MDT Meetings Reflection

I had the opportunity to attend two MDT meetings at my high school this semester. The

first I attended without my mentor teacher and there were only a few members of the team

there. The second one I attended had all but one member of the team. I am familiar with MDT

meetings at the elementary level so I found a lot of differences in these meetings than ones I

had experienced previously.

MDT is meant to review upcoming IEP meetings, eligibilities and then any referrals or

concerns that there are. I have found in the high school that they deal very little with referrals

because the students are so much older. At this point in their schooling, they are older and

should have shown signs of needing additional help at younger ages. Many of the referrals are

related to behavior issues. However, they consistently have to do 3-year evaluations because

the students have been on IEPs for a while.

Talking about behaviors, these are much different at a high school level as well. When

you are at younger ages, it more being distracted and talking back. This continues on into older

grades, but you also add things like drugs and sexual desires. They make take negative actions

towards themselves and others that result in disciplinary actions. I was surprised during our

meeting to hear of students who were being discussed that were on probation. These students

are often being looked at for qualifying under emotional disturbance.

The other thing I found that is different is that you are not having to plan to help the

student reach certain basic academic needs. Instead, they spend time discussing how they will

help different students achieve their graduation requirements. Because these students

struggle, they get behind and will be on the edge of obtaining graduation requirements.
 Secondary MDTs have their differences because of the purposes that they serve. This

was the most important thing that I took away. Little things like a team member referring to the

students as “kids” were little things that I noticed, but they were not important. I appreciated

the opportunity to see MDT meetings in a different light.