Confirm Action Items By Email After IEP Meeting

We have ended IEP meetings with agreements as to certain action items for the district personnel to address before the next IEP meeting only for the IEP team to meet again weeks later without any progress on those action items. It is quite frustrating for parents to have their child’s IEP needs disregarded by the district personnel in such a way, especially when the district members of the team have agreed to take the action before the next IEP meeting. It happens more than it should. To avoid such a problem, we like to all confirm action items by email after the IEP meeting.

For instance, if the IEP team was unable to write certain goals because it lacked the child’s present levels of progress, it might be agreed at the IEP meeting that a specific team member would do the baseline assement and then the team would come back together with the needed information to draft the goals at issue. In order to avoid any failures in this regard, we like to get some details from the district during the meeting by asking things such as “who will be responsible for assessing the student”, “when will the assessment take place”, and “can we get a copy of the assessment results by the end of that week”. We might then ask that such information be included in the IEP notes.

After the IEP meeting, we would then send out a follow-up email to the IEP team thanking them for the cooperative meeting and confirming the agreed-upon action items. For example, the email might state, "Thank you for today's IEP meeting. We just wanted to confirm the IEP team agreed that Mrs. W would be assessing my student’s present levels in X area by Y date and it was further agreed that she would send us the results of that assessment by the end of that week so we will have it before the next IEP meeting on Z date." We would include any other action items in this email and do so in a bullet-point fashion, making sure each person with an action item is copied on the email.

If we did not get the information by the date agreed upon, we would send out a reminder to that team member and ask when we could expect the information along with a friendly reminder as to the IEP team's agreement at the last IEP meeting in this regard and of any upcoming IEP meeting date for which the information is needed.

We like to do this for all sorts of action items, including prior written notices, assessment requests, information requests, etc. In addition, it might be a good idea to use a different color pen or highlighter to emphasize the action items in your notes as you go through the meeting so you can verbally summarize all the action items prior to the end of the meeting, including who was responsible for each item and when the action item would be completed and any resulting information shared.

The district members of your IEP team are very busy, as are most parents, so its best to prevent the wasting of everyone's time by allowing team members to show up without the needed information. Of course, we like to make sure that all our communications are friendly and offered in a helpful way.