How to best address school officials that are telling parents to NOT bring an advocate to IEP meetings

[Jennifer Spears]

I am a special ed advocate in a small town in northern NY. I have the school principal and the school special ed chair telling parents that they shouldn't bring me in as an advocate to meetings, that "the school has a solid plan, you don't need an advocate to "stir things up"."

Has anyone ever dealt with this? Any suggestions for how to address this with the school administration?

Thank you in advance,

Jennifer

[Carolyn Rowlett]

It sounds like they're just strongly discouraging this, rather than flat out denying it (which hopefully means they know the law).  The parents need to respond to Notices of Meeting that they are bringing their advocate.  If they get a response in return either discouraging this or flat out denying it, they need to respond "thank you for your suggestion, but we will still be bringing our advocate as the IDEA allows parents to bring whoever they want to the IEP meeting."

[JSD24]

IMO, coaching the parent ahead of time can mean you can sit back & watch the parent advocate.  You can offer a reminder here & there and let the parent do the speaking - or at least most of it.  Maybe, when the parent feels they can't advocate, they can turn to you and ask you to 'please cover this - you know how to say this better than I can' where you pinch hit when they request.  I also like what Carolyn said:  "thank you for your suggestion, but we will still be bringing our advocate as the IDEA allows parents to bring whoever they want to the IEP meeting."