The hardest conversations in intervention work aren't with students. Here's language for five of them — what works, and what to avoid.
Download the Resource →In 30 years of schools, I've watched the same thing happen in hundreds of intervention meetings. The plan is solid, the team is good, the data is honest — and then a parent emails at 9pm, or shows up to the SST already angry, or quietly disengages after the first review. And the whole carefully-built plan starts to wobble around the conversation instead of the child.
The wobble is almost never about the intervention. It's about language. Specifically, the three or four sentences at the start of a hard conversation that either land the parent on your team or put them across the table from you.
This is a one-page resource with language for five of those conversations. Not scripts to recite — starting points you can adapt. Things I've said that worked, things I've said that didn't, and what I wish I'd said instead.
Each one has the language that works, and the language that doesn't. You'll recognize at least three of these from your building.
"The parent you're nervous to call is usually the parent whose child you need most to stay engaged with. Writing down what you'd say before you say it protects the kid, the teacher, and you."