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Letter 9: Request for Evaluation Reports and Any Draft IEP Before the Meeting

When to Use It

Send this letter the day an IEP meeting is scheduled. You cannot meaningfully discuss a psychoeducational report you are reading for the first time at the table. The IDEA makes you a required member of the team and guarantees your opportunity to participate in meetings about your child’s identification, evaluation, and placement (34 C.F.R. §§ 300.321(a)(1), 300.322, 300.501). Participation you cannot prepare for is participation in name only.

Two more hooks. The records rule requires the district to let you inspect and review records without unnecessary delay and before any meeting regarding an IEP (34 C.F.R. § 300.613(a)). And while federal law neither requires nor forbids a draft IEP, nothing stops you from asking for one. If the district has prepared a draft, ask to see it in advance - seeing it before the meeting is what informed participation means. Some states set a specific number of days before the meeting by which reports or draft IEPs must be provided. Check yours.

Send it to: the person who scheduled the meeting - case manager, IEP team chairperson, or CSE chairperson - with a copy to the director of special education.