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.

Help Us Build a Better Program

I have been hearing a lot of frustration and pain out there over school related issues. Some of the stories told to me by parents have sucked the energy right out of the parents leaving a shell; not a great place to parent from. It seems to us at Parenting Autism, school related issues tend to be a huge obstacle to getting on with your life; they drain time, energy, and resources.

So, how can you move forward when all the players (the school) are not willing to help get there. The portion of our Build Your Family workshop that focuses on developing an Inclusive Team of Professionals has been so popular we are expanding it. So, we need your help to make it better, please take two minutes (really that is it) and fill-out this survey

Pass this link on to your friends, co-workers, neighbors, and family who have children on an IEP (the child does not have to be diagnosed with autism). The more data we collect the more information we have to help shape a new program for parents and educators.

Begin with a Smile

Last week I was driving along the zig-zag roads that climb and descend the Green Mountains to a Build Your Family workshop that I was giving to a bunch of parents. During the drive I replay my six hour workshop in my head, sometimes quizzing myself about the sections and going through the possible questions I would be asked. I do all this to squash the fear that someone may fall asleep as I explain the need to come to an understanding of your own fears, anxiety, and sometimes even depression before you can truly move forward to preparing your child for adulthood.

After each workshop I give, I call Peter to report how many sleepers I had. To my credit I have only had one attendee fall asleep and that was a medical student during a lecture about autism. At this workshop the conversation turned hot when discussing IEP meetings and the attendees scribed pages of notes. So, I thought this would be a great topic for a newsletter.

I been to many workshops about special education law and the IEP process which I think are all valuable resources and information every parent with a child with special needs must become educated in. However, what I teach during my Build Your Family workshop revolves around behavior— your behavior and the school’s behavior. As a parent you have to know the special education laws to advocate for your child, but how you advocate can change the outcome.

First thing, the only person you can change is YOURSELF. You are going to be in a losing battle if try to change other people. However, you can change how you react to people.

When talking to folks about setting-up an IEP or team meeting, people will tell me, “Well, I have my folder on special education law and I know my child’s needs.” And I will say, “Ok, so what is the first thing you do when you walk in the room?” I always get the look, like “this lady is crazy.” How you walk into the room sets the stage for the entire meeting.

So, next time you have an IEP or team meeting, try my beginning meeting strategies:

• Get there early or at least on time.
• Leave your emotions at the door. Try to separate the emotions from the tasks at hand (I will write more about this later).
• Walk in with a smile on your face and look everyone in the eye as you greet them.
• Sit at the head of the table (you are the meeting facilitator).
• Bring a recorder and place it on the table and turn it on; so you can listen and engage everyone and still have “notes” from the meeting.
• Bring an agenda of the topics to be discussed (email then to the team in advance to have everyone able to participate and bring copies for everyone).
• Begin the meeting by thanking everyone for coming and working with your family.
• Ask everyone to stick to the topics on the agenda so you can finish the meeting on-time.

After the meeting, process how the other team member reacted to you, were they more or less responsive through out the meeting? Did you work toward bettering your child’s educational experience? Was there less or more struggle? Did you feel accomplished and heard?

Next week I will discuss other ways that behavior can dictate your IEP or team meetings.