Melissa Eelman

EDU 450
IEP Meeting Reflection

The IEP meeting that I attended was for a student in my homeroom class as well as my

reading class. This IEP meeting was a three-year reevaluation of the IEP. The student was not

present at the meeting or involved in the process. There were a variety of people present at

meeting. The student’s mother and father were in attendance along with the student’s case

manager, the district psychologist, the principal, the homeroom teacher (my mentor), and myself.

The resource room teacher/case manager led the meeting. She stated the purpose of the meeting

and offered the parents a copy of the parental rights and responsibilities. The agenda of the

meeting was straightforward. First, the recent test results were shared and discussed with the

parents. This student had a significant decrease in scores, so possible reasons for this were

discussed. Possibilities discussed were lead poisoning leading to memory loss and possible

injury. The injury was ruled out, but the mother will follow up with the student’s doctor. The

scores were low across the board on the Wechsler intelligence scale for children-5th edition.

These scores indicate that there are no “high points”, the student is working as hard as possible to

be successful, therefore the student no longer qualifies for an IEP under specific learning

disability. The staff and parents were discouraged because this student clearly benefited from

special education services and was just starting to become more confident. The classroom

teacher also provided some assessment results that were briefly discussed. The student’s

improvement in reading was highlighted.

Following the discussion of the score results, was a discussion of the services that would be

offered to the student since there were changes being made. Since the student no longer

qualifies for special education services, they will return to the general education classroom for
math. This is a challenge because the student is several grade levels behind in math. This student

tries extremely hard and is slowly gaining confidence. The parents and teachers feared that

pulling the student from special education and introducing them into a math class where they

missed half the year, would cause the student to lose that confidence

To prevent this student from losing confidence and to help provide accessible learning materials,

we will modify instruction and provide additional support. My mentor teacher and I will be

working with the student one on one using a 3rd-grade math curriculum and the student will be

receiving math intervention in three, 30-minute sessions throughout the week. The student’s

mother also asked how she can help at home and it was decided that she will provide the student

with basic math practice to increase fact fluency. It was also discussed how the student will be

supported at the middle school next year. The student will continue to receive Read 180 as a

reading intervention. Math will potentially be accessed through a Math 180 program, but the

teachers were unsure if this is available in 6th grade. In addition, the classroom teacher and

interventionists will continue to track assessment data to send to the middle school.

Overall this meeting was official but also laid back, the attendees had some casual conversations

though it was always related to the student in some way. I learned a lot about the IEP process

and how meetings are conducted. When I have IEP meetings for students it will be important to

be organized and have plenty of data available. It will also be important to have a plan in mind

to collaborate with the parents and other staff members to advocate for the student and provide

the necessary support.