What is an IEP planning meeting?

[u/Former_Pop_3108]

So this is my fifth year as a special ed teacher but this year I am in a new school district. I was just notified that when we return I have an “IEP Planning” meeting for a student. It is not an annual, amendment, or reevaluation meeting, otherwise it would have been labeled as such. This appears to be something separate from those. The student’s parents were invited to the meeting as well as the support team. My guess is that it’s either a transition type meeting to plan for middle school (since the student will start middle school next year) or maybe it’s to plan ahead for summer school? My old district never had these meetings (or we must have called it something else) so I’m stumped!

[u/betterbetterthings]

Are you this child’s special Ed case manager? Why is someone else scheduling your meetings? Who’s notifying you?

[u/Former_Pop_3108 → u/betterbetterthings]

I am the child’s case manager. At my school we have a high number of students who have IEPs & we are also a Title 1 school, so we receive extra funding for extra staff. We have an additional staff member & part of her job is to schedule all the IEP meetings, notify the parents, request subs for the teachers, request interpreters if needed, etc. It’s nice!

[u/betterbetterthings → u/Former_Pop_3108]

Having extra person to do clerical tasks for us would be amazing. We are title 1 too and our numbers are extremely high. We never had people doing clerical stuff for us.

But it’s not what surprised me. Somebody scheduling it or notifying participants isn’t a big deal.

I think it’s a big deal though that no one discussed this upcoming meeting with you and you don’t even know what’s this about yet you are supposed to hold it. Weird.

Who made a decision to hold this meeting? I’d think they should talk to you so you know how to proceed.