The district encourages parental involvement and sharing of information between district and parents to support the provision of appropriate services to its students. As used in these procedures, the term “parent” includes biological and adoptive parents, legal guardians, persons acting in the place of a parent, such as relatives and stepparents, foster parents, persons appointed as surrogate parents and adult students.

Parents (and as appropriate, students) will be provided the opportunity to participate in any meetings with respect to the identification, evaluation, educational placement and provision of a FAPE*.

When a meeting is scheduled parents will be:

• Notified of the meeting early enough that they will have an opportunity to attend; and
• Notified of the purpose, time, and location of the meeting and who will be in attendance.

When the meeting is to address the IEP* or placement, the parent will be:

• Notified that the district or the parent may invite others who have knowledge or special expertise of the student; and
• Meetings shall be scheduled at a mutually agreeable time and place
• The district shall take whatever action is necessary to ensure that the parent understands the proceedings of the IEP team meeting, including arranging for an interpreter for parents with deafness or whose native language is other than English
• The staff person responsible for inviting the parents to meetings will keep documentation of the information provided and the methods used to notify the parents of the meeting. The district may proceed with the IEP or placement meeting if the district is not able to convince the parent to attend. In this case, the district will document its attempts to arrange the meeting. This documentation will include records of telephone calls and the results, copies of correspondence sent to the parent and/or other means used to contact the parent
• This documentation will be kept in the student’s special education file

If the parent cannot attend the IEP or placement meeting but wishes to participate, the district will arrange for other means to participate. This can include individual or conference phone calls, video, or other means of conferencing.

A meeting does not include informal or unscheduled conversations involving district personnel; conversations on issues such as teaching methodology, lesson plans, coordination of service provisions; or preparatory activities that district personnel engage in to develop a proposal or a response to a parent proposal to be discussed at a later meeting.

*See the Special Education Terms & Definitions page for more information.

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