Virginia Fixed Its Mediation Rule on Paper. Why Are Parents Still Being Told They Must Sign Agreements to Mediate?
U.S Department of Education already found Virginia noncompliant for requiring pre-mediation confidentiality agreements. Yet documents from 2024 and 2026 show the same problem continuing in practice.
A mediator can give parents an Agreement to Mediate and ask them to review it.
Parents can choose to sign it.
What the mediator can’t do under IDEA is tell parents that signing a pre-mediation agreement or confidentiality document is required before they can participate in mediation.
That is the problem here.
The Problem
IDEA does not allow public agencies to make signing a separate pre-mediation agreement to mediate or confidentiality document a condition of participating in mediation. Between 2020 and today, U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) has found or flagged this issue in multiple states and required corrective action.
Yet Virginia Department of Education’s (VDOE) paper fix has not consistently made it into practice.
In a 2026 email to a parent and Prince William County Public Schools, a Virginia special education mediator stated: “You must sign, date, and return the Agreement to Mediate prior to the day of the mediation.” Later in the same communication, the mediator told the parties to read the agreement to mediate before mediation, said they “will be expected to agree to it and return it,” and stated that “[a]ll participants are bound by this agreement.”