Throughout the school year, you may be asked to attend a variety of IEP meetings for your child such as IEP amendment meetings, annual IEP meetings, or triennial IEP meetings. These meetings typically involve large, daunting stacks of paperwork that have a tremendous impact on your child’s supports and services. Here are some common types of IEP amendment meetings the school may ask you to attend and some potential outcomes.
First: IEP amendment meetings
An IEP amendment meeting is a general term describing a flexible session used to address deficits or changes in your child’s education. Examples of IEP amendment meetings include: emergency IEP meetings, transition IEP meetings, 30-day IEP meetings, or behavioral IEP meetings. The term IEP amendment meeting is a general term that the school will use on paperwork and even in conversation to describe most IEP meetings that are not the annual IEP meeting or the triennial IEP meeting. Examples of IEP amendment meetings, that may appear under a different name, are emergency IEP Meetings, transition IEP meetings, 30-day IEP meetings, and behavioral IEP meetings. Each meeting has a different general agenda that guides the discussion and makes or recommends changes to your child’s IEP.
You or your child’s school district can call an IEP amendment meeting at any time there is a concern that your child’s IEP needs to be updated. These updates could be because a higher level of support is needed, or could be that your child is ready to be more independent and supports need to be scaled back. Once the IEP amendment meeting is formally requested, it must be held within 30 days.
Second: emergency IEP meetings
An emergency IEP meeting is an IEP amendment that is typically called when there is a sudden change in your child’s education or there is unsafe behavior happening at school. The IEP team meets, goes over all applicable concerns, and adjusts the IEP to help ensure your child receives the appropriate levels of support.
Third: transition IEP meetings
Transition IEP meetings are typically held for students that are going to go through a major change in their school program and the IEP needs to be updated to reflect the new program. This can be when your child moves from preschool to elementary school, elementary school to middle school, or middle school to high school. These transition IEP meetings may also occur if your child is changing their educational program or school campus, such as moving from an SDC program to an RSP program. The goal of this meeting is to make changes to the IEP to help your child be successful on day 1 of school in their new program with updated goals, services, and accommodations as necessary.
IEP team meetings are often complicated and it may be difficult to obtain your child’s necessary supports and services on your own.
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