I am trying to consider everything deeply, so that I can be prepared and responsive. What keeps me up nights is the "unknowns", things that might come up that I couldn't possibly have imagined.
Chances are something unanticipated will pop up, no matter how well you prepare and plan. Just keep planning and prepping as best you can! Even when something completely unantiicpated pops up, I find that having planned for as much as possible beforehand helped me be more self-confident in my replies to the unexpected. Another thing that helped - having an agenda of *my own* - and then trying to steer the discussion as much as possible toward that agenda. It doesn't have to be huge, just a very simple list of what you hope to communicate and accomplish. Then when something completely unanticipated does come up, you can say "yes, that's interesting (or whatever), but for now can we finish discussing abc". Hope that makes sense!
Another piece of advice - these meetings (from the teacher and staff perspective) tend to be focused on the short term what-do-we-do-right-now to solve an issue that's happening in class - which makes sense - they are looking at things from the school management point of view. You, otoh, need to look at the big picture and long-term goals: what is the challenge that is preventing your ds from functioning as he is expected to in this environment, does it impact him in other ways, and is it something that can/needs to be remediated, is it a challenge that he needs to have accommodations for etc. If he needs accommodations, don't look at them from the perspective of "ds needs to do x to get his grade up in class y" but instead from the perspective of "ds is challenged with x-issue, and he needs to have accommodation y in order to show his knowledge (or function in the classroom or whatever).
The school may also try to have teacher 1 want one thing to happen in their classroom vs teacher 2 want something different etc. Try to look for a global solution - whatever your ds needs, he most likely needs across the board, not something piece-mealed together to fit an individual teacher's desires.
It might also help, if you're thinking of specific accommodations, to look at your state board of ed's website to see if their policy manual includes lists of "typical accommodations". We found that our school was quick to say "yes" to anything on this list, and also responded with an automatic "I don't think we can do that" to any other request.
Best wishes,
polarbear
