5. Make a List of Five Important Things About Your Child.

Make a list of five important things that the teacher(s) needs to know about your child. Explain why these things are essential to your child's success. Include a brief description about how changes in the school routine, the classroom, or the teacher affected your child last year. Provide each teacher with a copy of this list.

6. Prepare to Deal with Potential Problems Early.

Is your child in general education classes? If so, the teachers may say they want to see how your child "gets along" before changing their approach or their class rules. Teachers often take this position because they want to give each child a fresh start. Thank the teacher for explaining the reasoning behind their position. In a few weeks, you will know if it's necessary to explain why your child's success depends on receiving the special education and related services, and accommodations in the IEP.

Children with disabilities often have problems when their routines and environments change. If your child is affected by changes, it is realistic to expect that this will happen again if COVID-19 causes disruptions at school.

Prepare your children to expect changes. Remind them early and often that their routine and environment may change. Make up possible scenarios. Ask what they will do in these scenarios. You want your child to learn resilience and how to keep their emotions under control. Your expectations will depend, in large part, on your child's age and maturity level.

7. Resolve Old Concerns and Issues.

If you have unresolved concerns or issues with the school, request an IEP meeting now, before the issues can mushroom out of control. If your child was affected by changes caused by the pandemic, the same problems may crop up again this year. Address your concerns at the IEP meeting. Your goal is to resolve problems before your child has similar problems this year.

8. Get New Assessments.

How much school did your child miss during the school closures? Since some schools closed for months and many closed for the academic year, you and the team need to determine the amount of regression and lost educational skills. The only way to answer questions about learning loss and regression accurately is with new assessments of your child's academic skills. Academic achievement tests measure your child's skills in reading, written language, and mathematics. (See Chapter 5 "Academic Achievement Assessments" in Wrightslaw: All About Tests and Assessments, 2nd Ed.).

If your child's academic achievement levels were tested last year, you can compare those scores with scores obtained on the same test(s) this year to determine your child's progress or lack of progress during the school closures.

If this year's academic achievement scores, as measured by standard scores and percentile ranks, are lower than last year's scores, this is evidence that your child regressed, lost previously learned skills, did not learn new skills, and/or did not make progress during the last academic year.

While group achievement tests are not a substitute for an individualized evaluation, these specific scores will give you a good sense of your child's progress or lack of progress during the school closures. (See Chapter 3, Your Child's Evaluations, in Wrightslaw: From Emotions to Advocacy).

9. Go to your school's Open House.

Attending the school's Open House has several benefits. You will have another chance to meet with your child's teachers (and make a good impression). Teachers often explain their classroom rules during Open House. When you know the classroom rules, you will know if your child is likely to have trouble understanding the rules. If you know the rules, you will have opportunities to explain the classroom rules to your child.

10. Use email for important communications.

Use email to send important messages to the teachers. Your email history will create a "contact log" of parent-school communications. Never let your child be the "messenger" between you and the school about problems.

Make sure your emails have lots of carrier returns, are easy to read and understand, and do not contain typos, which are visually and mentally distracting to the recipient. Your word processing program includes grammar check and spell check tools. Make good use of these tools.

Do not overwhelm teachers with daily emails unless you and the teacher have agreed to communicate daily. Save email for important issues that must be addressed quickly. Address less important concerns and updates in one email at the end of a week or longer.

Remember: During the pandemic, teachers got hundreds, if not thousands, of emails a week from parents, students, other teachers, and administrators. If you send daily emails, you may be viewed as the mom who cried "wolf." Teachers won't want to read your emails and may miss that one important email you sent.