20 Highly Effective Questions Experts Ask - Make a Difference in Your IEP

Everyone knows that Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings determine the type of support and accommodations required for the student to achieve their educational goals. At these meetings, your child’s team of professionals (educators and clinicians from school), you, and your child, work together to develop an IEP that outlines your child's educational needs, goals, and services.

Parents play a crucial role...

WHAT IEP ISSUES CAN A PARENT LETTER OF ATTACHMENT ADDRESS? 

WHAT IS A PARENT LETTER OF ATTACHMENT?

The Parent Letter of Attachment  (PLA) is a document that most parents are pretty clueless about. They either have no idea what to do with it and so never do anything with it and there are some that just use it as a way of praising the teacher and or support personnel and it is never used as intended. The PLA section of the IEP is known in some states as “Parent...

Self Advocacy Makes Transitions Work

If the truth be told, when it comes to transition, parents are frequently in the dark as to all of the areas that transition covers and just how comprehensive the umbrella of transition can be for their student. When there are inexperienced teachers, or other factors that do not support an informed set of goals in the areas necessary to making a reasonable transition from Secondary to Post-secondary education and independent living, it is up to the...

SMARTER GOALS - E

EVALUATION OF THE DATA MUST BE DEFINED AND REVIEWED BY THE TEAM WITH READJUSTMENTS TO THE IEP BASED ON THAT DATA. IF THE DATA IS NOT RELEVANT OR SPECIFIC ENOUGH THE IEP OUTCOMES WILL SUFFER AND CHANGES ARE “BEST GUESSES” VS DATA-DRIVEN.

 When determining what data will be collected and what evaluations will be done, it is the specificity of that information that allows the iep to go from an incompetent legally sufficient document to one that can have...

SMARTER GOALS – R

GOALS MUST BE RELEVANT TO CURRICULUMS: General/Core, Modified, Expanded, & Functional

• General Education - Core Curriculum - Subject centered
  • Use of State Standards or Common Core Standards²
• Modified Core Curriculum - Subject centered
  • Based on ability and priorities
  • Use of transitional IEP development
• Expanded (Functional) Core Curriculum - Problem centered

• Includes General or Modified Core Curriculum
• Based on special skills needed due to a...

SMARTER GOALS - A

DEFINE ATTAINABLE ADVANCEMENT THAT IS TIME BOUND.

So many times goals are about balance in addition to all of the other issues that need to be considered.  The goal needs to be attainable within the year, yet there needs to be enough challenge to it that progress toward greater functionality is accomplished.

• Show progress commensurate with the child's potential⁶ (circumstances) to prevent underestimation and to be challenging.
• The educational benefit is the ...

SMARTER GOALS – M

MEASURABLE AND MEANINGFUL DATA COLLECTION MUST BE ESTABLISHED

Identification of needs requires defined meaningful data collection that determines next steps in evaluations, research based programing, & other areas of need. The IEP is designed in order to allow the child:

• To be involved in and make progress in the general education curriculum. [34 CFR §300.320(a)(2)(i)(A)]
• To meet each of the child’s other educational needs that result from the...

SMARTER GOALS CREATE IMPROVED IEP OUTCOMES

YOU NEED TO KNOW ENOUGH -

TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS -

TO GET THE RIGHT ANSWERS

What you don’t know will hurt you!

  HISTORY:

November of 1981, the issue of Management Review contained a paper, There's a S.M.A.R.T. Way To Write Management's Goals and Objectives, by George T. Doran. This introduced us to using the SMART goal acronym in management companies. The U.S. Department of Education in presentations related to special...

For parents, advocates, and teachers IEP meetings can be overwhelming and even create fear. But, when provided with the right supports these fears can be alleviated.

Elenore Rosevelt said, "Do one thing every day that scares you." 

Well, parents of children with special needs go far beyond the call with that one! 

STRUGGLING WITH IEPs?

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS HARD!!

You are right, handling an IEP meeting should not induce high anxiety, demand pharmaceutical...