Active parental involvement in the special education process has historically been emphasized. In addition, legal impetus (94-142, 766) has been provided for this active involvement. However, research has indicated that some educators tend to disregard, manipulate, and often intimidate parents during special education TEAM meetings, thus violating their due process rights. As a result, parental involvement in the Team process and development of the IEP document has continued to be lacking. The purpose of this study was to investigate parental attitudes toward the Team process and the IEP document and to implement a training program designed to assist parents in the development of the skills necessary to critically analyze their child's IEP document's effectiveness. The underlying theory behind the training program was, that given the appropriate training and information, parental skills to effectively participate in the Team meeting and development of the IEP document would increase. A group of 15 parents from the central Massachusetts area participated in this study. Their experiences within Special Education ranged from 3 months to 11 years. Severity of the handicapping conditions of their children ranged from speech/language services to full time special education. A pre/post test design was utilized to evaluate parental perception of the Team process and IEP evaluative skills. Based on the data gleaned from this research, the following has been concluded: (1) in spite of 17 years of mandated involvement in the Team process and development of the IEP document at the Team level, the parents; (a) view the child's IEP as not being the product of the entire Team's input, and (b) indicated that they did not participate in the development of the document. In regards to qualitative effectiveness of the IEP, it was determined that: (1) the student profile section; (a) did not contain all of the mandated information, and (b) was not concisely written. In addition, other information (teaching strategies, service delivery and plan duration) was not contained within. In spite of their passive roles, the parents generally expressed satisfaction with their child's program and IEP document. The need for parent training and professional staff development was cited.

<p> While classroom teachers report alarming rates of unpreparedness, and even unwillingness to include diverse populations in the classroom, our nation is continuing along a trend started in the 1990s to include students with disabilities (SWD) in general education settings. This quasi-experimental research study uncovered the impact of completing the required continuing education course in teaching SWD course mandated by Florida Senate Bill 1108 ([SB1108]; The Florida Senate, 2013b), which amended Florida Statute 1012.585 (3) (e) (Process for Renewal of Professional Certificates, 2017) on perceived teacher ability to implement inclusion practices. An online version of the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP) scale developed by Sharma, Loreman, and Forlin (2012) was utilized, along with demographic and experiential factors for classroom teachers in the study district to examine their self-efficacy toward inclusion. Analysis of the data indicated statistically significant differences in mean TEIP scale scores for exceptional student education (ESE) and general education teachers. </p><p> Data analyses revealed that almost half of the teachers had a negative view of and did not perceive any benefit from the course. While ESE and general education teachers had similar preparation needs, they also reported areas of concern specific to their subset. Overall, the course did not provide enough continuing education in the areas most needed by the participants. SB1108-mandated course completion was also not found to be an indicator of higher teacher self-efficacy for the majority of teachers. Analysis of the differences in TEIP scale scores found that only elementary school teachers benefited from completing the course, while it had the opposite effect for general education high school teachers and no significant effect for ESE teachers. Differences in TEIP scale scores from demographic and experiential factors accounted for 13% of the variance in the population and was not significant for the ESE teacher subset. One percent or less of the variance was attributed to completion of the required continuing education course. </p><p> Implications include reviewing the legislation&rsquo;s effectiveness for teachers in different areas and grade levels, hiring and evaluation decisions based on TEIP scale scores of applicants and employees, and designing more meaningful continuing education courses. Recommendations for state legislatures, school administrators, designers of continuing education courses, and for future research regarding improvement of teacher self-efficacy for inclusive practices are offered.</p><p>