If your child has an IEP, then every single year the IEP team at your child’s school will get together to convene the IEP annual review to update how your child is progressing. The purpose of this meeting is to make any necessary adjustments to the IEP to ensure your child is being set up for success in their learning. If all is going well, this can be a positive meeting focused on your child’s growth and development, and is also designed to assess the progress on last year’s goals and to set new ones for the year ahead. Your child’s IEP team and you will work together to determine the most appropriate goals, supports, and services necessary for success.
There are many sections to an IEP, but the main parts to focus on are: the Present Levels of Performance, Goals, Accommodations and Modifications, and Services. Each of these major portions of the IEP lead to the next to help guide recommendations and decisions. The Case Manager will work through the IEP to go over all of the necessary sections of the IEP with the team and outline the information and answer any questions that you or other team members may have based on the information. It is important to remember that as the parent, you are a part of the IEP team! This means you can and should ask questions and provide any input. While the school team may be educational experts, you are an expert on your child and may be able to provide suggestions or further information that can help your child while in school.
Your child’s IEP annual review meeting should help set your child up for success!
Your child’s Present Levels of Performance will give you information on how they are doing in a variety of educational domains including: academics, speech, fine and gross motor, social/emotional/behavioral skills, vocational, and self help skills. Depending on your child’s specific areas of need, you may see all or only some of these sections filled in. Generally, IEP teams will only provide information in domains that have a deficit area and will talk about how your child is making progress with these skills. Based on this information, the IEP team will generate proposed Goals to review based on your child’s specific needs.
The Goals section will be where the team proposes specific goals to help your child to make growth in any areas of documented deficit. These goals should be unique to your child and specific. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable yet ambitious, and designed to last for one calendar year. The goals will dictate who is going to be supporting the skills and document how data will be collected to monitor progress.
Accommodations and modifications are designed to act as a form of support to help your child to be successful in the school setting and make slight adjustments to expectations and daily supports. Examples of accommodations could include additional time on assignments, tests completed in a separate setting, text to speech, and use of a visual schedule. Modifications are major changes to the curriculum and if implemented will completely change assignments and expectations. Generally, we avoid the use of modifications when possible as a student with active modifications on their IEP will be moved off of the diploma track in high school.
Services are the section of the IEP that will tell you specifically what direct services your child will be getting. Each service is proposed with an amount of time and how that service will be implemented, whether in a group setting or individual. Depending on the goals and present level information, the IEP team will decide on what is the most appropriate level or amount of service for your child to reach their goals.
The annual IEP review process should be a fairly straightforward process with you as a full participant to help create a document that is designed to support and help your child succeed. It is always beneficial to ask for a draft of the IEP prior to the meeting for you to review on your own before the meeting to help your understanding and participation.
If you would like help preparing for and attending an IEP meeting, reach out to Aspire Advocacy. We are IEP experts.
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