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.
