What should parents know about iep

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Featured Posts. By Sean Potts. Continue Reading. Eva Be By Dr. Eva Benmeleh. Exhausted by the School Year already? By Sean Potts and Jackie Hebert. All Posts. Academic Coaching 1 making friends 1. If your child needs special education support throughout the school day, for all activities, the IEP will cover all these needs. IDEA strongly prefers that children with disabilities be educated in the general education classroom with their peers without disabilities.

If your child is going to spend any part of the school day not participating with peers without disabilities in the regular class and in other school activities, then the IEP must include an explanation as to why not.

This will be discussed in more detail under 5, Participation with Children Without Disabilities. To help your child benefit from special education, he or she may also need extra help in one area or another, such as speaking or moving. This additional help is called related services Many of these services are listed below. Related Services. Related services can include, but are not limited to, any of the following:. Typically, schools have staff who provide related services such as speech therapists or occupational therapists to meet the needs of their students.

But if a related service is not available from the school, the school can contract with a private provider, a public agency, or even another school district to provide the service. Goals are often written for a related service just as they are for special education services. Yet these are not the only services that can be considered as a related service.

Others often made available include artistic and cultural programs such as art, dance, and music therapy. IDEA makes specific exclusions to what may be considered a related service —two, in particular:. The school system remains responsible for monitoring and maintaining medical devices that are needed for the health and safety of the child. This includes breathing, nutrition, and other bodily functions.

The school is also responsible for routinely checking the external parts of a surgically implanted device to make sure that it is functioning properly. This part of the IEP focuses on the other kinds of supports or services other than special education and related services that your child needs to be educated with children without disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate.

Some examples of these additional services and supports are:. The IEP team must work together to make sure that your child gets the supplementary aids and services he or she needs to be successful.

For many students with disabilities—and for many without— the key to success in the classroom lies in having appropriate adaptations, accommodations, and modifications made to the instruction and other classroom activities.

Some adaptations are as simple as moving a distractible student to the front or away from the pencil sharpener or the window. Other modifications may involve changing the way that material is presented or the way that students respond to show their learning. Adaptations, accommodations, and modifications need to be individualized for students, based upon their needs and strengths. Doing so can help students access the general education curriculum and other learning materials and activities.

Accommodations can also help students demonstrate what they have learned. For example,. Student Response. What is most important to know about modifications and accommodations is that both are meant to support individual children in their learning.

Jack is an 8th grade student who has learning disabilities in reading and writing. He is in a regular 8th grade class that is team-taught by a general education teacher and a special education teacher. Jack will give his answers to essay-type questions by speaking, rather than writing them down.

If the IEP team decides that your child needs a particular modification or accommodation, this information must be included in the IEP. As we said earlier in this guide, IDEA strongly prefers that children with disabilities be educated in the general education class with children who do not have disabilities.

In fact, it requires that children with disabilities be educated with their peers without disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate for each child. Just because a child has severe disabilities or needs modifications to the general education curriculum does not mean that he or she may be removed from the general education class.

Therefore, if your child is going to be removed from the general education class for any part of the school day, the IEP team must include an explanation in the IEP. IDEA requires that students with disabilities be included in general state or district-wide assessments, with appropriate accommodations, if necessary. The IEP team is responsible for determining whether your son or daughter will participate in each assessment given by the state or district—and how your child will participate.

Many, however, will need accommodations in order for their academic achievement and functional performance to be validly and accurately measured. This information should be available from your state department of education.

Once the IEP team determines which accommodations in testing, if any, would be appropriate for your child, these must be listed in the IEP and provided to your child during the actual assessment. He or she may need to be assessed using an alternate assessment. The participation of students with disabilities in state and district general assessment programs is an evolving area within IDEA as well as within general education law the No Child Left Behind Act.

Final regulations in this area were published in April The IEP team may also consider whether or not your child needs to receive services beyond the typical school year. Ask your state and local school district for a copy of its guidelines for determining eligibility for ESY.

If not, then you will want to talk to the IEP team about how to address the lack of expected progress. As your child gets older and nears age 16, the IEP team—including your child—will consider many questions about his or her future after high school. What will your young adult do? Will he or she go to college or a technical school? Will he or she work?

In what kind of job? What appeals to your child? What kind of preparation, knowledge, or skills will be needed? What kind of supports? Will he or she live independently or continue to live at home? Will you need help from other agencies to carry out these plans? Answering these questions—and many more! The transition plan must then be updated every year and specify:. Whenever the team is going to talk about transition, your child must be invited to the meeting.

Services can include: instruction, related services, community experiences, developing employment and other adult living objectives, and if appropriate daily living skills and giving your child a functional vocational evaluation. A lengthy discussion of transition planning is beyond the scope of this guide for parents.

However, because transition planning is so important, we are pleased to explore this topic much more fully in the separate Transition Suite. Depending upon your state law, this usually happens at some point between 18 and Not all states transfer rights at age of majority.

Beginning at least one year before your child reaches the age of majority, you and your child will receive written notice from the school telling you of the upcoming transfer of rights if any. When this happens, the IEP must include a statement that you have received the notice and have been told about the transfer of rights. There are some exceptions to this transfer of rights. For example, some children with disabilities may need to have a guardian appointed to make decisions for them.

Other students may not have the ability to give informed consent 60 regarding their education. Or your child may be fully capable of making these decisions but still want your help in these matters. Once the IEP team has decided what services your child needs, decisions must be made about where services will be provided.

To the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities. Often, the IEP team makes the placement decision. In some places, the placement decision is made by another group of people. In either case, under IDEA, the group that makes the placement decision must include you, as the parent s , and others who:.

A placement that is least restrictive for one child may not be least restrictive for another. Decisions must be based on individual needs as stated in the IEP, not on—. In making placement decisions, the group looks to another important part of the IDEA, the continuum of alternative placements. These options include placements such as:. What aids, services, and supports does your child need to make this possible?

Bring your records to the meeting. What things are easy? Students are often much more aware of their strengths and weaknesses than parents realize. Make notes on what your child says. Consider his or her learning style, special education needs, and social needs.

How can these needs be addressed in the IEP? What kinds of supports or services might your child need in order to be successful in the general education class? Let your child know how important the meeting is and that his or her opinions and input are valuable.

You may need to prepare your child to speak up at the meeting. Talk with your son or daughter about how to share his or her feelings about what is being proposed. Doing a Positive Student Profile Answer the following questions about your child as a way to prepare for the IEP meeting.

Describe your child, including such information as place in the family, personality, likes and dislikes. Highlight all areas where your child does well, including school, home, community, and social settings. List all successes, no matter how small. List the areas where your child has the greatest difficulties. List the skills your child needs to work on and the supports he or she needs.

Other helpful information. List all relevant information, including health care needs, that has not already been described above.

Write down things you feel must be included in the IEP. Parents need to speak with the teacher prior to the IEP meeting to understand what the teacher sees in the classroom. SEPTA may be able to give parents some direction and support. The team that meets with parents to design the IEP is made up of school leaders — a school administrator, usually the district director of special education, a general education teacher, a special education person, a person to interpret evaluation results, usually the district psychologist.

If a child has a medical disability, there may be reason to invite a medical doctor. The parents are allowed to bring an advocate with them. When appropriate the student should attend. Parents need to be aware of who is supposed to be invited, and take attendance. A parent may want to consider having an advocate in the IEP meetings with them. The Long Island Advocacy Center is a local organization of parent advocates, but there are other similar organizations elsewhere. The school district may also be able to identify a parent advocate.

Usually these are volunteers. For instance, an occupational therapist may suggest accommodations for a child with fine-motor problems that affect handwriting, and the classroom teacher would incorporate these suggestions into the handwriting lessons taught to the entire class.

Other services can be delivered right in the classroom, so the child's day isn't interrupted by therapy. The child who has difficulty with handwriting might work one on one with an occupational therapist while everyone else practices their handwriting skills. When deciding how and where services are offered, the child's comfort and dignity should be a top priority. The IEP should be reviewed annually to update the goals and make sure the levels of service meet your child's needs.

However, IEPs can be changed at any time on an as-needed basis. If you think your child needs more, fewer, or different services, you can request a meeting and bring the team together to discuss your concerns.

Specific timelines ensure that the development of an IEP moves from referral to providing services as quickly as possible. Be sure to ask about this timeframe and get a copy of your parents' rights when your child is referred.

These guidelines sometimes called procedural safeguards outline your rights as a parent to control what happens to your child during each step of the process.

The parents' rights also describe how you can proceed if you disagree with any part of the CER or the IEP — mediation and hearings both are options. You can get information about low-cost or free legal representation from the school district or, if your child is in Early Intervention for kids up to age 3 , through that program. Attorneys and paid advocates familiar with the IEP process will provide representation if you need it.

You also may invite anyone who knows or works with your child whose input you feel would be helpful to join the IEP team. Federally supported programs in each state support parent-to-parent information and training activities for parents of children with special needs. The Parent Training and Information Projects conduct workshops, publish newsletters, and answer questions by phone or by mail about parent-to-parent activities.

Parents have the right to choose where their kids will be educated. This choice includes public or private elementary schools and secondary schools, including religious schools. It also includes charter schools and home schools.