MSEA helps win new flexibility and important clarifications in the “Five Day Rule” for IEP meetings

In 2010, the General Assembly passed legislation requiring parents to receive copies of assessment reports five days in advance of IEP team meetings.  Since then MSEA has heard from educators about “the five day rule” and the difficulty that schools have had complying with it. 

Unfortunately, the law has been interpreted differently in each county and sometimes the implementation has been different from principal to principal.  Some counties have spent a great deal of limited resources to send the materials via certified mail when materials could be emailed to parents. Without clarity from the state, county school boards have been reluctant to open themselves up to possible liability.

Support for special education teachers varies widely from county to county, exacerbating the difficulty of complying with the rule. Several counties have created staff positions or have recruited parent volunteers to manage the paperwork and other time consuming tasks, such as scheduling IEP meetings. Some have staff whose job is solely to conduct student assessments or have added clerical positions to relieve the special education teacher of copying and mailing documents. While educators appreciate the assistance that some counties have provided on the clerical end, this is not a long-term fix and represents a huge outlay of resources that wasn’t recognized in the 2010 fiscal note.

We know that parents are essential partners on school teams, and we want them to be able to participate fully in the IEP process. However, the way that the five day rule has been interpreted has created a new burden on educators and has proven costly for local school systems. MSEA and other coalition partners brought this issue to the attention of the bill’s sponsor and worked to create a solution to this problem. The final bill, House Bill 596, included MSEA amendments that clarified that parents can opt out of receiving documents five days before the IEP meeting if they will not be useful.  Additionally, the amendments clarified that documents will be translated for blind parents and can be delivered via email or by student backpack, saving educators’ time and school system resources.

The proposed change will provide educators, school psychologists, and other school-based professionals a little more time to meet demanding assessment caseloads, while fully preserving the right of parents to receive copies of assessment reports prior to IEP team meetings. The passage of this legislation is thanks to the 3,000 MSEA activists who contacted their legislators by sending emails and calling them to ask for clarification on this important issue.