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Facilitated Parent Involvement

Michigan's State Performance Plan

Indicator 8


About the Parent Survey


Wayne State University's Center for Urban Studies has been asked by the Michigan Department of Education Office of Special Education to conduct a yearly survey of parents of children and students receiving special education services in Michigan. The survey asks parents to give feedback on how well the schools help them be more involved in their child’s special education services.

Each year, separate surveys are sent out to parents of children and students receiving special education services, as of March 1st of the current school year.

  • All parents throughout Michigan of children in preschool, typically ages 3 through 5, receive the preschool survey.
  • Parents of students in kindergarten through age 26 receive the school age survey in approximately one third of Member Districts in the state – that is, by cohort.
  • If a parent has two or more children receiving special education, one child or student is selected at random.

An email is sent out to all Intermediate School District Special Education Directors, Itermediate School District Monitors and Transition Coordinators announcing the survey deployment. The Cohort List details the Member Districts in each cohort for a given year.

Feedback from the survey helps the State track whether it has reached the target it has set for parental involvement.

Parent Survey Results

States must report annually their performance on meeting the targets as documented in the Annual Performance Report & State Performance Plan. Indicator 8 of the State Performance Plan measures ”the percent of parents with a child receiving special education services who report that schools facilitated parent involvement as a means of improving services and results for children with disabilities.”

Learn more about Intermediate School District or Member District survey results. Survey instruments and the number of parents who responded to the survey in their respective age sample are included in this reporting.

More about the Parent Survey

Frequently Asked Questions.