Also, my child's teacher mentioned that a resource teacher should be present at the Student Success Team meeting. Why is that/what is the purpose of the resource teacher ?
I only know what happens in my school district, so it may be different elsewhere. Here, a "resource teacher" is a teacher or aide who works in the school's SPED department. We usually also have a district SPED representative present at team meetings. The resource teacher is a potentially valuable team member because he/she brings knowledge of SPED resources, ideas of how to work with students and knowledge of how to address specific types of challenges. Depending on the reason for the meeting, who represents the SPED department for the meeting at our school changed. The district rep always *had* to be there - their role was to act as a source of information (informally) but in reality they were present to make sure the school staff followed appropriate SPED policy. Which did *not* always happen with our SPED process. In our case, the district rep would not generally speak up about something that wasn't right, but if a parent caught it and mentioned it the SPED resource person would become very happy and excited and let you know that yes, you the parent did indeed catch the school team trying to pull something over on you. Sorry… I'm diverging from the question lol.
The lead SPED teacher at our school came to almost all of our team meetings. When the meeting was about eligibility etc she was the only SPED person from the school who attended. Other meetings, where there were specific questions over one specific pieced of the IEP etc, or if there was a question in general about one of the goals, the SPED staff member who actually worked with the student in that area also attended the meeting.
Hope that helps!
polarbear
