IEP Critic--This One Gets a 2 out of 5

Today I attended an IEP/MET (three year re-evaluation) for a prospective student with autism coming to us next year. I was very excited for the chance to sit in on a different school's IEP meeting. I thought it would be an informative compare/contrast exercise. Our school psychologist (who services a bunch of other schools and districts as well) has always been very complimentary about the way we run our IEP meetings; today I found out whether or not our compliments were deserved.

It is my professional opinion that they were deserved.

First of all, their psychologist started off the meeting by informing mom that her son was "very, very loooow". He did not mention any scores, nor did he explain any of the subtests, other than to say "he did better on some than on others". So, ouch. Not five minutes into it and I was already feeling like I wanted to give this mother a hug.

Secondly, in a one-hour meeting, mom did not have a chance to speak until 27 minutes into it... and that's only because she interrupted with a comment! Not once was she asked for her input on goals, or about her concerns.

Thirdly, the eight people around the table directed all their comments at me... made eye contact with me... not mom.

Finally, there was a lot of educational jargon thrown around and it was assumed that mom understood all of it. In all fairness, this is something I have been guilty of in the past, but our special ed team has been very good about trying to be as clear as possible.

To the other school's credit, they were much more on top of their paperwork. Personally, though, I would much rather drop the ball in terms of paperwork than to fail to communicate to the parent that they are an equal partner with us in their child's education.