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Guide · Ontario Ontario (Canada)

How to prepare for an Ontario IEP review or meeting

Two different reviews get confused in Ontario, and families often prepare for the wrong one. The IEP is revisited every reporting period; the IPRC meets once a school year about identification and placement. They ask different questions, and only one of them can change what happens in class next month.

Key points

  • Learning expectations should be updated at the beginning of each reporting period.
  • Schools should review the IEP at least once every reporting period and update it based on progress.
  • The IPRC review is separate: once within each school year, unless the parent gives WRITTEN notice dispensing with it.
  • A parent may request an IPRC review once the child has been in a special education program for three months.
  • The IEP is developed in consultation with you, or with your child directly from age 16.

Two reviews, two questions

Bringing the right question to the right meeting is most of the preparation.

IEP review: every reporting period

  • Asks: are the expectations right, and are the services working?
  • Updates learning expectations based on the last period's assessment.
  • Changes what happens in the classroom.
  • Developed in consultation with the parent, or the student from 16.

IPRC review: once per school year

  • Asks: is the identification still right, and is the placement still right?
  • Can be dispensed with, but only by written notice from the parent.
  • Can be requested by the parent after three months in the program.
  • Its decisions are the ones that can be appealed.

Preparing so the meeting changes something

  1. Ask for the draft IEP in advance. Reading it for the first time in the room makes consultation nominal.

  2. Bring three or four dated observations rather than general impressions: what happened, when, what had come before.

  3. Go through the previous IEP goal by goal: met, partly met, not met. That is the agenda.

  4. For anything not met, ask whether the goal was wrong or the support was missing. They lead to different changes.

  5. Ask what will be different on Monday, and who is responsible.

If you disagree in the meeting

You do not have to settle it there. Ask for your disagreement to be recorded, take the document away, and respond in writing.

If the disagreement is about identification or placement rather than the content of the plan, the IPRC route is the one that applies, including its appeal process.

And if you want the plan revisited before the next reporting period, ask; the reporting cycle is a minimum, not a ceiling.

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Official sources

Information reviewed on August 20, 2026.

Practical AtyKids guidance, distinct from official information. When in doubt, refer to the official source and to the professionals following your child.

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