When your child has an IEP, a 504, a documented disability, or even a suspected disability, it is important to know when and how to ask for IEP help. The educational system is filled with confusing jargon, curriculums, and assessments that are difficult to understand. Teachers and educational professionals are required to go through specific certification and training to learn these. As a parent, a school will often expect you to be able to understand all of your child’s test scores, grades, and other parts of their education without giving you the same training. There is no way you have time to take years of training to understand these, and it is important for you to know how to ask for IEP help for your child.
If your child’s school uses any type of curriculum that provides benchmarks or regular testing, you have probably received a notification for your child that they received a score of 540 on their latest math benchmark. But what does that mean? You may ask the teacher and get a vague answer along the lines of, “Your child is doing well,” or, “Your child is making progress.” Those answers do not give a good picture how well your child is doing in school. When you see scores that do not have a specific grade or age level equivalent, it is important to ask the teacher specific questions. How your child is doing compared to the grade level standards and expectations? A random test score or number with no way for you to interpret what that they mean is not a helpful way of involving you in the educational process.
It is difficult to know how to ask for IEP help.
If your child has an IEP and is going through any type of annual or triennial testing, you are typically given a table of scores and percentages with a small blurb on how your child did throughout the testing. Some of these scores can be straightforward, but others can be very confusing or even misleading. There are T scores, V scores, standard scores, scaled scores, and percentage, just to start.
If you do not understand what something means, ask questions and seek further clarification on how they will be used to support your child. What type of questions did your child struggle on? What questions did they do well on? How do these scores represent your child in comparison to others in their grade or age group? For standardized tests, ask about the protocols to understand if your child potentially scored lower due to the standardization. For example, some tests only allow an administrator to say the question once before your child answers. If a bell went off or a loud noise happened outside of the room that distracted your child for a moment, the administrator can not repeat the question and your child could get the question wrong despite knowing the answer.
In general, you should ask any and all questions to your child’s teachers or service providers if there are any scores or information that you have been given about your child that you do not fully understand or have concerns about. It is the job of the school to educate your child, but also to ensure that you are aware of and understand what is happening with your child’s progress.
Understanding your child’s performance on tests and other assessments is vital to keeping their IEP up to date in a way that best assists their education. Aspire Advocacy can assist in both directing the content of your questions and helping ensure the school answers in a way that is meaningful to you.
For help at your child’s next IEP meeting, more information about our special education advocacy services, or for a FREE 20-minute consultation to see if we are a good fit for you: call or email today!
As parents, we understand. As advocates, we can help.