Three Things I Bring to an MDR

A Manifestation Determination Review is a nice safeguard in special education. IDEA and state laws require IEP teams to meet when a child with a known or suspected disability faces a cumulative of ten days of suspension in a school year. That meeting is the MDR. There are three things I always try to bring to an MDR, and I walk you through them in today’s podcast episode. When I get a client with an MDR, I always start with the evaluation report from diagnosis- the one that describes the child’s profile exhaustively and also provides the analysis of how the disability affects the child. This report is so, so helpful. As an aside, if you haven’t given this/ these to your child’s school team, do it now regardless of whether you’re preparing for an MDR. You also ask current and past providers for raw data from evaluations (those Vanderbilt forms can have so much information sometimes), therapy notes, etc. The next thing I request is a current report from a treating provider. These reports often analyze the child’s current struggles, often compared to past struggles, and provides opinions on whether the behavior that occurred at school is a manifestation of the child’s disability. I walk you through how to ask your child’s providers for this report in the episode. Finally, I like to go through school records- evaluation reports, therapy notes, communication with teachers, disciplinary records, etc- to look for other descriptions of a child’s behavior. I take the documentation that I’ve gathered, often highlight the pertinent parts, and send it to school, usually before the meeting so that the school team can also prepare for the meeting. You don’t get much notice of an MDR, so it’s wise to always be prepared!!!