Leaderboard

I like to do most of my communicating outside of the meeting. What I mean by that is that I always write a Parent Concerns letter prior to the meeting and give it to the team a week or two beforehand. Here's a great template to get you started https://adayinourshoes.com/parent-concerns-on-the-iep-parent-letter-of-attachment/. I also regularly communicate with all of the team members, usually by email, throughout the school year, not just at IEP time. I share with them goals and progress that my child makes in outside therapies and ask what he's working on and doing in school services. The last thing I do is ask for a draft IEP and any reports, evaluations, etc. that the team will be using in the meeting. (In my state there is no requirement that they provide these beforehand but I find that they usually comply if I ask). Typically, the more I prepare and participate in and out of meetings, the less anxious I am about the whole process. If that doesn't help though, I would reach out to my state's parent training and support center and/or consider hiring an advocate to help me through the process. Sometimes just having someone that "speaks the language" can change the entire tone of the meeting.