AVOIDING SPECIAL-EDUCATION DUE-PROCESS HEARINGS - LESSONS FROM THE FIELD

School personnel often find that parents are dissatisfied with their c hild's special education program. What individualized education progra m (IEP) teams do to prevent and handle parents' discontent helps deter mine if dissatisfaction will turn into a protracted, acrimonious legal battle or an opportunity to improve the student's program and the rel ationship between the school staff and the parents. In this article, I provide IEP teams with practical guidelines and implementation strate gies for preventing and responding to parents' dissatisfaction about t heir child's special education program.