High-Leverage Practice 2: Collaborate

I am going to discuss High-Leverage Practices as mentioned on the CEC website organized around four aspects of practice. I hope you will join in the conversation!

“HLP2- Organize and facilitate effective meetings with professionals and families.”

One of the scariest things I had to do as a new teacher was to set up and facilitate a meeting with other professionals and families. Luckily, I had an interim principal (filling in for my principal who was on medical leave) who was a great role model and ran my first meeting for me. I took lots of notes on the procedure and who she handled the meeting. Many years later, when I began teaching preservice teachers, I tried to do the same thing. We had mock meetings so they could feel comfortable when the real situation occurred. Then I started coming up with a “recipe” of sorts on how to facilitate the meeting.

Of course, the district has specific procedures on the invitation paperwork, who to invite, and deadlines to follow. Once everyone is invited, the date and time set, it is time to figure out what to do next.

I also ask someone to take minutes of the meeting while I run the meeting. These minutes are official notes about our meeting, and I ask everyone to sign them at the end of the meeting.

Agenda: Before we meet, I like to come up with an agenda to follow during the meeting. This helps keep everyone on track during the meeting and helps it go smoothly. I usually make contact with the parents before the meeting to see if there are any issues, they would like to address during the meeting so I can add it to the agenda.

Greeting and Introductions – After everyone is seated, I like to introduce myself if necessary and then ask everyone around the room to introduce themselves and state their positions.

Meeting Agenda – I review the agenda and then ask everyone if they have anything to add to the agenda. I also make it clear that we will not meet more than 1 hour and if it goes longer, we will need to reconvene so that we can cover all the items on the agenda.

Review IEP goals – I always like to review the goals and tell how the student is progressing.

Other professionals – I ask that the other professionals if they have anything they would like to add.

Issues – If there are any issues, we go over each one of them. I like to address the issues from the parents first in case we run out of time. I want them to feel that their issues are important to us and that we will address them.

Closing – I like to review what we covered during the meeting and will ask the person taking notes to read aloud the minutes. I ask if anyone has anything they would like to add to the minutes. If everyone is agreed with what was read or added, everyone signs the minutes.

Thank you – I thank everyone for attending the meeting.

Do you facilitate meetings? What would you add to the list? Please share.

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash