Special Education Advocacy: Building a More Collaborative Relationship With Your School District

In my special education practice, parents come to my office even before they have met with their school district about services for their special needs child expecting there to be a battle.  While I spend much of my practice assisting parents in their disputes with their school districts, it is usually in a parents’ best interest to try not to have an adversarial relationship with their school district. The parent and the school district may have a relationship up until the child is 21 years old. While there are times when becoming adversarial is absolutely necessary, I typically advise my clients to attempt initially to work together with the school district and have seen much success when this occurs. 

In my experience, there are four common barriers that hinder a cooperative relationship:

1. Parents and school district personnel not understanding their legal obligations:  Parents not understanding that they are not entitled to the “best” program under the law, and districts not understanding their obligations to provide services for the individual “unique” needs of each student.

2. There are also limited resources: The school has a budget, and parents also have a budget in what they can spend to supplement their child’s education. 

3. There also are “turf wars” with the district personnel believing they are the “expert” and not understanding or undervaluing the input of the parent, and the parent believing that they are the “expert” and misunderstanding or undervaluing that the school personnel are trained, went to school and do have experience and expertise in certain areas.

4. Lastly, a largest barrier that I see is coming to the table with a preconceived or a predetermined program, without either the school district personnel or the parent really listening to one another and developing a plan together based on those discussions.

In order to build a more cooperative relationship and a partnership between the district and the parents both sides there really needs to be four basic things:

1. Understanding that there is a mutual goal: the appropriate education of the child and for the child to succeed!  Nobody wants the child to fail or not make progress.

2. That there is a shared responsibility in the education of the child: the full responsibility to education the child is not all on the school district, the parent has this responsibility as well.

3. That there needs to be good communication. The parent needs to feel that the district is listening to their concerns and is taking these concerns seriously, and has not predetermined a program.  The district needs to feel that the parent is willing to listen to their suggestions based on their experience and sometimes try a program that the district suggests even if it is a different program than the parent thought, and that the parent is not going to sue or threaten to sue the school district every step of the way.

4. Lastly, both the parents and the district need to understand their obligations, rights and entitlements under the law so neither side has unrealistic expectations.

There are times when we must become adversarial to protect our children’s rights. Nevertheless, there are also times when disputes can be resolved collaboratively and without significant legal intervention.  I have seen great success when parents and school districts listen to each other and work cooperatively to build a meaningful special education program for the child.  While it is not always possible to do this successfully (I wouldn’t have much of a practice if it always worked), in my experience the families who attempt to work collaboratively have had better success.