On April 10, 2025, the Department of Public Instruction (department) received a complaint under state and federal special education law from #### (parents) against the #### (school). This is the department’s decision regarding that complaint. The issues are whether the school, beginning April 10, 2024, properly conducted an individualized education program (IEP) team meeting, including providing the student’s parents meaningful opportunities to participate in the IEP team meetings.
The school is a public independent charter school authorized under Wisconsin law and is not affiliated with any public school district. The school serves students from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The school must comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as a local education agency (LEA).
LEAs must take steps to ensure that parents of a child with a disability are present at each IEP team meeting, including evaluation meetings, or are afforded the opportunity to participate. LEA staff must notify parents of IEP team meetings early enough to ensure they will have an opportunity to attend and ensure the meeting is scheduled for a mutually agreeable time and place. 34 CFR § 300.322(a)(1).
On April 8 and 10, 2024, the school administrator sent an email to the parents inviting them to attend a virtual IEP team meeting on April 10, 2024, at 3:00 p.m. The parents responded to the April 10, 2024, email and said that they were unable to attend the meeting on that short notice, but could attend a meeting the following day. The IEP team met without the parents in order to meet the one-year timeframe for conducting an annual review of the student’s IEP. Shortly after the April 10, 2024, IEP meeting, the student’s parents unenrolled them from the school and began homeschooling them.
The school should have rescheduled the April 10, 2024, meeting in order to afford the student’s parents an opportunity to participate after receiving the parent’s notification they were not able to attend the meeting and requesting to reschedule. Because the department is unable to determine whether other contacts were made since staff are no longer employed at the school and the parent did not respond to contacts from the investigator, no corrective action is required.
This concludes our review of this complaint. This decision is final for the IDEA State Complaint process. These issues may be addressed through other dispute resolutions, including mediation and due process hearings. For more information, visit the department’s website at http://dpi.wi.gov/sped/dispute-resolution or contact the special education team at (608) 266-1781.
For questions about this information, contact dpispeddata@dpi.wi.gov (608) 266-1781