Managing Documents Under IDEA, Part I

Other documents

8. The parents' notes or minutes of conversations or meetings with school personnel, evaluators, the child's TEAM, or any other interactions bearing on the child's program or needs. We advise parents to be certain to take excellent notes at key meetings or, better yet, to have someone with them whose only task is to take such notes, especially at TEAM meetings. Such notes can help enormously when, months later, parents try to recall exactly what various people said or what agreements were reached.

NOTE: Do you have a right to tape TEAM meetings? Should you tape meetings? The answer to both of these questions is "probably not" in most instances. Under the laws pertaining to discrimination on the basis of handicap you may have a right to tape a meeting if that is necessary to accommodate a disability (for example, if one or both parents have a language processing disorder). You may also have a right to tape if the meeting is conducted in a language other than the parents' first language. Generally, though, no right to tape a meeting has been determined to exist under IDEA. Ordinarily, if you ask in advance to tape a TEAM meeting, a school system should permit you to do so as a courtesy and most likely will also tape the meeting themselves. You need to consider, however, that having a tape recorder present may inhibit the participants and/or create a feeling of hostility at the meeting. Again, it is usually preferable simply to have someone take excellent notes.

9. Any documents having to do with discipline and/or behavioral concerns. These include, for example, notices of detentions and suspensions (both in-school and out of school suspensions), letters describing the concerns of service providers or school administrators about behaviors, records of behavioral assessments, and records of behavioral plans for addressing behavioral issues.

NOTE: Under the amendments to IDEA which became effective in July 2005, school districts are deemed to have knowledge that a child's misbehavior may be caused by a disability if: 1) the parent expresses concern in writing to a teacher of the child or to supervisory or administrative special education personnel that their child is in need of special education and related services; 2) the parent requests an evaluation of their child; or 3) the teacher of the child, or other personnel of the LEA, has expressed specific concerns about a pattern of behavior demonstrated by the child, directly to the director of special education or to other supervisory personnel of the agency. 20 USC 1 415(k)(5)(B). Thus, it is important to communicate concerns before behaviors lead to disciplinary actions for a school to be held accountable for providing services to address the behaviors through special education services.

10. Formal notices of meetings scheduled to discuss your child. You should develop the habit of marking on the top of any such notice the date on which you receive it, since the question whether a school system has met time requirements is sometimes important under IDEA. (Note that it is sometimes a good idea to keep copies of the envelopes in which such notices arrive: check the date of the notice or letter and the date of the postmark - if the postmark is later than the date on the notice, that fact could be significant.)

11. Samples of schoolwork. You don't need to keep every scrap of writing or drawing your child produces for this purpose, but it sometimes is helpful to keep examples from year to year, or even shorter periods, which can be compared to show whether and how much progress your child is making in various academic areas.

12. Invoices and cancelled checks relating to services that you provide on your own for your child relating to his/her educational development. For example, if you pay for an independent speech and language pathologist to provide an hour per week of therapy to supplement the school system's services, keep a record and evidence of your payments for that service; eventually, you might seek reimbursement for that expense if you can prove that it was necessary because the school's services were insufficient to enable your child to progress effectively.

13. Public documents that help explain how your school system works with children like yours. These might include, for example, newspaper articles describing pronouncements by special education administrators, school committee members or superintendents about how they are planning to reorganize all special education programs, how they plan to cut expenses in special education, what new teaching approach they plan to use, etc.

Copyright © 1998, 2007, Robert K. Crabtree, Kotin, Crabtree and Strong, LLP