Manitoba IEP Meeting Checklist: What to Bring and What to Ask

Walking into an SSP or IEP meeting without preparation is a significant tactical mistake. The school team has reviewed your child's file before you arrived. They have a draft plan ready. They know exactly what they want to offer — and equally, what they can avoid offering. A parent who arrives uninformed is at a systematic disadvantage before the meeting even starts.

Here's what to bring, what to ask, and what to watch out for.

Before the Meeting: What to Request in Advance

Under Regulation 155/2005, you have the right to meaningful participation in your child's educational planning. That right is hollow if you're seeing the draft IEP for the first time at the meeting itself. Request the following at least five business days before the meeting:

• A copy of the current draft SSP or IEP — read every goal and confirm each one has a measurable baseline and a stated evaluation method
• Any recent assessment reports — school-based academic assessments, speech-language pathology reports, occupational therapy evaluations, or any psychological assessment conducted by the school division
• The current adaptation or modification matrix — documentation of whether your child is receiving adaptations (which don't affect course designation) or modifications (which do, and which affect post-secondary eligibility)
• Any EA (Educational Assistant) allocation information the school is willing to share

If the school says the draft isn't ready yet and asks you to review it at the meeting, push back. Ask for a brief delay so you can review it in advance. An SSP signed under time pressure, in a meeting room surrounded by professionals, is not meaningful participation.

What to Bring to the Meeting

Your own notes on your child's current functioning. What are you seeing at home? What specific struggles or successes have you observed? How is your child describing school to you? This first-person observational data is valid and important.

A copy of any private clinical reports. If you've had an independent psycho-educational assessment, speech-language evaluation, or occupational therapy report done privately, bring the full report. The school is legally obligated to consider this clinical data under the Manitoba Human Rights Code's duty-to-accommodate framework.

A notepad for your own notes. You are allowed to take notes during the meeting. Some parents also choose to audio-record the meeting — in Manitoba, it is generally legally permissible for one party to a conversation to record it without informing others, though checking with a lawyer before doing so is prudent. More practically: a clear written record of what was agreed reduces ambiguity later.

A list of your questions (see the section below).

A trusted support person. You are allowed to bring someone to the meeting — a partner, family member, or even a private advocate. Inform the school in advance. Having a second adult present changes the dynamics of the meeting significantly and gives you someone to debrief with afterward.

Questions to Ask at the Meeting

These questions serve two purposes: they produce genuinely useful information, and they signal to the school team that you are an informed participant who will not simply accept vague reassurances.

About the goals:

• What is the specific baseline measurement this goal is built on?
• How often will this goal be formally measured — weekly, monthly, quarterly?
• Who is responsible for collecting and recording progress data?
• How will I receive progress updates between formal report card periods?

About the support:

• What adaptations is the school providing, and for which subjects or activities?
• Is any portion of the programming classified as a modification? If so, which subjects?
• (For high school students) What credit designation will modified courses carry on the transcript?
• How many hours per week of Educational Assistant support is included in this plan?
• Is the EA support dedicated to my child, or shared across multiple students?

About the assessment:

• Has a referral been made for a specialized clinical assessment?
• If yes, what is the estimated wait time?
• If no, what specific data-based evidence is the team using to determine whether such a referral is needed?

About the plan itself:

• What happens if my child doesn't make progress toward these goals by the review date?
• Who do I contact if I have concerns between now and the next scheduled review?
• When is the next review meeting scheduled?

What to Watch Out For

Vague goals without measurable baselines. A goal that says "improve reading fluency" is not measurable. A goal that says "will read 80 words per minute on a Grade 3 passage by February, as measured by monthly curriculum-based measurement" is measurable. If the goals in the draft plan are vague, request that they be rewritten before you sign.

Modification designations without a clinical basis. If the school proposes modifying the curriculum for your child, that should be grounded in a formal clinical assessment confirming a significant cognitive disability. If no such assessment exists, ask directly: what is the clinical basis for this designation? Without a psychological assessment, modifications should not be applied. Push for adaptations instead, which preserve standard course designations and post-secondary pathways.

Pressure to sign immediately. You are not required to sign the IEP at the meeting. If you are presented with a plan that contains content you haven't reviewed, you have the right to take the document home, review it carefully, and return with your response. The school must document any delay, but they cannot compel your signature.

If you disagree with the plan. Regulation 155/2005 requires schools to document the reasons for any parental disagreement and describe the steps taken to resolve it. Declining to sign is a legitimate advocacy tool. It formally flags the disagreement and requires the school to respond, rather than simply filing the document and moving on.

After the Meeting: Follow Up in Writing

Within 24 to 48 hours of the meeting, send a brief email to the resource teacher or case manager summarizing the key agreements. Confirm what supports were agreed to, the review timeline, and any pending assessment referrals. This creates a paper trail. It also gives the school team an opportunity to correct any miscommunications.

The Manitoba IEP & Funding Blueprint includes fill-in-the-blank email templates for before and after your SSP meeting, a detailed walkthrough of the provincial escalation process if the meeting doesn't go as expected, and specific scripts for pushing back on vague goals and unsupported modification designations.

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