IEP Teams and Families: 3 Best Practices for Student Success

As an educator and special needs mom, I have a unique perspective on the importance of collaboration between parents and teachers of students with IEPs. Students with special needs are more likely to experience success when there is a strong partnership between school and home.

Following are three best practices for collaboration between families and IEP team members to ensure student success.

COMMUNICATE 

The goal is for parents to be informed of challenges or successes children experience at school. There may be a need to reconvene as an IEP team if something needs to be changed and a parent has the right to request a meeting at any time. By starting off with positive, personal communication, it will likely be much easier to collaborate in the future.

• Families: Request a check-in protocol to maintain open lines of communication. This could take many forms and the needs of the individual child dictate how often this should occur. Teachers may complete a daily checklist or a weekly communication email. This should be established at the beginning of each school year and documented in writing in the IEP.
• Educators: It is a good idea for teachers with IEP students to be proactive and build relationships with parents early (even before the actual school year starts). After reading the student’s IEP, contact the parent and ask for input. Ask questions like: “What are some of your child’s outside interests?” or “Tell me how he feels about school.”   

COLLABORATE 

Educators need to know when to simply listen to parents and when to problem solve. Parents rely on communication from teachers to keep apprised of how children are performing in school. Case managers are the special education “expert” within the school. They are the member of the IEP team responsible for collecting data and managing goals. This person should always be included in any communication with other teachers. They are the liaison for all of the teachers and should be the IEP student's best advocate.  

• Families: It’s important to remember that no decision should be ever be made without input from all members of the IEP team, including you as the parents. In other words, the school team should never hand you a ready made IEP and ask you to sign it. IEP meetings should be collaborative meetings where the team crafts the document together.
• Educators: Sometimes it is necessary for parents to simply have a discussion with teachers in order to feel reassured that their child is being successful. In these cases, save your suggestions, comments and attempts to solve any problem and be an active listener instead. 

COLLECT DATA

The school regularly collects and analyzes data. It is common practice for teachers to meet and discuss how that data will inform their instruction. There may come a time where you do not agree with the school’s summary of your child.

• Families: It is essential to communicate with the team and share any outside data you may have from experts in the field. You know your child best and it is important for you to paint a picture of the "whole child" to ensure school programming is tailored to meet his/her needs.  
• Educators: When you have data to share with parents, remember to communicate sensitively. Parents of children with special needs are inundated with constant reminders of their child’s limitations. Be mindful of sharing in a way that highlights growth and includes the child’s strengths.  

Communication, utilizing a team approach and considering the whole child are best practices for both school staff and parents to successfully collaborate. A strong partnership between parents and educators contributes greatly to student success, especially for students with IEPs.  

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Laurie McLean has more than 20 years of experience in public education as a certified reading specialist, supervisor of curriculum, and administrator. Laurie is also the mother of a 13-year old son on the autism spectrum. Learn more about Laurie's work by visiting her blog: www.lifewithasideoftheunexpected.com

The Value in Cultivating Grit

In January, I returned from hiatus with a blog post on confidence-building strategies. The take-home points are that we (1) value mistakes and model healthy responses to failure, (2) encourage learners to focus on what they can do, and (3) maximize critically thinking opportunities.

Since we're in the thick of it, I'd be remiss if I did not also recap student strategies for less stressful testing. Testing season is an intense time for educators, learners, and parents. There're a number of ways to decrease stress and enter testing season with greater confidence. One of our guest bloggers shares four strategies...

1. Review information daily
2. Clarify gaps in learning
3. Change daily habits
4. Build endurance

There's a connection.

Confidence-building strategies and strategies for less stressful testing are linked by grit. When we cultivate grit, we learn (and teach others) to persevere over long periods of time. For instance, one confidence-building strategy is that we model healthy responses to failure. It's not likely that modeling a healthy response once is going to cut it. Dealing with failure in healthy ways requires a lot of personal growth initially.

Learner perceptions about failure can be deep-rooted. The more deeply rooted our behaviors and thoughts, the more exposure to new behaviors and thoughts we require before change happens. This is not only true of our response to failure; it's true of our response to challenge. Habits are hard to break if we aren't gritty about making the change. 

Students with low confidence and poor test performance behave and think in ways that are not self serving. We don't want to overlook environmental factors that obliterate a child's confidence in himself or leaves her ill-prepared to compete academically. We also don't want to nurture narcissism. For a moment, we want to highlight something that learners can do for themselves: cultivate grit.

Cultivating Grit: An approach to increasing confidence explores character development: grit, growth mindset, and motivation. I draw on personal and professional experiences as well as current research to share do-it-yourself confidence-building strategies with educators and parents. Cultivating Grit takes readers and listeners on a journey through an eight-part discussion with five reflection activities to be completed individually or as a group. The premise is that by helping learners increase confidence, performance improves in class and at home.

It's a journey.

Those who experience failure are erroneously viewed as lacking grit. Grit skeptics seem to think that persevering over time means that we never miss the mark, that we always get the "thing" we're passionate about... if we work hard enough. Though some focus on one goal, execute the plan, and live happily ever after, many more of us will have to work very hard at a number of our passions.

Sectors of society are afflicted with the "this is how we've always done it" approach to education and training, which is much too rigid for us to reap the benefits of all our talents. I encourage you to have a closer look at the opportunities we uncover by understanding and cultivating grit in our lives.

We've found that character development is the secret to student growth. Cultivating grit is an important piece of character education for educators and parents. Request your free download of Cultivating Grit today.