Pete and Pam Wright are adjunct professors at William & Mary Law School where they co-teach a Special Education Law class and consult with the PELE Special Education Advocacy Clinic. Clinic students assist children with special needs and their families with eligibility or Individualized Education Program meetings, discipline matters, mediation, and administrative hearings.
Clinic students observed school district attorneys at some IEP meetings. Some attorneys were helpful. Others were adversarial. The law does not include attorneys as members of the child’s IEP team, so the students asked this question: “Can school attorneys legally attend IEP team meetings?”
What do you think?
Jeff Martin, parent of a child with a disability and law student in the PELE Clinic, offered to research the issue and write a legal memorandum to answer this question:
Whether an attorney for the school can legally attend
an IEP team meeting?
Jeff found information that supported his position that, in general, parent and school attorneys should not attend IEP meetings. A Policy Letter from the U.S. Department of Education to Senator Hillary Senator supported his position. Jeff’s Memorandum includes an Action Plan for PELE Clinic to use when dealing with school attorneys at IEP meetings.
Read Jeff’s Memorandum: http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/memos/atty.iep.martin.pdf
Letter to Clinton: http://www.ed/gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/letters/2001-3/clinton072330iep.doc
The Letter to Clinton is also available at http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/osep/usdoe.clinton.iep.pdf
Tags: Attorney Roles · IEP Meeetings · IEP Team Members · Jeff Martin · Law Clinic · parent participation · PELE Special Education Clinic11 Comments
VA Action Alert!
11 responses so far ↓
My son’s school district began bringing their attorney to IEP meetings following an incident where my son was assaulted by staff. The Director of Special services informed us that the attoney was there to “answer any legal questions the parents may have”.
We had no choice but to eventually bring an attorney to represent my son’s legal rights. The school frequently lists one attorney on the invitation but brings two. We are told that “they do not have to disclose the number of attorneys they bring”.
These attorneys actively misrepresent laws and safeguards. ie.”New legislation has passed and Power of Attorney is no longer recognized by the school district as a legal document”. The minutes even captured this “New Legislation”.
POA is only recognized for life/death and financial decisions.
……….Really?
Based on information on the State Department of Education, South Carolina, spent over $6,000,000.00 on attorney fees in 2008.
I realize that all of this is not for special education cases but a portion of it is.
Based on the IDEA act, any program or “service” proposed by a public school district must offer an educational improvement for the child; yet, our public schools are allowed to allocate funds (that have to be taken from special education and education funds), to pay their attorneys.
I can only speak from our personal experience. In 2008 alone, our school district spent nearly $300,000.00 in legal fees. The school district brought attorneys to regular IEP meetings during this time. The same school district provided 0% academic instruction for my child since 2004 and up until 2008.
This should be a violation of the IDEA.
Attorneys welcome. Informed parents not allowed
Can a parent who has filed due process be forbidden to attend an IEP for another student as a support to the parent ?
This person has a child with the same diagnosis as the child that the IEP is for, and personally knows the family.
At the advice of the school’s attorney, the IEP is rescheduled until the attorney checks with the State Department of Education to see if there are regs that prohibit this person from attending the IEP meeting.
This is very interesting. Our school district in SC often brings at least two attorneys to any given IEP meeting. At one IEP meeting, only one attorney was listed on the invitation. The second attorney not only had no knowledge of my child’s diagnosis, history, or programs offered, but also blatantly misquoted the law to us. We did correctly state the law and our rights, as learned through Wright’s Law, but with an IEP team depending on being given factual information by district lawyers and not knowing the law themselves, it made it very difficult for us to advocate for our son. The attorneys did send a letter stating that we had been correct in the meeting - but this was outside of the meeting and after the fact. In a district that claims to have no money, how can $200,000.00 + be spent a year by one district on attorney fees?
At the very least, if attorneys are attending IEP’s on behalf of school districts, they should be subject to cross examination in any subsequent due process proceeding. (Which usually means under the attorneys code of professional conduct they cannot also represent the district). However, that was not the recent ruling in a case I had with our school district. The attorney, though claiming special knowledge about the child, was not required to share what that knowledge was though he was permitted to participate in making decisions regarding the child’s IEP. Instead, it was determined that the district’s special education supervisor could state what it was the attorney knew! (hearsay?)
I agree that attorneys attending IEP meetings should be subject to subpoena and cross examination in subsequent due process hearings. If they want to attend under the premise of being an “individual with special knowledge or expertise regarding the child”, then they should be required to share that knowledge with the parents if the parents request it. They are no different than any other IEP Team member then who would be required to testify.
I agree that they should be able to be cross examined, etc. in a due process hearing. In our situation they sign their name to the IEP just as every other member of the team. Are they not then a part of the team?
It is mind boggling that even with the IDEA and attorney ethics, school attorneys who posses knowledge of a school district actively denying a child a FAPE and other questionable practices, how they even have an “Option” to protect the school district at the expense of the child.
There has to be a way for the IDEA to actually protect the rights of our kids…….
For someone to be at the IEP meeting, they must appear on the prior written notice of the meeting (the invitation). This rule applies for BOTH parent and school. So what do you do if someone is on the invitation for the meeting that you do not approve of? Contact the school immediately and request information about why that person needs to be at the meeting. If necessary, tell them you will not accept that person being at the meeting. Legally the meeting cannot occur until a compromise is reached either informally or via due process.
The same is true for bringing an extra person to the meeting. If he or she was not on the invite, both parties must agree that person may attend. If one side does not agree that person MUST leave. This is why prior written notice is so crucial. If it is vague or unclear question it BEFORE THE MEETING.
Prior Written Notice
We were not sure what this was until we began advocating for our son.
Under 34 CFR §300.503(a), the school district must give you a written notice (information received in writing), whenever the school district: (1) Proposes to begin or change the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of your child or the provision of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to your child; or (2) Refuses to begin or change the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of your child or the provision of FAPE to your child. The required content under 34 CFR §300.503(b) is listed below in this model form. The school district must provide the notice in understandable language (34 CFR §300.503(c)).
Our district passes off an outside contractor lawyer as a compliance officer and we ended up at an IEP without representation as we were unaware she was an attorney.