Confidentiality: IEP PRIVACY

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Cheryl:  Shouldn’t IEP accommodations/SDIs be confidential between teachers/parents and THE student. Teachers are openly discussing my student’s IEP accommodations/SDI in front of classroom students and singling out my student. Isn’t this wrong?

  1. Absolutely this is wrong & illegal. I would schedule an IEP meeting right away & discuss to have it stop.

  2. This might be a FERPA violation. You may want to consider alerting your child’s case manager, principal and/or special education director to the situation by writing an email to share your concern and request that those discussions take place outside classmates’ hearing. Tip #1 — style: be polite, use a neutral tone, report what you saw or heard, describe your child’s feelings, don’t threaten, avoid using legal language, state that you are concerned and look forward to a response within three school days, use a spell checker, draft the message and edit it carefully at least 30 minutes later before hitting “send.”

  3. Cheryl, IEPs should be confidential within reason. Teachers and related service providers need to know what they are supposed to do, general ed teachers need to be aware of accommodations in the students’ IEPs.
    I don’t know what your role is. If you are a teacher / aide/ RSP, you need to document what these breaches of confidentiality in a memo to the special ed director / supervisor and school principal. Your school district may be organized with more admins with authority to intervene and clarify the confidentiality requirements to the teachers who discuss this student’s needs, etc.

    • We have a school district conducting IEP meetings in the youth area of the Public Library. I have questioned the legality of this many times. How do we address this?

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