It's the beginning of a new school year and some parents could notice their child is struggling in a new grade.

Sometimes, a child may need extra help and accommodations. 

Lacey Beasley recently spoke with an educator and mom of a child with special needs to talk about how to apply for an Individualized Education Program, or IEP.

Watch the full conversation here. The following conversation was lightly edited for clarity.

Lacey Beasley: Walk me through this process, starting with the referral.

Caroline James: So the referral is when a parent, a teacher, someone on the campus recognizes that a student isn't succeeding or they're not being successful in the classroom. They're not meeting benchmarks, and they recognize that they need to dig deeper.

Beasley: Step two is the consent to evaluate. What does that mean?

James: The parent is going to ask for testing. They're going to say to the administrator, to the teacher, I want to find out more about my student and why they're not being successful in the classroom.

Beasley: And step three, what does that entail?

James: Step three is going to be the testing. The diagnostician is going to pull the student for a day, maybe two days, maybe a series of days. And they're going to put that child through some different testing. Figure out what's going on. Dig a little deeper.

Step four is when we come together as a team in an admission review and dismissal meeting called an ARD meeting, and the teacher, the parent, the administrator, the diagnostician, there could be more service providers in that meeting. They're going to come together and review the testing and see what it says and see what else that child might need to be successful in the classroom.

Beasley: What do parents need to do specifically in this meeting?

James: That meeting, it's so important for parents to speak up [at]. They know their child like no one else does, and they need to fight for what's best for their student.

Beasley: And step five is creating the actual IEP.

James: So the IEP is the plan. That's the action plan. We take the testing. We take what we know about the student and what their limitations are and where we need to push in and provide some more support. We come up with a comprehensive plan to help that student be successful.