Special Ed Advocacy: Nine Rules of Thumb

Rule five

Rule Five: Share All Information
Parents (and some evaluators) sometimes feel that they should not provide independent evaluations or other information they have obtained at their own expense to school systems. This is usually a mistake. The most common reasons parents give for withholding information:

1. They think that they'll be in a better position to argue for an alternative program if the school system doesn't do a competent job -- a more likely outcome if the school system is not given guidance by the parents' experts.

2. They think the information will reduce their chances of achieving the goal they seek, because it contains different recommendations from what the parents want, or because it contains information that the school system could use to avoid providing services.

As a rule, I recommend that parents share all information as soon as it is available. If a dispute with your school system goes into litigation, the school system will most likely obtain copies of any written information that you withheld earlier through a formal "discovery" process. If a document that was withheld earlier contains information that might have helped the school system write a better IEP, the Hearing Officer will likely rule that the school system be given a chance to alter its program to address the new information. If the document contains information harmful to the parents' position in the case, the damage will be greater because the information was not shared in the normal course. Attempts to put the damaging information into a less harmful context will ring false at this late date.

Sometimes a document contains private family information that the parents don't want to share with school personnel. If the information is not relevant to the child's educational and related needs, perhaps the writer of the document can be persuaded to revise the document removing the information. Otherwise, you have to balance the risks involved in not sharing information with the harm or embarrassment that may be caused in sharing the information. If you decide to give the information, it is a good idea to use a cover letter emphasizing the confidentiality of the document and asking that the information be used only as strictly necessary in the planning and delivery of services to the child.