Learn how to organize the legal papers associated with the education of your special needs student.
What to keep
What documents should you keep? What follows is a list of the kinds of documents that will be generated during the educational life of a child with special educational needs.
You should keep them all! You should also go to your child's school or the special education office occasionally to inspect your child's student records to be sure you have all the documents the school has and to see if there are documents in your possession that have been omitted from the files. You should find out about your state's rules and regulations for accessing your child's records. In general all states must provide access under a federal law called the Buckley Amendment (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1221, 1232g). Generally, with reasonable notice, you will have the right to see the records, wherever and by whomever they may be kept, and to have copies provided to you, at a reasonable copying charge, of any documents you request. You may also have the right to request that a document be removed, with an appeal process if that request is denied, and the right to place a document next to the one you wish to have removed with your comments or with additional information.
A general comment: Except in rare cases, once you have a final version of a document you are creating or that others are developing with your review, you should discard all prior
drafts of documents and you should both delete any drafts from your computer and then "empty trash" in the computer. Those earlier drafts can lead to confusion if you ever need to seek services for your child through the due process system. This is one area where you can and most often should lighten your document load.