana Marie (00:01.692)

Hi everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Empowered to Advocate podcast. This is Dana Marie and I am joined here with Michelle. And today we are answering a question that we get all too often, which is my child is eligible for special education. Now what?

Dana Marie (00:25.42)

Even as advocates and parent coaches, we spend so much time supporting parents leading up to an eligibility meeting and an eligibility conversation. We start with parents helping them write their letter to request an evaluation through the school system. We stay with them through the 30 days, the 60 days. We help them review reports, evaluations, assessments that are sent.

We help them prepare for that initial eligibility meeting to prepare their parent concern statement, to ask any questions they had about the evaluations and assessments that were done. We often even attend those meetings with parents and caregivers. And then what we find often happens, not just with our own clients, but with other folks too, is that parents get through that initial eligibility meeting, they find that their child is eligible for special education. They're usually really happy that their child is going to be getting some support through an IEP. And then it dawns on everybody that not everyone knows what happens next. It's so much to get to that point. And quite frankly, it's a long time. It's often between, you know, it's often about three months or so to get to that process, if not a little bit longer. And then we get there and a lot of folks have questions about, okay, now what? So we're here today to talk about sort of just the basics of now what. We're not gonna be able to talk you through everything that could possibly happen now that your child's eligible for special education, but we wanna at least give you some of the highlights, what you can expect if you're new to the IEP and special education process.

Michelle she/her (02:16.578)

Yeah, you know, I had, there was a meeting the other day and the caregiver was very surprised that we were meeting and they, it was actually a student who had transferred, they're fairly new to the school, new to the district, new to the state. And the parent thought that they only met once every three years. So some of those like timeline.

And it's confusing because there's all sorts of numbers that are involved in special ed. There's data that's being collected and then there's all sorts of different timelines so that we can ensure that students, the things are in compliance so that students are receiving what they need when they need it, right? And I think, you know, just a quick little overview of some of the more important timelines when parents should be expecting at a minimum to be hearing from school districts is once your child is found eligible, at that meeting, you're going to review the testing, you're going to review those reports, you're going to determine eligibility, and then you're going to develop an IEP. I always find that the first IEP tends to be one of the ones that is almost the trickiest to develop, that initial one, because everybody is still learning who the child is as a learner and what supports are going to truly support them, right? So I find that initial IEPs oftentimes need to be tweaked more often than ones further down the line. But you should be meeting as part of your child's IEP team at least once a year. That IEP expires every year. So you should be hearing from your child's IEP team within the year of developing that initial IEP. You will then be requested to give consent for a three-year re-evaluation to update testing and redetermine eligibility. Just because your child is eligible for an IEP once does not mean that they have an IEP for the rest of their school career. We re-look at this, we re-look at all the data to help us determine if the student still requires the supports and the specialized instruction and the services via the IEP, right? So,

We have the annual review, minimum once a year. We have that three-year reevaluation where we're re-looking at eligibility. And then throughout the year, you should be receiving some sort of progress report that's giving information about your child's progress on their IEP goals and objectives at least as often as your child is getting a report card. So some districts do quarterly report cards, some districts do trimesters.

So every time your child gets a report card, they should also be getting an IEP progress report with that report card. And that's, I know the last episode, we just talked about transition planning forms and transition planning, which is oftentimes a huge thing that we notice is missing when we do record reviews. The next biggest thing that's missing in when we're doing record reviews are progress reports. So.

Michelle she/her (05:36.658)

Knowing that you should be receiving these when your child gets their report cards is really important because this is how we are staying on top of if the sports and services that are in place through the IEP are working.

Dana Marie (05:47.736)

Yep. So what are some of the other things that you should expect sort of within that year? So you can expect progress reports, at least as often as your child gets their report cards. But there are some other things that you can expect during the duration of that IEP, the duration of that year. One thing is that your child will have some sort of liaison. It might be the special educator, it might be service provider, but you will have a contact person. You will have a point of contact who is the person responsible for overseeing your child's IEP. And the reason we want to mention this is a lot can happen in a year. You do not have to wait until a progress report. You do not have to wait until the next annual review. If you have questions, if you have concerns, you can reach out to your school contact person, typically, like I said, the special educator, and you can ask them questions that you have about the IEP about the process. I think a lot of times, especially with the initial IEP, parents think, oh boy, I gotta get everything in this first meeting, this first IEP, because then we're not gonna meet again for another year, which is in school time, just an enormously long amount of time. But you will have somebody you can be in contact with at school within that calendar year, who could help you through the process and who can help you really answer any questions.

And that brings about kind of the second part of that is, if you do have concerns and if you have things that you want to discuss, you don't have to wait for that annual review to meet with the school team. You might have questions just about one particular service or you might have questions for one particular service provider. But if you have multiple questions about your child's IEP, the progress that they're making, if they need more or less support, different support, different accommodations, things like that, you can reach out to the liaison any time within that year to ask the team reconvene to go over progress or to ask any of your questions or address any of your concerns. I think it can feel scary sometimes to develop an IEP because you feel like you have to get everything in there and you feel like there won't be another opportunity to change anything or edit anything for a year and honestly that's just not true as the parent, as the caregiver, it is your right to obviously ask questions about your child's programming and about the development of their IEP.

