Once your child qualifies for an IEP, they will then have an IEP for the next three years. It must be updated yearly with a minimum of new goals. However, they will continue to qualify for IEP supports and services for the entire three years.
What happens at the end of the third year? The District must reassess your student in all suspected areas of disability, and must call a triennial IEP Team Meeting. That meeting must start before the end of the end of the third year. If your child initially received an IEP on March 1, then the triennial IEP team meeting must take place on or before March 1, three years later.
Roughly 2.5 months before your child’s triennial meeting date, the district will send you a written assessment plan. Some possible areas for testing include Academic Achievement, Health, Intellectual Development, Language/Speech Communication Development, Motor Development, Social Emotional/Behavior, Adaptive Behavior, and Post-Secondary Transition (when the student is in high school). Before signing it is the time to ask them to add any additional areas of concern to the list of assessments. From the time you sign and return that assessment form, they have 60 calendar days to hold the IEP team meeting.
As with the initial IEP, there will be many pages of reports, and a discussion of eligibility. Ask (in writing) to get the reports in advance so that you do not have to participate in an IEP team meeting while trying to make sense of complicated reports. If you get them before the meeting, you have time to go over them and note any questions in the margins so that you can ask them during the meeting.
It does not happen often, but occasionally the triennial testing may point towards the student no longer being eligible for an IEP. Often Districts will present this as a statement that the student no longer qualifies for an IEP. Parents need to know that eligibility is a TEAM discussion: you—and your advocate—are part of the IEP team. You have the right to make arguments if you disagree. There are also processes for further assessment and additional discussions if you do not agree.
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