{"id":45,"date":"2022-05-23T11:30:23","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T15:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/?p=45"},"modified":"2026-10-29T13:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T17:09:18","slug":"how-can-an-iep-team-work-together-if-key-players-wont-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/how-can-an-iep-team-work-together-if-key-players-wont-play\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can an IEP Team Work Together if Key Players Won&#8217;t Play?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/gallery\/share-button-gray.png\" style=\"border:0px\" alt=\"Share\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_border=\"#FFFFFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"wrightslaw\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"How%20Can%20an%20IEP%20Team%20Work%20Together%20if%20Key%20Players%20Won%27t%20Play%3F\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p><strong>Have you ever attended an IEP meeting that began well, but suddenly turned into complete chaos?<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px; float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/images\/mtg.sil.125.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"125\" height=\"111\" \/><strong>My child&#8217;s long awaited meeting to determine eligibility went from fantastic to horrible in 5 seconds flat!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My husband and I signed the evaluation consent forms in October. The team didn&#8217;t meet to review the reports until May.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting started off well. The team reviewed the evaluation reports and discussed eligibility. Note: During this discussion, an administrator left the room. The team quickly determined that my child met the state&#8217;s requirements for Autism Spectrum Disorder and that his medical diagnosis of Asperger&#8217;s Syndrome was educationally relevant.<\/p>\n<p>No one objected to anything. The team passed the eligibility form around the table for signatures. When the form was returned, it only had eight signatures. Eleven people were at the table.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Without warning, the meeting suddenly turned into complete chaos!<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The administrator returned, accompanied by her boss. People were writing notes while others talked on their phones. The &#8220;team&#8221; members who disagreed were silent but it was obvious who they were. The school and we were recording the meeting.<\/p>\n<p>The eligibility document that 8 team members had signed was ripped up and thrown away! The IEP meeting ended with no resolution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>My husband and I left the meeting shocked and confused<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">How can a team work together if key players won&#8217;t &#8220;play&#8221;?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sorry you had this experience &#8211; it happens more often than most people think. When parents have a negative experience, they are usually shocked. They don&#8217;t know why the meeting fell apart without resolving the issue. This is <strong>not<\/strong> how to enhance parent-school relationships. There are a couple of reasons why meetings fall apart. In your case, I think the reason is two-fold.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the team supported your request. A couple of people did not agree, so the team did not have consensus.<\/p>\n<p>They realized they had a problem. You were taping the meeting. Someone decided to resolve the dilemma by calling in the Special Ed or ESE director. Either this was the <strong>real<\/strong> decision-maker or they had another staff problem and didn&#8217;t know what to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You need to follow up with a polite, factual, business-like letter<\/strong> that describes the background, the purpose of the meeting, who attended, the split between members, the principal coming in, what sounds like confusion, the call to the ESE director, the meeting ending with no resolution, and what you were told.<\/p>\n<p>We call this the <strong>&#8220;Letter to the Stranger&#8221;<\/strong> because you are using it to make your case to a person who has decision-making authority and whom you may not know. The purpose of the letter is to persuade this &#8220;stranger&#8221; that your request is reasonable, so this person wants to right the wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Writing a good &#8220;Stranger&#8221; letter takes time, determination, and patience. If you can pull it off, it may resolve your problem.<\/p>\n<p>We wrote an article about &#8220;The Letter to the Stranger&#8221;. Read the article so you understand what you need to accomplish and who you are really writing to:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/advoc\/articles\/Letter_to_Stranger.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/advoc\/articles\/Letter_to_Stranger.html<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You may also read other articles and sample letters on this page:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/info\/ltrs.index.htm\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/info\/ltrs.index.htm<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever attended an IEP meeting that began well, but suddenly turned into complete chaos? My child&#8217;s long awaited meeting to determine eligibility went from fantastic to horrible in <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/how-can-an-iep-team-work-together-if-key-players-wont-play\/\">Continue Reading \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,57,18,7],"tags":[97,61,95,96],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-fape","category-ieps","category-legal-news","tag-disagreements","tag-iep-team-meetings","tag-letter-to-the-stranger","tag-paper-trail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27822,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/27822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrightslaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}