Michelle she/her (08:17.61)

Yeah, I mean, those are the main things that happen or that you should be aware of after your child is eligible. And you also have the right as the parent or caregiver that to reject consent for services. If you get to a point and you're like, my child doesn't want these services anymore, it's stressing them out to go to speech. They feel like they're missing class, whatever you can always reject your consent or change your mind for the services that are being provided. I mean, that's a real rarity, but it does happen sometimes. And if you feel like your child has reached a point before the three-year mark of reaching, like closing those gaps or needing specialized instruction, you can also have a conversation with the team about doing the evaluation earlier. You can also request additional evaluations. So if your child starts to have some pretty significant behavioral challenges, you can always request a functional behavior assessment. Or if you notice that fine motor skills, maybe they were found eligible at the end of kindergarten. And by the end of first grade, beginning of second grade, you notice that like their handwriting has not come along the way that we would expect. You can request an OT of L. You don't have to wait for that three year re-evaluation to request additional testing to see if a child still is eligible for the service or to see if they are potentially eligible for additional services. So anytime you have questions about what your child is currently receiving in their IEP and you have additional concerns, the first step asking to meet with the team to discuss those concerns is like the first starting point. And it just doesn't have to be anything fancy. Sorry Dana Marie. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It can simply be an email or a note in their agenda book, hi, I'm really concerned about Pete's handwriting. Can we set up a time to just talk about it? And that's it. It doesn't have to, I think sometimes we get really stressed out that like the letter has to be this very formal, like, you know, and it can be that, it can be that, but it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be.

Dana Marie (10:34.3)

The only other thing that I wanted to make sure we mention is when your child is initially eligible and actually honestly before that eligibility meeting, the school liaison or somebody from the school should be sending you a copy of your parent procedural safeguards, your parents' rights. That's a great place to start if you're new to this process. A lot of parents who have been through this process and through the IEP process for a long time often joke about how they don't need to read the IEP or the special education procedural safeguards, parent safeguards anymore. But if you're new to this process, that is a great place to start. Somebody from school should send it to you. If you have not received it and you're already starting the eligibility process, reach out and just say, can I have a copy of the procedural safeguards? It will outline all of your rights as a parent and caregiver as you navigate this process and I think it's a really important place, a really good place to start. You can also find that honestly on your state's website, on your state's special education website. So if you have not received a copy of that, take a look. It can be a little bit long, but it's at least a good place if you're wanting to get started learning more about what the process is gonna look like for you and your child.

Michelle she/her (11:56.526)

Yeah, so I mean, in a nutshell, that's essentially the things that you can expect once your child is eligible. And the other big thing is you can also expect that you should be receiving that proposed IEP in a certain frame. You should be receiving it within 10 school days of that initial meeting when you developed the IEP. And then you have 30 calendar days to respond to it your child is on the initial IEP, the school district cannot provide services, especially anything that's pulling your child from the general education classroom. So if they're going to get small group reading instruction or speech services, until you sign and accept that, the school district can't start the services. So it's really important that when you do receive that IEP that you're able to read through it. And if you have questions before you sign off on it, reaching out to the team and saying, I have some questions about this. Can you just explain this to me? Because you have the right to give informed consent when you're signing the IEP. And if there's something that doesn't make sense or you're like, Oh, I don't remember this is this being what we talked about. Um, it's you can always reach out to the team or an advocate, um, for some extra help going through, through that initial IEP before you sign off on things. But just, I think that's the other thing is just knowing that the school is not going to start those services until at the IEP, they're accepted. However, I will say, I believe there are some states where, I want to say New York, where consent for services, but it may not just be after the initial one. I still think you have to like sign and give a check, I accept on the initial one. But then after that, consent is implied unless you say I do not. So some states are a little bit different, but in Massachusetts you have to sign and accept every single IEP change that is sent along. So.

Dana Marie (13:51.96)

until you reject it, yeah. That makes sense.

Dana Marie (14:02.776)

Yep. And that's why it is important to, if you have questions, reach out as soon as you can. Once you've gone through it and read it, whether it's to the school team, if you have a family or friend, a family member or friend who can help you through sort of the initial part of the process. And obviously, if you need additional support, we would love for you to reach out to us with any questions. And with that, we are going to drop some notes into the show notes about what to expect. So if you didn't catch everything while listening.

Today we have it a little bit more succinct for you, laid out, and we will attach that here. Otherwise, thank you so much for listening today, and we will be back next week with another episode. And so we will talk to you then. Bye everyone.

Michelle she/her (14:50.99)

Thanks everybody.