If you disagree with your child’s IEP results or feel like the IEP hasn’t been helpful in improving your child’s school performance, then you have the right to seek further assistance by obtaining an Independent Educational Evaluation (IEE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) – at no extra cost to you.
An Independent Educational Evaluation can be a helpful tool for parents to use when the original evaluation done by the school doesn’t meet the expectations you have for your child’s level of progress. If you are seeking additional resources to support your concerns, acquiring an IEE is typically the next step that parents take to learn what’s actually the underlying cause of their child’s learning difficulties.
What Is an Independent Educational Evaluation
An IEE is an evaluation done by a licensed psychologist or clinical neuropsychologist who does not work for your child’s school district. The point of an IEE is to have an additional evaluation done when you’re unsatisfied with the results of the IEP you received from the school. Thanks to IDEA, IEEs are done at the expense of the school district or provided to you and your child free of charge.
Parents are not required to share why they weren’t satisfied with the IEP results with the school and the school is not allowed to hold the child back from the IEE process should the parent decide not to provide the reasoning behind wanting another evaluation done.
You are entitled to one IEE request for each evaluation done by your child’s school and the school district must consider the results of the IEE.
Why Your Child’s IEE Might Not Be Enough
Hardy Brain Training often helps children who have already had an IEE done because the next step to helping a struggling student is to create a plan that improves the weaknesses pinpointed during the IEE Evaluation.
Evaluations like IEPs and IEEs provide test results but don’t provide clear direction about what steps parents should take next. After the IEE, parents receive a report with skills that were evaluated but there isn’t a plan given to the parents for how to use these evaluations to actually correct the underlying problems.
This is the most important thing that Hardy Brain Training does – we actually take the data from the evaluations, do our own in-depth evaluation, and design a tangible plan to fix the underlying learning problems identified in the IEE.
How Can Hardy Brain Training Help Your Child When The IEE and IEP Can’t?
The purpose of an IEE is to determine which cognitive and processing skills are causing learning delays for your child. Once these skills are identified, Hardy Brain Training works with your child’s specific needs to improve the areas that are inhibiting their ability to learn.
Hardy Brain Training is successful because our programs are more than ‘tutoring’ and more than what is offered in special education programs. We focus on improving the underlying problems that the IEE and IEP identified as the causes of your child’s learning delays.
Contact us today to learn more about if Hardy Brain Training is a good fit for you and your child and, as an additional resource to help, we also have a free online diagnostic quiz to help identify the key areas where your child may be struggling.