Your Guide To A Productive, Pain Free Special Education Meeting | Education

By DeborahWalker,M.Ed.
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It's a fact. If you're a special education teacher, you need to know how to moderate meetings. If your meeting is going to go smoothly, you need to prepare ahead of time. I've put together a 13-step blueprint to help you out.

1. The key to a smooth meeting is advanced preparation. All of the necessary paperwork, as determined by the type of meeting, as well as state and national regulations, can be done ahead of time. At a minimum the paperwork you need to prepare will be a written prior notice ( aka attendance sign-in) form, parental rights, and something to take minutes on.

2. Two or three days prior to the meeting, make contact with all team members either by phone, in person or email. This is just to remind them of the meeting and confirm that they are ready with their input. Don't forgot to touch base with the parents, too.

3. An agenda will help you keep the meeting on track. Most people like knowing exactly what needs to be discussed before they can leave. Running a meeting is not a group activity. It's your job to make sure you don't get sidetracked and that you end on time.

4. Where is the meeting being held? Make sure people on the team know about this. Be sure the space is reserved, if that's procedure for your school. Most schools that I've worked in have a space issue. If that's the case in your school, you'll need to get creative about possible confidential meeting locations. I typically use a conference room, the principal's office, the library or the speech room if my classroom is occupied.

5. So, now you've gotten your space reserved, confirmed time, date and place with the other team members, and all of your paperwork is finished. At the start of the meeting you may need to go over ground rules for behavior. Some teams can be quite contentious and get into things like personal attacks. If your meeting might veer off in that direction, take a precautionary measure and remind participants that the meeting will be civil, including speaking one at a time, no swearing or personal attacks, or whatever you think needs to be stated.

6. Right before the meeting begins, if you haven't done this beforehand, make sure the secretary knows where to send people when they come in. And, if you think the meeting might get emotional and teary, make sure you've got a box of Kleenex available.

7. The sign-in form needs to be signed or initialed by each team member. Don't forget to have late arrivals sign in. I usually do the sign-in sheet as people arrive and then pass it to late arrivals during the meeting.

8. Once all team members are accounted for, do introductions, if needed. Then----it's showtime!

9. Go through the agenda, remind people of the end time, and go over the "rules of engagement" (no I don't really call them that at my meetings. The meetings where I do have to discuss this aren't really the place for a comedy act, if you know what I mean!).

10. Between 15-20 minutes prior to your scheduled ending time, put the team on notice that you only have a few minutes left.

11. Thank everyone for coming and make sure to get all of the copies of draft documents back and the signatures you need before people walk out the door.

12. Running a meeting can be difficult. Preparing what you can in advance leads to a less stressful meeting (at least for me) 9 out of 10 times. When I first started teaching and holding meetings, I wasn't really comfortable in that role. Over time, with practice, meetings aren't so scary anymore. Just remember, nobody is born knowing how to run a meeting.

13. Make sure you get the meeting minutes back from the person who took them for you before you leave.

About the Author

Deborah Walker teaches special education to middle school students with significant disabilities. She lives in northern New Hampshire with her family. Go to Special-Education-Teacher-Resources.com for more great resources.

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