A Large District’s Implementation of the FIEP Process: Differing Perspectives & Lessons Learned

Broward is the 6th largest school district in the nation. In 2013, the Florida Department of Education began training groups of key staff members in Key2Ed's Facilitated IEP Process. Broward had Program Specialists and a District level administrator trained in Facilitated IEPs. It was at that professional development opportunity provided by the FL DOE that Broward began to develop a plan to train all site-based LEAs in the process. This was a two, school -year process to get all schools in Broward (335 schools) trained. In addition to the initial roll-out of FIEP, the District has developed a plan to ensure that school-based staff are continuing to develop their facilitation skills, that all stakeholders are sharing the responsibility of developing IEPs for students and all are feeling valued and heard. As would be expected, there have been challenges, lessons learned, and adaptations made to the initial roll-out plan to improve our large District's use of Facilitated IEP Process and the impact it has had and will have in improving relationships of all the stakeholders.