IEP Coaching
We wear many hats, like all good educators do, at Solutions for Exceptional Children. One part of our expertise is IEP coaching.
What does IEP Coaching mean?
We help families understand:
Their child’s educational needs
Their child’s educational records and history
Their rights to participation
Our goal is to help parents and caregivers participate in their child’s IEP meetings and process meaningfully, which you are entitled to do so. Often times, it can feel like you know what is going on, but you may only be getting the tip of the iceberg. That’s because as the parent, you aren’t supposed to be the educational expert. You aren’t supposed to know exactly what questions to ask the IEP team. You aren’t supposed to know what is in the present levels of performance. That’s where we come in.
When parents reach out to us, they typically have a “gut feeling” that their child is not making the progress they should be. They feel they’ve asked questions, and they’ve attended meetings, but they just can’t quite figure out what’s missing. Or they have gotten a lot of information from the school, but it’s educational jargon, and they aren’t sure if it all lines up.
Still not quite sure?
Imagine going to the doctor. Your primary care doctor, maybe another doctor and a nurse throw a lot of technical information at you. They then suggest treatment options.
In some instances, maybe they’ve given you so much information, you don’t know how to sift through it to make an informed decision.
In other instances, maybe they started making decisions about your treatment without discussing it with you first clearly. Imagine that they told you have two options, and one requires medication every 6 hours, but your work schedule wouldn’t allow for that. And no one lets you chime in to mention that. Or a treatment option includes a medicine that makes you feel sick, except that the doctor says “yes, but it has to be this way” without explaining why. Or maybe you have a symptom that you feel no one is seriously considering.
You’d probably feel pretty frustrated. You might start trying to Google information yourself (which rarely ends well!) or you might get a second opinion. Chances are, you wouldn’t trust the doctor completely because you’d feel like you were left out of the process and you don’t fully understand if you’re getting the best care. You know your body best, why isn’t anyone listening to you when you have something to share about it?
It’s the same for your child’s education. You are a valuable and essential member of your child’s IEP team.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, and the school can make you feel secondary because they make decisions without fully explaining them or including you.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like you understand everything that is happening.
Other times, it may feel like you understand, but there isn’t alignment between who you know your child to be, and who the school says your child is.
In any of these instances, most school staff are acting in your child’s best interest, and lapses are not intentional. Unfortunately, school staff are stretched thin, burnt out and doing the very best they can with limited resources.
At Solutions for Exceptional Children, we take a proactive and positive approach to resolving concerns. We look for common ground, and build from there to support the development of an IEP that is geared towards your child’s unique learning needs. We don’t step on the toes of the school district team by telling them what to do: we use questions and discussion to motivate them to develop their own systems and solutions to meet your child’s needs, and include you in the process. We are here to support you and to ensure that the process is driven by your child’s needs.
We also keep detailed records and follow IDEA and state guidelines to ensure that if your child’s education continues to be an issue, escalating to an attorney is easy. Often times, without the support of an IEP coach, educational consultant or expert, families may be inadvertently not holding the district accountable in the correct ways. Which means, not only have you been fighting a battle for longer than you wanted to; you may also have holes in your argument. With our support, attorneys can trust that you’ve followed our guidance to do everything to remediate the situation at the school level first. We hope that it does not reach this stage, but prepare in the event that things do.
If any of these feelings resonated with you, contact us today to schedule an initial consultation.
