The Parents’ Place of Maryland
When you have a concern regarding your child’s special education and related services, the first thing you should do is request an IEP meeting. You can request one at any time in the year. When IEP teams think a conversation may be difficult or the meeting is not making progress, it may be helpful to have an independent, trained facilitator guide the process. The facilitator is an impartial person (who will treat the school and family equally) provided by MSDE (Maryland State Department of Education) through an independent agency to work with a student’s IEP team. IEP Facilitation is an optional process. Either the parent or the school may request a facilitated team meeting and both parties need to agree to participate. There is no cost for the service to the parents or school district.
When might you use a facilitator?
• You want to plan ahead and feel that a discussion in the IEP meeting may be challenging.
• You want help before relationships in the IEP team start to worsen.
• Multiple IEP meetings are not reaching resolution or completing a quality plan.
