Partnering with Parents of Special Needs Students: Barriers to Collaboration

Meetings that are difficult for parents may occur in many contexts (e.g., report card conferences, prereferral intervention teams, special education eligibility teams), and may produce powerful emotions. Some may even include lawyers or advocates with tape-recorded proceedings, resulting in defensiveness on the part of both parents and educators. In this article, the authors examine historical, legal, financial, and interpersonal factors that may contribute to these uncomfortable and at times adversarial encounters between parents of students with special needs and the school system.