As a special education teacher, facilitating IEP meetings throughout the school year is one of the many responsibilities. I enjoy these meetings because we get to sit down as a team with the student, family/parent, Administrator, School Counselor, and teachers to discuss how best to provide supports and services for the student to improve.
I am also a parent of a student with an IEP and was horrified to hear the Administrator, say at the start of my child’s meeting, that the IEP team has limited time (1 hour) because they scheduled back to back IEP meetings. My first thought was that she could have approached this in a more positive tone “I really want to focus on addressing your child’s needs and IEP program. We have scheduled 1 hour for today’s meeting so when it gets close to the end, let’s reassess and determine if we need to reconvene in order to ensure we addressed all areas of the IEP?” She really did not need to let me know that they scheduled back to back meetings.
The meeting felt very rushed and I was not impressed with how they handled the limited time. I did not sign the IEP and asked to review all the changes discussed. The team was not willing to sit an additional 10-15 minutes to do this and that really made me more frustrated. They were literally trying to wrap things up ready so they could get ready for the following meeting. Walking away from this meeting, I felt the Administrator put her needs (time constraints for back to back meetings) above my child’s needs.
As a future administrator, I know I will NEVER convey to my staff, parents, families, or community members that “I was too busy to call you back or to find time to address your concerns or needs”. To hear this from my child’s IEP team made me feel that my child’s needs were insignificant and not the priority. I will always ensure families feel their student is the priority, whether it is in an IEP meeting or just running into the parent at a school function. I will always make the effort make that parent feel that they are heard and if time is limited, I will offer to schedule a better time to meet free of distractions.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Best Practice and Limited Time for Administrators
As a special education teacher, facilitating IEP meetings throughout the school year is one of the many responsibilities. I enjoy these meetings because we get to sit down as a team with the student, family/parent, Administrator, School Counselor, and teachers to discuss how best to provide supports and services for the student to improve.
I am also a parent of a student with an IEP and was horrified to hear the Administrator, say at the start of my child’s meeting, that the IEP team has limited time (1 hour) because they scheduled back to back IEP meetings. My first thought was that she could have approached this in a more positive tone “I really want to focus on addressing your child’s needs and IEP program. We have scheduled 1 hour for today’s meeting so when it gets close to the end, let’s reassess and determine if we need to reconvene in order to ensure we addressed all areas of the IEP?” She really did not need to let me know that they scheduled back to back meetings.
The meeting felt very rushed and I was not impressed with how they handled the limited time. I did not sign the IEP and asked to review all the changes discussed. The team was not willing to sit an additional 10-15 minutes to do this and that really made me more frustrated. They were literally trying to wrap things up ready so they could get ready for the following meeting. Walking away from this meeting, I felt the Administrator put her needs (time constraints for back to back meetings) above my child’s needs.
As a future administrator, I know I will NEVER convey to my staff, parents, families, or community members that “I was too busy to call you back or to find time to address your concerns or needs”. To hear this from my child’s IEP team made me feel that my child’s needs were insignificant and not the priority. I will always ensure families feel their student is the priority, whether it is in an IEP meeting or just running into the parent at a school function. I will always make the effort make that parent feel that they are heard and if time is limited, I will offer to schedule a better time to meet free of distractions.
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