Overwhelmingly our special population’s teachers and staff receive and deserve praise for the services they provide for their students. However, there are times when families express concerns about the services or structure of their Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). At Possip, we see feedback about IEPs and special population services provided by families or staff usually fall into three categories. Those three categories include: “Quality and Frequency of Related Services”, “Accommodation and Referral Requests”, or “Director/Leadership Feedback.”
Elizabeth Janca, experienced school administrator, licensed professional counselor, and Possip Reporter shares ways to respond to family feedback regarding IEPs.
We know staff and administration want to respond feedback about IEPs. Families need help and we want to provide empathetic responses and effectively address frustration. To that end, we’ve analyzed family and staff questions and concerns we’ve seen in Possip reports and provided suggestions for next steps.
Feedback about IEPs: Quality and Frequency of Related Services
“My student is not receiving speech therapy services.”
Next step suggestions: For comments regarding the frequency of therapy services, ensure families know who their case manager is and how to reach out to them. Sometimes staff vacancies are the cause for services not being provided. If this is the case, communicate to families the reason and a plan of action to address the lapse in services.
“Need more training for teachers regarding accommodations for dyslexic students.” (from a staff member)
Next step suggestions: For comments regarding additional training, ask your special education department to present staff training for that topic. In this case, we would ask the SpEd department to do a training on dyslexia. The training should center on tips that are effective and easy to implement in the classroom
