IEP season cometh

It's the New Year, so the dreaded IEP season must be grinding into gear. I got my little packet in the mail over the weekend, a meeting announcement and my 3,046th copy of the booklet informing me of my rights. My son's having his three-year testing this year, so he's already had a sit-down with the school psychologist and has more testing ahead, and I have to get together on Thursday with the social worker and talk social history. Since he's moving up to the middle school next year, I've been hounding my daughter's middle-school Child Study Team leader to meet with me so I can strategize all the things I'm going to have to demand for his IEP to make his school year smooth and as stress-free as it can be in a crowded school where they're having classes in closets. I'm ready for all this, I suppose, as well as I can be, but boy it makes me miss the last few years, when things were familiar and the agenda was pretty much set and there was nothing much to think about or fight for. I've had easy IEP seasons recently, but now my time has come. Better get the armor and lance out of the closet and suit up.