October 31, 2009
Planning for an IEP Meeting
Preparation is key to a success and smooth IEP meeting. Try to address these issues before the meeting and hopefully it will reduce the amount of surprises that may occur at the meeting.
1. Understand the roles of each member of the IEP team.
- Facilitator – this is the person who ensures everyone on the team is able to equally participate and helps to keep the meeting moving forward and following the agenda.
- Recorder – this person makes sure that everything discussed and decided in the meeting is accurately recorded and documented. This individual may also be responsible for recording information decided in the meeting onto the IEP forms.
- Timekeeper – this person gently reminds the team members of the time remaining for the scheduled meeting at appropriate times.
2. Have a complete meeting agenda prepared beforehand for all team members to review prior to the meeting. The agenda needs to include the following items.
- List of participants names, role and/or relationship to the student
- Summary and discussion of evaluative data collected since the last IEP meeting
- Discussion of the student’s present level of performance.
- What goals and objectives or benchmarks need to be addressed for this student.
- Determine how the stated goals and objectives will be measured and reported.
- Discussion of the student’s current and/or future placement.
- Establish stated time frame for the meeting. ( Usually 1 hour to 1.5 hours)
3. If the team will be working together to brainstorm ideas, options and/or solutions arrange to have a white board or other mechanism to jot down the ideas being discussed by the team.
