09/18/2026
2027 Legislative Priority #1: Requiring parental consent before certain significant changes can be made to a student's IEP.
Right now, parental consent is required to evaluate a child for special education. Parental consent is required to implement the first IEP. After that? Consent is not required for changes to be made — leaving students vulnerable to changes made for the wrong reasons.
Yes, parents are a mandated part of the IEP team. Yes, the team has to meet before these changes are made. But at the end of that meeting, if the parent doesn't agree, the school gets the final say — and it falls to the parent to enact their dispute resolution options if they believe the decision results in a denial of a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).
We hosted an advocacy clinic last month, and 90% of the issues families brought to us wouldn't have been issues if this bill were law.
For teams already collaborating with parents and keeping the student's needs at the center, this won't change how you're doing things. But for teams making decisions behind closed doors and holding ceremonial IEP meetings to make them official, this bill is a safety net for the families getting steamrolled. It requires communication. It requires collaboration. And it buys families time to work through disagreements without rushing to Due Process.
We could write pages on this — and there are always questions about how it plays out in real life. We can give examples. We can show you the language of the bill where schools are protected from parents who aren't engaged in their child's program. We can show you where consent is not required in matters of safety. We can even show you where schools aren't held liable for a service the parent declined.
This bill is bipartisan. This bill's language was vetted by DESE. This bill isn't just for parents — a lot of work went into making sure schools were equally considered and cared for. Let's work together and get this done!
