One of the most significant events in your child’s special education calendar is the IEP meeting. At that Team meeting, crucial information about your student, the peers, and programming is exchanged. This IEP meeting also presents an opportunity to develop a shared vision for your child and set or modify the tenor of the relationship between you and the school district. Lastly, what happens in the IEP meeting can significantly impact a later legal dispute over your child’s programming. For IEP meetings, you will “REAP” what you sow.

Rules – Parents have myriad significant rights in regards to IEPs and Team meetings. These special education “rules” impact your right to observe your child’s program, obtain records, have certain school personnel attend meetings, review reports, and create the IEP. Knowledge is power, and it is important that you have at least a basic understanding of the rules. The Federation for Children with Special Needs (fcsn.org) has good online materials and workshops outlining these rules.

Evaluators/Experts – For your own peace of mind, and essential in any significant dispute with the school district, you should have one or more good independent experts. Select ones that are good at what they do, are thorough, write good reports and, if need be, can be good advocates for your child. It is essential that they are familiar not only with your child, but with your child’s educational program. Massachusetts law (M.G.L. ch. 71B, §3) accords you, and by extension, your evaluators or consultants, a reasonable opportunity to observe your child’s program or proposed program. To offer well founded challenges to, or suggestions about, the school’s program, it is essential that your expert has seen the actual program. School districts must reconvene the Team and consider changes to an IEP within ten school days of receiving an independent evaluation. Consider bringing the expert to the Team meeting as he/she is the one who may best convince the school district to make the modifications you seek.

Attitude – Because your child is entitled to special education from the school district from the time s/he turns three until s/he graduates from high school or turns twenty-two, you and the schools are in it for the long haul. Most often when the dust settles from a dispute with the school district, you will put your child in the hands of school personnel for six or more hours every day. You need to be assured that you have an ongoing working relationship with them. Standing up for your child’s rights is essential and no good long term relationship is founded upon one party being a doormat. However, mutual respect, courtesy and compromise when appropriate are helpful in getting the best program in the long run for your child. Don’t sweat the small stuff, agree on what you can and avoid inflaming situations or getting into personal attacks. Lastly, keep in mind how your interactions with the school district would look to an impartial third party, such as a hearing officer, if you need to initiate legal proceedings.

Papers – We all feel inundated by documents related to our child with special needs. The steady stream of progress reports, notices, emails, and evaluations can overwhelm us. It is very important to stay on top of these documents. Exercise your right to ask for a copy of your child’s record or examine it to make sure you have everything. Use a method that works for you, such as an accordion binder or a drawer or drawers in a file cabinet for important documents. In separating the wheat from the chaff, at a minimum, keep IEPs, evaluations, meeting notes, significant school work and progress reports. Create a subfolder in your email account to store significant email exchanges. Instead of segregating various records, I suggest keeping them all together, but in chronological order. It is easier to maintain and locate needed documents, and it also tells the best story of your child’s education. Make sure to keep a clean, unmarked-up copy of significant documents since you may need to use those records as exhibits later. Document events or discussions with the schools with follow-up emails or letters. School districts also are obligated to provide reports prior to the team meeting, so ask, and if need be pester, the school for those reports so you can review them in advance of the Team meeting.

If you follow above tips, you will REAP great benefits for your child’s education.

Daniel T.S. Heffernan, Esq. is a partner at Kotin, Crabtree & Strong, LLP in Boston, Massachusetts. He concentrates his practice in representing families in special education, civil rights and personal injury matters. From 1995 to 2007, Dan served as president of the board of directors of The Federation for Children with Special Needs. His son, Brian, who is twenty-one years old and has Down syndrome, currently attends Massachusetts Bay Community College through the Transitional Scholars Program. In 2002 Dan and his wife, Julie, received the Dr. Allen C. Crocker Award of Excellence from the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress. He is a member of the MDSC Education Task Force. He writes and lectures frequently on special education law and advocacy. Dan can be reached via

email.