Tips for families of students with disabilities for transitioning into the next school year

CATHY WURZER: The start of the new school year is not too far away. There are new clothes to buy and school supplies. For many families with kids who have special needs, there's more to do than buy a new backpack. There's some work to do to get the child used to the transition. A key part of their schooling is what's called an Individualized Education Program, or IEP. It's a plan aimed at meeting each student's needs while helping them grow and learn.

School staff and guardians typically meet once or twice a year to come to an agreement on the terms of an IEP. And as important as these meetings are, our next guest has found they can be emotionally taxing and confusing. As a parent advocate for the nonprofit PACER Center based in the Twin Cities, Robbi Weil is working to demystify this process by leading trainings for parents. And Robbi's on the line. Hey, thanks for the time.

ROBBI WEIL: My pleasure. Thank you for having us.

CATHY WURZER: So I know you're a parent. And you obviously have personal experiences that guide your work. What do you wish you would have known when your kids were in school?

ROBBI WEIL: Really good question. My children are all grown now. But I did have two children who were in IEPs. I was also an educator for 35 years. And I trusted the team, as I should. But I never knew or truly understood that I was an equal member of that team.

I would sit in the meetings where there would be maybe 10 staff from the school. And I felt like it was a democracy. There were more of them. So I listened and said, OK, where do I sign? Help my children. And in coming to PACER, I realized I would have done things very differently had I known my rights, how the process worked, where my right to disagree came in, and how to work with the team collaboratively.

CATHY WURZER: Can you talk a bit for folks who are not familiar? You painted a bit of a picture there. What are these meetings like? You mentioned there's a lot of school staff there. But just the tone of them and how long do they last. That kind of thing.

ROBBI WEIL: There can be a lot of people. It's all individualized. So it depends what the child's needs who is on an IEP team. There's always at least a general education teacher, a special education, teacher and somebody from the district who can make decisions. I think just by default they're intimidating. It's all unintentional. This is a very complex set of both federal and state laws. And rules and nobody is tasked with teaching the parents how to engage in that.

And it's a language that we don't understand until someone helps us. The school's obligation is to give a packet of information called procedural rights and safeguards. I know for me personally, I was a single mom. Lived in the western suburbs. Taught in Saint Paul. My life was very challenging. I never read that packet. I looked at it and thought this doesn't make sense. I was trying to wrap my brain around what the evaluation was identifying as my child's needs. And so I didn't even really know how to engage.

They should be collaborative. We encourage parents to always bring a snapshot of their child and start every meeting by reminding the staff of the whole wonderful person that they're talking about. By default, you're talking about the areas of deficit and need. But this is a whole child. And I think one of the things we do is help parents know how to work collaboratively with the team, how to learn their rights, how to exercise those rights, and how to do it in a way where nobody has to feel like they're put on the defensive. The school has the knowledge of the pedagogy and the expertise in how to provide service. But parents carry a wide range of expertise about their child and the history.

CATHY WURZER: I'm glad you said that because kids change. Their needs change. And I'm betting there are a whole lot of kids whose needs may have changed over the summer. So what's a parent to do heading into the fall with these meetings?

ROBBI WEIL: Well, we do suggest that parents ask for a meeting at the beginning of the year, especially if there have been marked changes, if child's been through some kind of day treatment program or has been working on some of their skills with other professionals. The IEP runs for a calendar year, not a school year. So there's always a renewal date based on when the initial evaluation was done. That meeting happens at that time of the year.

But especially when there are changes, we always suggest that parents reach out to their child's case manager and ask for a meeting to just touch base and talk about whether there may need to be any changes made to the IEP itself or just to share information. Again, it's building that collaborative team and the building the knowledge of everybody on that team.

CATHY WURZER: Are parents to assume that everything described in the IEP will be put in place and set up for their child when they arrive for their first day of school?

ROBBI WEIL: Yes. Now, there are some exceptions. Well, I wouldn't say exceptions. There are times when IEPs-- I have seen IEPs that write in that during the first week of school, this is how transition. But yes. Those, by law, what is in the IEP needs to be provided because the team has decided together that that's what the child needs to be successful. Again, I think there needs to be some understanding and discussion because the beginning of the year can be challenging, and especially for children with special needs. Sometimes, that transition to a new adult to trust, a new group of students might mean there needs to be a little bit of flexibility. But by and large, what is in the IEP should be followed.

CATHY WURZER: Now, what's your advice for parents whose children don't currently have an IEP but they think that they would benefit from one?

ROBBI WEIL: Right. So there are a lot of best practices and interventions that schools do. Again, as a former teacher, it's about building that relationship all along with your child's educational team so that when you see while we've been doing this intervention for this long and we're still having these issues, what is our next step? Parents do have the right to an evaluation.

And truthfully, I guess my plug for what we do-- each state has a parent training and information center free to parents. It's actually part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Call us. We can help you talk through how to request that evaluation, what wording you might want to use, what might make sense, what kind of evaluation. But it is a right of parents when a child has a disability.

CATHY WURZER: You know this, of course. Many districts have significant staffing shortages special. Special education is an area where this issue is pretty pronounced. So I'm wondering, how does understaffing affect the IEP process?

ROBBI WEIL: It does. And sadly, it does. I've been recruited many times since I retired to come back to the classroom. What MDE has very clearly said is that staffing is not an excuse to not provide services. And, again, this is about following a collaborative model. If parents are concerned that specific things are not being followed, they have a right to be concerned. But if you go in and you validate. I see that you've been running an ad for a new pair of professional for four months.

I know that you haven't hired someone. However, my child is still struggling. Let's get creative. I think as with during COVID, this post-COVID period with the staffing issues, it's all about collaborating together. The child's needs haven't changed. How they're provided might need to flex. But, again, it's about building that team, not putting people on the defensive, both sides validating the feelings of the other side and then putting their heads together to brainstorm and decide how they're going to help this child because that is a fact of the law.

CATHY WURZER: A lot of good information you've given us here, Robbi. Thank you so much.

ROBBI WEIL: My pleasure. My pleasure. And people can always call PACER directly and ask to speak to an advocate for specifics about their own child.

CATHY WURZER: And I know you've got a lot of information on that website too. PACER.org. All right, Robbi. Thank you.

ROBBI WEIL: Thank you so much.

CATHY WURZER: Robbi Weil's a parent advocate and trainer with the nonprofit PACER Center based in the Twin Cities.