The IEP annual review process was another meeting that made me nervous. I thought it might be similar to the initial IEP eligibility meeting, where I felt like I had to fight for my son to get the IEP. Thankfully the annual review was much less stressful.
Roles in the IEP Meeting
- Teacher – they provide an update on how things are going day to day in the classroom. They update the group on what progress has been made toward the IEP goals and where support is still needed.
- Care provider – in our case this is a member of child development services since my son is not public school age yet. They provide a more specific update to the teacher based on their focused time working with my son.
- Parents – we gave our perspective on how things were going and what we still had concerns about. We were a much smaller part of this meeting, since our best gauge of how our son was doing at school was through the year was based on reports by the two people above.
- Therapist – this is not a required role to attend. Since we have a therapist we asked ours to attend. She has a lot of experience with SM in IEPs. She was able to provide helpful language around best ways to make accommodations while still supporting bravery.
- IEP Coordinator – they facilitated the meeting and compiled the updates to make recommendations for what needs to remain in the IEP and what needs to be updated.
Structure of the Meeting
The structure of the meeting was focus on status updates. I worried it was going to be more about proving the need for continued IEP support. The meeting was more low stakes. It was less about potentially taking away levels of support now that the support had been established. Instead it was focused on how to adjust the support so that it was best suited to his success at school.
Outcome
At this meeting you can make adjustments that will get your through the next year of the IEP. For us, we did make a number of adjustments. We focused on this to set us up for the next year and the transition he has of starting kindergarten in the fall.
Leave a comment below. What has your experience been like with annual IEP review meetings?
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