This Year IS Next Year: Back to School Advice for Parents of Students with Special Needs

For many parents and students August means that thoughts turn to back-to-school sales on clothes and school supplies.  While those items are on the minds of parents of students with special needs, they often have much weightier things on their minds; how to make this school year experience significantly better and different than last year. At the annual review IEP at the end of last school year, schools often make promises that the issues from last year or the unmet goals will be accomplished, or progress will be made, next (school) year.  Well it is time to make good on those promises and representations, as this year IS next year.  Those promises need to have more meaning than the average New Year’s resolution.  Here are my thoughts on some things to consider, as an attorney who practices in the area of special education law, at the start of this new school year: