Early dispute resolution approaches, such as voluntary mediation, can cut down on more adversarial and costly avenues to address school-family disagreements, CADRE said. Plus, since mediation can result in two parties reaching their own agreement — rather than a hearing officer or another third party making a decision — there’s typically a higher rate of compliance with mediation agreements, according to CADRE.
The organization was encouraged to see the overall increase in mediation requests and expects this to be “the beginning of an upward trend,” said Melanie Reese, director of CADRE, in an email.
