Pursuant to 34 CFR.321(e), a member of the IEP team may not be required to attend the meeting or may be excused from attending the meeting with the written agreement and consent of the Parent/Guardian/Adult Student. In Greenville County Schools, it is expected when the Case Manager, in consultation with the parent, sets a date and time for conducting an IEP meeting, that sufficient time for the meeting is scheduled and that the full complement of required IEP team members will be present for the meeting. With this expectation, excusing a team member from an IEP meeting should be a rare occurrence and not a routine practice for IEP teams in Greenville County Schools. Excusals are not permitted for individuals serving in the roles of LEA and primary special education teacher, which in most cases is the student's Case Manager, at anytime.
Case Managers should work closely with all service providers to ensure their availability to participate in a meeting. Using the Outlook calendar is an excellent way to communicate with all school-based team members in scheduling a meeting.
Allowing IEP team members to be excused from IEP meetings is intended to provide additional flexibility to parents in scheduling IEP team meetings and to avoid delays in holding meetings when a team member cannot attend for some unexpected reason. Written agreement and consent are needed to excuse required members of the IEP team. If a member is excused by written agreement and it becomes evident during the IEP meeting that the absence of the excused member inhibits the development of the IEP, the team must reconvene after the needed information is obtained.
This written agreement and parent consent can be obtained through completion of the Team Member Excusal form in Enrich IEP. Best practice would call for the Notice of the Meeting and the excusal request form to be sent to the parents a minimum of five days prior to the meeting. If an LEA requests the excusal of a team member at the last minute or the parent needs additional time or information to consider the request, the parent always has the right not to agree or consent to the excusal. The provision of the excusal procedures and form should not be viewed as an avenue to routinely excuse required team members.
If a required member, whose area of the curriculum or related services is being discussed or modified, has not provided input into the development of the IEP in writing prior to the meeting, and has not been excused from the IEP team meeting by consent of the parent, the LEA must reschedule the meeting at a mutually agreeable time when all required members can be present or a proper excusal can be completed. To conduct an IEP meeting without all of the required IEP team members present or without executing the appropriate excusal process is not appropriate.
To continue to the next step in the IEP Process: Consideration of Special Factors, click Next below.
IEP Process IEP Team Participation and Excusals