Sitting on the Other Side of the IEP Table: 9 Lessons Learned

Thoughts from sitting on the other side of the IEP table and how to support parents in IEP meetings.

Background

Six years ago, I wrote about becoming the parent instead of the therapist during our daughter’s NICU stay. My daughter was born with a cleft palate, a feature of both Pierre Robin sequence and Stickler syndrome. Kids born with a cleft palate are also at higher risk for conductive hearing loss, because of how a cleft affects Eustachian tube function. She received bilateral hearing aids at age 4, right before she started transitional kindergarten in public school, and she’s been in speech therapy, either privately or through her school, since she was 2.

Between her hearing aids, speech-language goals, and need for an assistive listening system at school, an IEP was never really in question. At school, she uses a HAT (hearing assistive technology) system that streams her teacher’s voice directly to her hearing aids via a small microphone over Bluetooth.

Her IEP team consists of the Speech-Langauge Pathologist, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Teacher, and the Educational Audiologist.

This fall marks our third year of public school, which means our third year of IEP meetings.
I think it will always be a little weird sitting on the other side of the table…I wanted to brain dump some thoughts that may be helpful for IEP team members as someone who has sat in both chairs! I’ve also gotten to know parents at school and had conversations with them about their child’s upcoming IEPs and services. This has also provided a unique perspective on the process and how parents feel. Hopefully, a parent perspective can bring some insights into how to support parents in IEP meetings.

1. Parents worry their kid is just a name on a long list.

Even in a well-run meeting, with a team that clearly knows and likes your child, there’s a quiet fear that doesn’t fully go away: that your kid is one of forty (or more!) names on someone’s caseload. Most of the time it isn’t true, but a parent has no way to see your caseload, your notes, or how much thought went into the goals in front of them. They only have the meeting itself to go on. A specific example (“last week she initiated getting the microphone when the HAT system wasn’t handed off, which is new”) does more to dissolve that fear than any amount of general reassurance.

2. I wish every parent got their IEP draft in advance.

This one comes with a caveat I looked into myself: federal law doesn’t actually require it. IDEA treats the IEP as a document the team builds together at the meeting, and only a couple of states currently mandate an advance draft. Reading a full IEP cold, in real time, while also trying to follow what’s being said out loud, is a lot to ask of anyone. Sending a draft, even the day before, lets a parent show up with real questions instead of just trying to keep pace.

3. Parents hold on to the strengths and positives stated about their child.

You can spend twenty minutes on data and goals and still have the whole meeting boil down, in a parent’s memory, to the one or two things someone said their kid is genuinely good at. One of my favorite ways I’ve seen a team open a meeting is by going around the table and having each person share a strength – something they’ve noticed, something the child does well, something they enjoy about working with them. It takes two minutes. It also sets an entirely different tone for everything that follows, because it tells a parent, before a single goal is discussed, that the people in the room see their kid as more than a list of needs.

4. A meeting can feel stressful, even with no obvious stress points.

A meeting can feel stressful with zero obvious stress points. Nothing has to be “wrong” for a parent’s nervous system to be on high alert. Parents I’ve talked with often feel like they need to go into a meeting ready to advocate and defend their child.

5. The best questions show up after the meeting ends.

Once the meeting adrenaline wears off, on the drive home or that night, the real questions tend to surface. Telling parents explicitly, out loud, that they can follow up in writing afterward matters more than it sounds. It turns the meeting from a single high-stakes hour into an ongoing conversation, which is closer to what it’s supposed to be anyway.

6. Jargon becomes invisible to the people using it.

Obviously I have an advantage here, but many IEP terms can feel like a foreign language for parents. FAPE, LRE, standard scores, percentile ranks…none of it registers as jargon anymore once you’ve said it a thousand times. A parent nodding along is often just trying not to seem difficult, not actually following along. Every data point deserves a plain-language translation in the same breath you give the number: not instead of the score, but alongside it.

7. Communication doesn’t have to wait for the next meeting.

I appreciate any communication or reach-outs beyond the IEP meeting and emailed progress reports. A quick note at the start of the year asking whether I have concerns, or a short update partway through when something’s working, or something’s changed. It means more than it might seem to the person sending it.

8. The laws that felt like an annoyance are what give parents peace of mind.

Before I had a child with an IEP, procedural requirements and timelines could feel less than ideal. But as a parent, they provide peace of mind that we won’t slip through the cracks and that things will get taken care of in a timely manner. Every timeline, every required signature, every notice of procedural safeguards is why a parent can walk into that room and trust the process. What looks like bureaucracy from one side of the table looks like protection from the other.

9. I’m grateful for the systems and technology that support my child, who wears hearing aids.

None of this comes from a place of complaint. I am genuinely, endlessly grateful for the systems that get my daughter what she needs…including specific and expensive technology. I see an entire team working together and communicating to make sure she has access to a general education classroom.

If you’re on an IEP team, I’d love to know: what’s one thing you wish more parents knew before walking in? And if you’re looking for more on how to support parents in IEP meetings, or if you’re a parent who’s sat through a few of these meetings yourself, you might be interested in another post I’ve written before about what it’s like to become the parent instead of the therapist during our 7-week-long NICU stay.

You may also be interested in reading:
The Importance of Explaining the WHY of Therapy to Parents