Blog #306: How Often Should You Have IEP Meetings?
- Jeffrey Snyder
- Jan 19, 2023
- 2 min read
As we enter the midway point of the 2022-2023 school year, I am pretty sure many special education parents and teachers are wondering one question…how often should there be IEP Meetings?
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The midway point of the school year is like the eye of a hurricane. You are between the beginning of the school year and the ending of the school year. You’re stuck in a predicament, but you can’t go forwards or backwards. You’re in a holding pattern waiting to land at the nearest airport.
But you need a plan to land at that airport to the best of your ability. In order to do that, you need to summarize how the child has done over the course of the school year up to that point in time. Going back to the airplane analogy, an IEP meeting is like laying over at a major airport like Atlanta or Chicago/O’Hare. You are trying to make a flight connection, but you want to make sure that you can make that flight or if its something work taking.
Of course, that all depends on how many stops you want to make. For some people, having two IEP meetings may be enough. Think of the beginning of the school year as the origin airport and the ending as the final destination airport. The IEP is the laying over airport, the time to sit down and transition to the next flight.
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When you reach the midway point, the parents and teachers need to think about whether or not you want to make that layover. Parents and teachers need to evaluate the performance of the child and if after one IEP meeting, the student is struggling mightly in something, then you need to make an emergency landing in the form of another IEP meeting.
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The truth of the matter is that while the average is 2 to 3 meetings per year, there is always going to be that moment where more than 3 is needed. In other words, you are going to have to be flexible with the timing of these meetings. For example, if the student is having a hard time with behavioral issues or struggling with a hard subject like math, the team needs to come together and go over what needs to be done by adjusting the IEP plan for that school year.
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Yes, I know for some people, having too many IEP meetings is too much. But would you rather have less IEP meetings and watch the student struggle greatly? What kind of parents and what kind of teachers would you be then?
Remember that as you go forward into the second half of the school year!!
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Catch you all later!!
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