1. First Login: Make Sure Your Account Is Ready

Use Logging Into SIRAS for the correct Production/Training server, normal login, and SSO guidance.

• Verify your name, email address, phone number, role, and assigned schools.
• Make sure contact information that may print on forms is correct.
• If you moved from another SIRAS district, use the User Account Transfer Request Process rather than creating a duplicate account.

For account settings, see Changing or Updating User Account Information and User Account - Preferences Help.

2. Check Your Work Before Opening a Student

Start on Home

Use the SIRAS Home Page to review:

• Incoming Messages about student assignments, transfers, forms, or other activity;
• Student Data Overview information for upcoming or overdue work;
• announcements and other recent changes that affect your work.

Confirm your caseload

Review the students assigned to you. If a requested student was added or removed, confirm that the change happened. Use Manage Caseload Help for caseload requests and assignment questions.

Find the work that needs attention

Providers may use Home, meeting lists, the Student Data Overview, and predefined queries to identify work that changed or is approaching. Examples include open meetings, upcoming meeting dates, overdue-looking records, or an open meeting whose Assessment Plan has been received.

Use Predefined Queries & Lists for how SIRAS presets work. Use Search Help when you already know which student you need.

3. Before You Create a Meeting: Verify Record Readiness

Before opening a new meeting, review the student's Current record, prior meeting history, and the plan you expect to be working from.

At minimum, ask:

• Does SIRAS show the student's current eligibility/plan situation accurately?
• Are the most recent Annual and evaluation dates believable?
• Is the existing IEP, ISP, IFSP, or other plan represented in SIRAS history?
• Does the record look overdue because work is actually overdue, or because prior history is missing?
• Is there already a meeting in progress that should be continued instead of creating another one?

For the difference between Current, meeting, and archived/reporting history, see MIS Summary Help, Special Education Current Data, and Archived Transactions.

4. Prepare the Meeting Work

Once the record is ready, use the current meeting guidance to create and prepare the correct event.

• Use Selecting Meeting Purpose Issues and Forms Manager Meeting Purposes for current meeting-purpose guidance.
• Use IEP Manager Help for the main create → forms → meeting → response → finalize workflow.
• Use Goals Developer Help to create new goals, build goals from the GoalWizard, or carry existing goal work forward appropriately.

Keep SIRAS scheduling guidance light

SIRAS can help you see work early and document meeting dates, notices, contact attempts, and continuations. Your district or SELPA controls the local scheduling process. Some districts use a "three dates" practice or another documented-contact process; follow your local policy rather than treating a SIRAS Help article as the scheduling rule.

Work safely with the team

Different team members may work in different forms, but avoid simultaneous editing of the same form. See Concurrent Usage. Save frequently, especially on longer narrative pages.

5. Meeting Day: Hold, Reschedule, or Continue the Work

The SIRAS meeting event documents the work, but the actual team meeting may be completed, rescheduled, or continued depending on what happens.

If the parent/guardian does not attend after previously agreeing to the meeting

In this specific situation, staff who are present may use the time for an interim/preliminary discussion: compare information, review plans for helping the student, and determine next steps while reaching back out to the parent/guardian.

SIRAS training guidance allows the originally scheduled date to be retained as the Annual or Triennial meeting date in this exact no-show scenario. Follow local district/SELPA policy for the required documentation, parent follow-up, rescheduling, continuation, and participation procedures.

If the meeting date changes or the meeting is not finished

• Use Rescheduling a Meeting when the meeting has not been opened and the scheduled date/time is changed.
• Use How to Add a Continuation Meeting when the meeting has been opened but additional meeting time is needed.

Do not delete an existing meeting or create a second event simply because the team needs to reschedule or continue unless the applicable current procedure specifically calls for a new event.

6. Parent Response, Pending Changes & Closing the Meeting

A meeting being held does not automatically mean the SIRAS work is finished. After the team completes the meeting work, record the Parent Response that reflects what actually occurred and review what will become Current.

Use this set together:

• Parent Response - Definitions — choose the response and understand when the meeting can close.
• Parent Response - Impact Table — see what each response does to Current data, goals, finalization, and reporting.
• Parent Response - Steps for Disagreements — stay put, partial consent, disagreement, and later agreement.

Partial consent: proposed is not the same as agreed

When consent is partial:

• document exactly which goals, services, placement, dates, or other components were accepted or disputed;
• select the applicable partial-consent Parent Response;
• review Pending Changes;
• coordinate with the SEDS Coordinator or SIRAS administrator so only approved portions are applied to Current data; and
• verify the MIS Summary, Current services, goals, and meeting archive after finalization.

If the response is still pending

Use Awaiting Response while follow-up is still active. Document contact attempts and follow local policy. Use Parent Contacted, No Response only when that option is available and the district's required contact-attempt process has been completed. See Article 300 for the current response rules.

Do not leave a meeting event open indefinitely

The real-world discussion with a family may continue even when a SIRAS meeting event must be closed in a way that accurately preserves the offer, response, and status at that point. Use the current Parent Response and finalization guidance rather than leaving the original event open indefinitely.

For closing/finalization problems, see Problems Related to Finalizing Meetings, Issues Related to Finalizing and Reactivating Meetings, and Force Finalize or Abandon Meeting. Do not force finalize merely to remove an item from a work list.

7. Between Meetings: Implement, Record Progress & Watch for the Next Task

Once the agreed plan is in place, provider work continues. Implement the agreed services and goals, document progress at the intervals required by local practice, and use that progress when preparing for the next Annual or Triennial meeting.

Use Progress Report Help and Goals Developer Help for goal/progress mechanics.

Then return to the beginning of the cycle:

8. Know When to Stop & Ask for Help

Contact your district SPED/SEDS staff or local SIRAS administrator when:

• a newly assigned record does not match what you know about the student;
• an inherited plan or prior meeting is missing;
• SIRAS says Plan Adoption or another record-preparation step is required;
• you cannot create the meeting you expect and do not understand why;
• a new/transferred record appears unexpectedly overdue;
• the Parent Response or Pending Changes do not appear to preserve only the agreed portions;
• a meeting event is approaching 90 days open; or
• the question is really about district/SELPA policy rather than how to use SIRAS.

If your question is specifically “How do I amend an IEP that was created outside SIRAS?”, use Article 435 rather than piecing the steps together from several feature articles.

For common provider questions, see Provider FAQ. For broader provider help, return to Provider Support.

For a SIRAS technical problem, email [email protected]. Include the student's SIRAS ID rather than the student's name, the page or meeting involved, what you were trying to do, and the exact error or unexpected behavior.