Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Effective Agenda for IEP meetings

Meeting agendas are a useful tool for any meeting and it surprise me every time I hear that they are not being used or not being used properly for IEP or team meetings. In the Build Your Family workshop I teach how to set-up a productive meeting and the first step is the meeting agenda.

Agenda ideas can either be gathered at the last meeting you had or through email. Since this would be your first agenda, email all the team members for agenda ideas. A simply, friendly email like:

Hi everyone,

I would like to make sure we cover all the areas we need to address at our next meeting, so I am going to make-up a agenda to follow. I know you all have so much on your schedules, so the agenda building can be my job. Please send me all your suggestions by (insert a date).

Thanks again for all your help,


Now, it is time to organize an agenda that you can use each month:

IEP meeting for ________________
May 19, 2009
Room#12, Elementary School

  • We work hard to start the meeting on time, people come as soon as they can & they will inform the group if they need to leave early at the beginning of the meeting
  • We allow people to finish speaking
  • We are respectful of one another in discussions of children, adolescents & adults with ASD, their families, & the professionals, programs & agencies that work with them
  • We actively solicit diverse ways of looking at things
  • We use person first language (e.g., child with autism versus, autistic child)
  • We recognize when more information is needed before a discussion can proceed
  • We clarify actions that need to be taken, by whom and when
  • We collaboratively determine agenda items for a meeting and important topics that should be discussed as a group
  • We revisit our norms periodically and make changes as needed**

10:00-10:10 am — Angela will greet everyone and give updates about Tristan.

10:10-10:40 am — Review goals for IEP and make any changes.

10:40-11:00 — A discussion about need for an outside specialist to come work with Tristan and the team on reading.


**These norms are taken from the Vermont Autism Taskforce agenda.

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