Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team Michigan: Who's On the MET and What They Must Do

The school has finished your child's evaluation and handed you a thick report. The MET report, they call it. You've been told to review it before the IEP meeting, but nobody explained what a Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team actually is, who was supposed to be on it, or whether the evaluation was done correctly in the first place.

This matters more than most parents realize. If the MET wasn't properly constituted, or if they missed assessing an area where your child has needs, that flawed foundation will compromise every IEP goal, every service hour, and every placement decision that follows.

What Is the MET in Michigan Special Education?

The Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team — called the MET — is the group of professionals responsible for conducting the comprehensive evaluation that determines whether a student is eligible for special education services and, if so, under which disability category.

Under MARSE R 340.1721, the MET must consist of a minimum of two persons responsible for evaluating the student. One of those persons must be a teacher or other school professional who has knowledge of the student's area of suspected disability. The full composition of the team depends on what disability category is being evaluated.

This is where Michigan's rules go beyond the federal standard. MARSE specifies exact professional requirements for different categories — it's not enough to just have two people in the room.

Who Must Be on the MET Depending on Disability Category

MARSE dictates the required composition of the MET based on the suspected disability. If the school is evaluating your child for a specific category, the following professionals must be involved:

Cognitive Impairment (CI): The MET must include a school psychologist. This is non-negotiable under MARSE R 340.1705. Cognitive assessments, adaptive behavior scales, and academic achievement testing all fall under the psychologist's scope.

Emotional Impairment (EI): The MET must include both a school social worker and either a psychologist or a psychiatrist. The social worker conducts the social developmental study, and the psychologist or psychiatrist conducts a psychological evaluation. If your child is being evaluated for EI and there is no social developmental study in the MET report, the evaluation is incomplete.

Specific Learning Disability (SLD): Michigan requires an observation of the student in their regular classroom setting as part of the SLD evaluation. If your child is home-schooled or in a non-public school, the observation must happen in an environment where the student is receiving academic instruction. The MET must also document the student's response to scientific, research-based interventions — typically through RTI (Response to Intervention) data gathered across multiple tiers of support.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): The evaluation must address all areas that define ASD under MARSE: social interaction, communication, and restricted or repetitive behaviors. A speech-language pathologist is typically required given communication is a diagnostic criterion.

Other Health Impairment (OHI) for ADHD: For students whose primary impairment is ADHD, the MET needs to document the chronic or acute health condition and its adverse educational impact. Physician documentation supporting the diagnosis is typically part of the evaluation file, though the MET itself is a school team — not a medical one.

If the MET report you received is missing required components or lacks the signature of a required professional, that is a procedural violation you can challenge.

What the MET Must Actually Assess

The evaluation must be comprehensive and cover all areas related to the student's suspected disability. This is a legal requirement under both IDEA and MARSE. The MET cannot limit the evaluation to a single domain if the disability affects multiple areas.

For most evaluations, the MET should address some combination of:

• Academic achievement (reading, math, written language)
• Cognitive ability and processing
• Communication and language
• Social-emotional functioning and behavioral observations
• Motor skills (if gross or fine motor difficulties are suspected)
• Adaptive behavior (for CI evaluations)
• Hearing and vision (screening at minimum)

The MET report must also include an observation of the student in their educational setting. This classroom observation requirement exists for SLD evaluations specifically, but is considered best practice across all disability categories.

One thing parents frequently miss: the MET must assess all areas the parent identified as areas of concern in their written evaluation request, even if the school's staff members think those areas are not relevant. If you requested an evaluation for autism and the school only tested academic achievement and cognitive ability, the evaluation is incomplete.

How to Read a MET Report

The MET report summarizes the assessment results across each domain evaluated and includes a conclusion about whether the student meets eligibility criteria under one or more MARSE disability categories.

When reviewing the report, look for:

Whether all areas of concern were tested. If you mentioned behavioral issues, social difficulties, or communication problems in your request, find where those areas appear in the report. If they're missing entirely, that's a gap.

The actual test scores and what they mean. Raw scores, standard scores, and percentile ranks should all be present. Schools sometimes provide narrative summaries without the underlying data — you are entitled to the full psychoeducational report, not just a summary.

Whether the conclusion logically follows from the data. If a student scored in the 4th percentile in reading comprehension but the report concludes the student doesn't qualify for SLD, the rationale for that conclusion must be explicitly stated. Vague explanations like "scores are within the average range for the student's ability" without supporting data are red flags.

Who signed the report. The signatures should indicate which professionals conducted which assessments. If only a school psychologist signed and the report addresses communication and language, find out whether a speech-language pathologist was actually involved.

What to Do If You Disagree With the MET Results

If you believe the MET evaluation was flawed — whether because the team wasn't properly constituted, the assessment was incomplete, or the conclusions don't match the data — you have the right to request an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) at public expense under MARSE R 340.1723c.

When you request an IEE, the district has exactly seven calendar days to respond. They must either agree to fund the independent evaluation or file for due process to defend the adequacy of their own evaluation. If they file for due process and lose, they still fund the IEE.

An independent evaluator can assess the same areas using different instruments, observe the student in settings the school team may have overlooked, and provide the IEP team with a second professional opinion that carries legal weight at any hearing or mediation.

Before requesting an IEE, put your disagreement in writing. Note the specific areas of the evaluation you believe were inadequate and explain why. This written record becomes part of your advocacy file and establishes that you raised concerns formally rather than just verbally.

Michigan parents have the right to a rigorous, complete evaluation by a properly constituted MET. If the school has handed you a thin report that doesn't reflect your child's full range of challenges, you don't have to accept it as the final word.

The Michigan IEP & 504 Advocacy Playbook includes a MET report review checklist that walks through each section of a typical Michigan evaluation and flags what to look for when building a case for an IEE.

The MET Report Is the Foundation of Everything

Every IEP goal your child will ever have must trace back to needs identified in a thorough evaluation. Every service hour is justified — or denied — based on what the MET found. Every placement decision is made on the basis of what the evaluation says the student needs.

A weak MET report doesn't just affect this year's IEP. It creates a paper trail that districts will cite for years to justify limiting services, narrowing goals, and blocking more intensive support. Getting the evaluation right from the start is worth the effort.

If you're sitting with a MET report that doesn't seem to capture what you know about your child, trust that instinct and start documenting your concerns in writing before the next IEP meeting.

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