What are the steps to take before my child gets an IEP or 504 plan?

For this blog post, we’ll discuss how to ask for meetings when you think your child might need academic support for ADHD, dyslexia or another learning disability. You need to know that there is a process, driven by Federal law and state regulations, that spells out timelines and procedures for getting extra support at school. As a school psychologist in the public schools, I worked frequently with families navigating this process. To help you understand what is involved with seeking student support services, let’s break it all down.

I have a concern about my child’s Academic abilities

You are the parent. You know your kid best. Something is concerning you, and some common things pop up. You notice they are not acquiring academic skills as quickly as their friends (trouble reading, not memorizing math facts, etc.). Social skills need to catch up. Their attention wanders at home, and the teachers tell you they have trouble paying attention in class. Your child has received many office disciplinary referrals, and you feel the teachers/administrators call you almost daily about behavior challenges. You know something is getting in the way of their education, but you don’t yet know what it is. And the school may not know yet, either. You’ve heard about learning disabilities, dyslexia and ADHD, and from what you’ve read, your kid exhibits some of the behaviors and symptoms of these diagnoses. You wonder if the school is being proactive, getting educational supports in place, and keeping you informed. If they’re not, here is what you can do.

Step 1: talk to your child’s teacher

Set up a meeting with your child’s teacher, or if your schedule does not allow that, summarize it all in an email. At the meeting or in the email, it is important to ask for an MTSS intervention plan. What is MTSS? It stands for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. This gives a student an intervention to address what is concerning, whether it is additional academic support, behavioral support such as counseling, or implementing executive functioning strategies to help them focus. The MTSS plan might not be written at that first meeting, but your request kicks off the process. Also important, copy the administration on your correspondences with the teacher so it is also on their radar, and they can help hold the teacher accountable for addressing your concerns.

Step 2: Developing an MTSS plan

Schools often develop plans without parents being directly involved, and that is ok; they should at least share the plan with you. MTSS is part of general education and is available to all students. But you have every right to be involved in the plan’s development, so do not hesitate to ask to have input. Plans will first define the problem; what is it that is concerning? What does it look like in terms of observable behavior? Or what do academics look like? Compare that to what is expected. This helps develop a specific goal for the intervention plan. Where should the kid be? Now, how to get them there. The school team needs to select an intervention that matches the problem. For example, if a student has trouble decoding, then they need to receive supplemental instruction for decoding; an intervention addressing reading comprehension would not be appropriate. Interventions should be scientifically validated, meaning someone did a study and concluded that the intervention is effective; you don’t want schools doing something ineffective! Once the intervention has been selected, the school team needs to tell you how they will track progress.

Step 3: Stay Informed

Ask for what data collection method they will use to help them know that your child is seeing success with the intervention. Let’s go back to a decoding intervention. Perhaps the data collection is how many new sight words a student knows each week. Next, they will implement the plan and collect data. MTSS plans typically run for six to eight weeks, and the team will then analyze the data and see if the intervention worked. If it did, great! If not, they may select another intervention or look at the possibility of special education if the school suspects a disability. Something you can ask along the way is whether or not the intervention is being implemented with fidelity; that is, are school people doing it the way it was intended to be done. There needs to be a meeting after the intervention cycle to see if it was effective, and you can ask to attend.

What if nothing changes?

My kid has been receiving MTSS interventions, and they are not progressing; what next? Suppose a student has gone through an intervention (or two) and is still not making expected gains. It may be time for a full case study evaluation to see if they qualify for special education and related services. As the parent, you have the right to request an evaluation at any time, and the school has to respond to your request within 14 school days. If you request an evaluation for special education, put it in an email so there is a record of it. The school may say no, we do not suspect a disability, and they would have to give you a reason why; this could include they are seeing progress with interventions and that an evaluation is not appropriate at this time. If they agree to an evaluation, you will have a domain meeting with the special education team to discuss what is known about the student, what questions people have, and what data will be collected as part of the evaluation. 

What happens next is the evaluation process, a topic I’ll talk about in-depth in my next blog post.

As a parent, it can be difficult to watch your child struggle academically. There is no need to do this alone. As a school psychologist, I have helped many families through this process. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions.