TIME AND SPACE: Parents should take the IEP document home and not look at it for a couple of days. This way, they can have an emotional break, as these IEP meetings may be overwhelming for the parent.
will ask the assessors who contributed to the area of need in the PLOP section to provide goals and objectives. The goals and objectives may be comprehensive or not. It is important for parents to truly understand how the goal set in the IEP will benefit the child. If goals and objectives appear to be vague, ask the administrator to include more details, so that it is clear what the child will be working on for improvement in that area. Some questions a parent may want to ask are (1) How will the goal help remediate the need in PLOP, (2) How will the goal be measured, and (3) How often will the teacher communicate to the parent about progress or lack of progress with the goal.
Parents should not just agree to everything that is being stated in the IEP. It is important to ask clarifying questions, and truly understand how the goals will help the child progress in the school environment. These goals and objectives will become the scaffolding for building on improving the areas of need for the child.
Parents should not just agree to everything that is being stated in the IEP. It is important to ask clarifying questions, and truly understand how the goals will help the child progress in the school environment.
Once the goals and objectives are created, the administrator will go over the accommodations. Usually, a child may need accommodations that will help in accessing grade level curriculum, such as: a calculator, extra text books at home and school, a note taker, sitting in the front of the classroom, extra time on test taking, extra time to submit assignments, quiet room for test taking, assistive technology
etc. If the child requires a behavioral plan, the administrator will review the plan, and ask the IEP team if changes are warranted, based on the report results and parent/teacher concerns. If there is a medical plan, the administrator should review the medical plan and attach it to the IEP, so that all the teachers are aware of the medical diagnosis, emergency contacts and procedures (based on the severity of the diagnosis). The administrator will ask the team what they think the “eligibility” of the child should be. Sometimes the parents may not agree with the eligibility that the IEP team suggests. The most important thing to know is, it really does not matter what the eligibility is, since the child will have the right to services and placement because of the area of need
The “eligibility” helps by providing the readers (teachers/school staff) with information on what is the child’s main challenge, such as: speech and language impairments, other health impaired (ADD/ADHD or medical diagnosis), autism, down syndrome, specific learning disability, developmental delay, etc. It is good to push for the eligibility that is the closest to the child’s main struggle in the school environment. For example, if the child has deficits in the following areas: dyslexia, reading comprehension, phonemic awareness, reading fluency, decoding, etc. I would suggest specific learning disability for an eligibility. If the child’s main struggle is speech, then I would recommend speech and language impairments. Remember the eligibility does not impede the child from obtaining all required services,