If your child’s school informs you that your kid has qualified for special education services, you are not alone. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2022/2023 school year, 75 million students between ages 3 and 21 received SPED services. That is 15% of all public school students.
Many parents have received the news that their child qualifies for special education services. This realization can bring up a confusing mix of emotions for some parents. You might feel relieved, sad, confused, guilty, happy, or angry. Or, perhaps finding out your child qualified might be a totally normal experience for you. Whatever you feel, know it is okay to feel that way. No matter what, there is no doubt that one question will absolutely rise to the surface: What’s next?
Receiving the news that your child qualifies is the first stepping stone to getting your child the support they need to be successful in school. From this moment, you will work with a team of select individuals to chart the way forward for your kid. Stephanie Moore, of Moore Special Education Consulting, walked us through what happens after qualification so we could share her insights with you, our readers.
Special Education Services: The Eligibility Meeting
The school will make the first move by sending you an email asking to schedule an eligibility meeting. In this email, they are not likely to tell you that your child has qualified for services. Instead, they will share that they want to review the data that has been collected from their time with your child and go over all of the findings in the testing. Note that schools will review testing data with parents and guardians no matter what, even if the child did not ultimately qualify for services.
On the day of the eligibility meeting, it is best to have all parents and guardians present, if possible. The school will come to the table with the special education director or the principal, the service provider who did the initial testing, and a special education teacher. This group of people is called the IEP (Individual Education Plan) team. The student is usually not present for the first meeting unless they are older (ie: in high school) and everyone feels comfortable with them joining.
During the meeting, the team will lay out all of the data with the family members who are present, piece by piece. This is a long and careful process, as the team wants to make sure the family understands all of the findings that the testing discovered.
In most states, the Department of Education has categorical requirements that a student must meet in order to be considered eligible. The team will go through each of these categories verbally, sharing whether or not the student has met the requirements to be eligible for services. Think of it kind of like a flow chart: If a student meets one requirement in a category, then they will proceed to the next one in that same category. If the student doesn’t meet the first requirement in a category, then the team will move on to the next category.
During this process, you may feel overwhelmed. That is okay. It might seem like you are being bombarded with new information from the team, but you, as the parent or guardian, do have a voice in this space. These meetings are meant to be a collaborative process, not a one-sided conversation. In fact, under the federal law FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education), you have a right to voice your opinion, concerns, and questions in these meetings.
Take a breath and take a moment to ask them everything you are wondering about. You might want to dig deeper into what the service provider saw in the testing that led to these conclusions or what the process will look like from here. Now is your time to really understand what is going on with your child and what the next steps are for them. Make sure to take that opportunity.
The Initial IEP Meeting
Once the IEP team has taken the time to go through the testing with you, they will hold a separate meeting to create the initial IEP. IEP stands for “Individualized Education Plan,” and it outlines a child’s needs alongside the support they will receive from the school.
The IEP will contain goals for your child based on their area(s) of need. This could include social-emotional goals, executive functioning goals, or reading fluency, to name a few. The goals are meant to act as reasonable, specific challenges that your child should work toward to improve their skills and learn more effectively.
It will also detail the appropriate accommodations and modifications. Accommodations level the playing field for all students so that they have access to the same materials and content. For example, an accommodation might give a student extended time on testing or ask that a project be broken into chunks. Modifications, such as reducing or changing the content a child is learning, change the playing field. Modifications are really only used for students with more serious disabilities.
The IEP will also expand on the service delivery the student will receive. Service delivery is the type of support the student will receive and how much they will receive of said support. The amount of time could be outlined by day, by week, or by month, and the student’s schedule will change to accommodate their new services.
The last aspect of the IEP is determining how much time the student will spend in the general education classroom versus the special education classroom. Under IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Act), Schools must follow LRE, which stands for the Least Restrictive Environment. LRE states that schools must put children receiving special education in the same classrooms as other children as much as possible. The IEP team will determine if your child should be in Gen Ed for 80% of the day, 40%-79% of the day, or less than 40% of the day. If you or your child have preferences about how much they should be in a Gen Ed classroom versus a SPED classroom, you should absolutely voice your thoughts to the IEP team.
Your Next Steps as a Parent
After the initial eligibility meeting, it is important to talk to your child about what was discussed. Their age, maturity, and results will determine how much detail you choose to go into. No matter how much you share, be sure to tell them that they will be getting extra support to help them be the best learner they can be in school.
It is essential to frame this conversation correctly. Implying that your child has a deficit, is insufficient, or is stupid can be very detrimental to them. Instead, try talking to them about how they learn differently than other students. Be sure to highlight both their strengths and areas of growth. Ultimately, be sure to let them know that just because a task is hard for them does not mean that they are not capable. It simply means that it might take them a little longer or be a little harder to complete that task. Emphasize that they are surely up for the challenge! It can also be beneficial to share that there are many other students just like them who receive the same help in schools in order to unlock their fullest potential.
Besides discussing the testing results with your child, you should also see what else you can do to support them from your end. The eligibility meeting is a perfect time to ask the team this very question. You may want to confirm whether or not they recommend doing any follow-up testing with medical professionals. Educational testing does not diagnose children in any capacity; it only lets the school and family know that the student qualifies for special education services. Therefore, if you want to know more details about whether or not your child has a medical diagnosis, you will need to see a medical doctor.
At Home Applications
Another great question to ask the IEP team is what parts of the IEP can be implemented at home. Many practices that teachers employ in the classroom can absolutely be beneficial to a student outside of the classroom as well. For example, if an IEP outlines how your child is struggling with executive functioning, adopt the organizational strategies in other areas of your child’s life as well. The IEP might recommend that the student carry a visual schedule with them to write down all of their homework. You can recreate this visual schedule at home to reemphasize organization and update it with the other aspects of the child’s life as well.
And lastly, try your best to observe. Take note of how your child is doing with these new accommodations. Reach out to teachers to check on their progress and see if they notice changes in behavior and performance. Talk to your child about how things are going and ask how they feel about school and their learning. If you have questions or concerns about any of the services, you can always reach out to the IEP team and schedule a meeting. Student accommodations are a work in progress, and they most likely will be amended multiple times throughout your child’s educational experience. You and your child can and should always be a part of that ongoing conversation.
No matter what your emotions, questions, and concerns are when you receive the news that your child qualifies for services, always remember this: qualifying is the first step on the journey to your child receiving the assistance they need in school. Unfortunately, public school systems are limited in that they are only really designed for certain types of learners. Just because your child does not fit into that “type” does not mean they don’t deserve a first-class education. These services will ultimately support and increase their learning ability and put them on the path to success, which is what we all want as an end goal. As a parent, ask questions, no thought should go unanswered. And know you have a support team around you to keep the conversation moving forward.
Sponsored by:
Stephanie Moore, M.S. Ed
Moore Special Education Consulting, LLC
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Yes, I just had an IEP meeting for my son to get speech services. The school was very supportive. The principal, his classroom teacher and the SPED teacher were all in the meeting. I felt very supported and they answered all my questions. It was good to see everyone on the same page in moving forward.