A case study of teacher-parent collaboration in individualized education plan implementation for special education

Abstract

Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is a written agreement between teachers and parents looking into the unique individual needs of students with disabilities and how the services are rendered to them. Students’ needs could be met when teachers and parents, acting as students’ advocates, are able to work in partnership without being adversarial in their opinion in determining the goals and objectives appropriate for students’ in various aspects of their development written in IEP. It should be recognized that educational needs of the students could be enhanced by individualized attention given to them. Thus, IEP implementation should be taken seriously in the bid to improve on the services provided for these students. This case study involved teachers and parents who were engaged in the implementation of IEP in a private special education school in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The aim of this study was to explore collaboration efforts among teachers and parents in four aspects namely in their understanding, willingness to communicate with each other, perceptions on their roles, and expectations from each other in IEP implementation. Qualitative approach was the core method used in canying out this study in which 12 participants as well as the school’s principal were interviewed. Questionnaires were distributed to all teachers and parents involved to further support the qualitative findings. Qualitative results showed that they had similar understanding on IEP and were willing to communicate with each other although teachers usually had to initiate the move in communication. Findings indicated that teachers knew their roles and were able to carry them out accordingly. On the other hand, although parents had higher perceived roles in IEP, they had constraints in implementing them. Teachers hoped that parents could be more committed in canying out their responsibilities and could further cooperate in making IEP successful. Parents showed contentment with the services rendered by the teachers. However, they believed that IEP implementation could be improved further with the availability of specialists and trained teachers from the Ministry and hoped teachers would show more understanding towards problems faced by students and their families at home. Differences between teachers’ and parents’ understanding and their willingness to communicate with each other were assessed quantitatively. Mann-Whitney test results showed that there were no significant differences in teachers’ and parents understanding on IEP implementation as well as on their willingness to communicate on matters related to IEP.