When to Share a Private Assessment With Your Child's School

The report arrives as a PDF, thirty pages, with a summary you have read four times and an appendix of scores you have not. Somewhere in the middle is a paragraph about your child that you would rather no teacher ever read. Now you have to decide what goes to the school, when, and in what form.

Should you share it at all?

In most cases yes, because a report nobody at the school has read changes nothing in the classroom. Ontario schools plan from described need. The Ministry states that an IEP "may be developed for a student who has not been identified by an IPRC" (ontario.ca), and PPM 8 requires that assessment results inform the IEP for students with learning difficulties (PPM 8). The recommendations page is the part that turns into something a teacher does on Tuesday.

You are not obliged to hand over everything. The Ontario Human Rights Commission puts the responsibility this way: students and parents must "provide sufficient information about their disability-related needs to facilitate the accommodation" (OHRC). Sufficient, not exhaustive. The same guidance notes that at the primary level, education providers may need more detail than they would at the secondary or post-secondary level.

When is the right time?

Share it once you know what you are asking for. Two moments work well.

• Before a scheduled meeting, with at least a week of lead time. A team that has read the report arrives with questions instead of a first impression.
• Before an IPRC, always. The committee is deciding identification and placement. A report it has not seen cannot help your child. Under section 14(1)(b) of O. Reg. 181/98, a principal shall refer a student to an IPRC at the written request of a parent, so the timing of that request is yours.

The moment to avoid is walking into a meeting and putting thirty pages on the table. Nobody reads it, and the recommendations get skipped.

What does the school do with it?

The report goes into the documentation file of the Ontario Student Record. That file holds "IPRC statements, recommendations of appeal boards, tribunal decisions regarding identification/placement, Individual Education Plans (IEP), educational, psychological, and health assessments" (OSR guideline). The standard for anything in the OSR is that it is "conducive to the improvement of the instruction of the student".

A few practical facts from the same guideline:

• The principal must "establish, maintain, retain, transfer, and dispose of a record for each student" and must ensure the security of the OSR.
• Access is limited. Only supervisory officers, the principal and teachers of the school have access, and only for improving the instruction of the student.
• The documentation file is retained for five years after a student retires from school. The OSR folder and transcript are kept far longer.
• You have the right to access everything in your child's OSR, and so does your child.

Ask the principal two questions in writing before you hand anything over. Who at the school and the board will read this. And does the board need your written consent for its own psychological services staff to review an outside report. Boards handle that review differently, and getting the answer in writing costs you one email.

What should you redact, and what should you not?

Redact almost nothing that describes learning, and think hard before you share the rest.

Keep in:

• Scores and the profile of strengths and needs. This is what the IEP is built from.
• Diagnostic conclusions relevant to school.
• Every recommendation for the classroom.
• The summary or executive summary page.

Think about, and ask the report's author about:

• Family history, custody details, and parent mental health background.
• Verbatim quotes from your child about home life.
• Trauma detail that is not needed to plan the school day.

The OHRC guidance is useful here. It says it is "not generally necessary, particularly at the secondary and post-secondary levels, for the student to explicitly inform the education provider of the specific type of disability, or to provide specific medical information", and that identifying disability information "should remain exclusively with designated personnel in a secure filing system away from the student's academic record". In elementary school the balance usually tips toward sharing more, because the classroom teacher is doing the accommodating all day.

One route many families use: ask the psychologist for a two to three page school summary alongside the full report, and give the school the summary first. You still hold the full document if the board asks for it.

How it feeds an IEP or an IPRC

Directly, if you connect the dots for the team. The IEP must contain specific educational expectations, an outline of the special education program and services, and a statement of how progress will be reviewed (O. Reg. 181/98, s. 6(3)). The principal shall consult you in developing it under section 6(6). If the report recommends extra time, chunked instructions and a quiet space for tests, those belong in the accommodations section, in those words.

Bring a one-page cover note with the report. Write it like this:

1. "Here is the report from [professional and date]."
2. "The three findings most relevant to the classroom are ..." Name them in your own words.
3. "The recommendations I am asking the team to consider first are ..." List two or three, not fifteen.
4. "I would like these reflected in the IEP, and I would like a copy once it is updated."
5. "Please confirm in writing who has read the report and where it is filed."

Boards do not have to adopt every recommendation. A psychologist recommends. A school team decides what it can deliver. Asking the team to say out loud which recommendations it is adopting, and which it is not and why, is a reasonable request and it gives you a record.

Go deeper

Our guide on how to get an IEP in Ontario sets out the request, the meeting, the 30 school day rule and what the plan must contain, so you can see exactly where a private report lands in the process. If an IPRC is next, read what happens at an IPRC.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to give the school my child's private report?

No. It is your report and you decide. The Ontario Human Rights Commission does say parents have a responsibility to give the school enough information about disability-related needs to make accommodation possible. That can be a summary and a recommendations page rather than the full document. Withholding everything usually slows the school down.

Where does the report go once I hand it in?

Into the documentation file of the Ontario Student Record, which holds educational, psychological and health assessments alongside IEPs and IPRC statements. Under the OSR guideline the documentation file is retained for five years after a student retires from school. The principal is responsible for how it is stored and secured.

Can I take the report back out later?

You can ask. A parent may request in writing that the principal correct the alleged inaccuracy or remove the information from the record. If the principal refuses, the request goes to a supervisory officer and can go further to a person designated by the Minister of Education. Material that is removed is given to the parent or destroyed.

Should I share the report before or after an IPRC?

Before, in almost every case. The committee is deciding identification and placement, and a report it has not read cannot help. A principal must refer a student to an IPRC at the written request of a parent under section 14(1)(b) of O. Reg. 181/98, so you control the timing of the request as well.

Sources

• O. Reg. 181/98: Identification and Placement of Exceptional Pupils
• Ontario Student Record (OSR) guideline
• Individual education plans (Ontario Ministry of Education)
• Special education in Ontario: Assessing student learning
• Policy/Program Memorandum No. 8: Students with Learning Disabilities
• Ontario Human Rights Commission: Confidentiality and disclosure of information
• Ontario Human Rights Commission: Roles and responsibilities