IEP was not a term that was familiar to me before I had a child with a disability. Even then, I didn’t hear about the word until our son was getting ready for school. Suddenly I was hearing the word all the time. And it was always spoken in very serious conversations. It was one more thing that I had to learn.
The IEP is an Individualized Education Plan. Basically the IEP is a specific program designed for children with disabilities to make sure that they receive adequate educational instruction. It is a formal legal document that describes the services and instruction that will be provided to the child. It includes things like assessments and evaluations that show the child should receive services, specific goals for the child, special accommodations for the child, and the therapies that will be offered. If the school does not follow the IEP, then they are not in compliance with the plan and this is illegal.
I have been in a total of two IEP meetings with my son, so I am definitely not an expert. But these two meetings illustrate some key points about the IEP document and the important meeting that creates the document.
Our son was evaluated sometime around two years old and found to be eligible for services. These evaluations and assessments have always baffled me. My son has Down Syndrome – why wouldn’t that automatically qualify him for virtually any service, accommodation or therapy? Regardless of what I think, in Virginia at least, he has to undergo testing, evaluations and therapies to qualify for services. And he has always qualified.
So after he was qualified for services, the school wrote up a preliminary IEP for his therapy at age 3. I quickly glanced at the document and felt like it looked pretty good. I was pretty sure that the school would go to any measure to make sure that my son was given the most services and the highest quality of support that was available. This was a very naïve assumption.
My First IEP Meeting
I went into my first IEP meeting with the idea that the school was there to surround my son with an unlimited amount of support and care. Wow. I was in for a rude awakening. I had assumed that I would be entering the meeting with everyone in attendance being an advocate for my son. I thought everyone there was there to support my son. I was wrong.
When the meeting started, I found that the general tone and tenor of the meeting was just a bit adversarial. The school representatives were not offering the therapies that I thought would be necessary. There was this or that problem with my ideas, and to be totally honest, I felt a bit bullied into signing a document at that moment. I was told I had to sign it immediately, and I could not take it home to read it thoroughly. I walked out of the meeting a bit shell-shocked and confused. I was herded into and out of the meeting a bit like cattle through a chute. I was disappointed, and personally I thought it was a disaster.
What I learned was that all of the educational attendees of the IEP meeting are there to provide the minimum amount of services and therapy that would allow the school to be legally in compliance. The non-family members of the child are there to give as little as legally possible. The schools are resource limited – they have a limited number of teachers and therapists and they have a limited amount of money. So they are not willingly volunteering to add additional therapies or services. It just means more work and more expense for them. (I should say here that these educational instructors and therapists are professional and fine and wonderful people. It’s just that they are resource limited and are therefore unable to go the second mile for each student – even as much as they love their students and clients and would like to do so.)
And so I disagree with the Department of Education’s IEP Team Logo below. I wouldn’t call it a “team” when everyone is working toward a different purpose or objective. A team means that we have one common purpose in mind, and we are willing to sacrifice to meet the goal for the team. When your goal is to do as little as possible to be legally compliant, then you’re not really part of my team. This team is only held together by the law. The legal obligations that the school has to your child. It is necessary to understand this before you go into an IEP meeting with your “team.”
And so I learned my lesson, and I had a new attitude about the IEP meeting. I made sure I was better prepared for my second meeting a year later.
My Second IEP Meeting
For my son’s second IEP, we had some additional evaluations and assessments – which we had to request. Again, we wrongly assumed that the school would do any evaluation or assessment for which he might qualify. Wrong. The parent has to request these assessments. My wife and I would not have known this – except through the help of a therapist friend. We were told that our son would probably be eligible for physical and occupational therapy, so we requested the evaluation. The school was legally obligated to provide the evaluation after we requested it. And our son was deemed eligible for both of these services through the school.
Are there other services that our son might be eligible for? How would anyone know? Schools are certainly not volunteering this information. A quick IEP services online check says that “Related services help children with disabilities benefit from their special education by providing extra help and support in needed areas, such as speaking or moving. Related services can include, but are not limited to, any of the following: speech-language pathology and audiology services, interpreting services, psychological services, physical and occupational therapy, recreation, including therapeutic recreation, early identification and assessment of disabilities in children, counseling services including rehabilitation counseling, orientation and mobility services, medical services for diagnostic or evaluation purposes, school health services and school nurse services, social work services in schools, and parent counseling and training.” So how would you get these services? I guess that you would first request an assessment or evaluation.
We received the next (second) IEP draft document (for my son’s school at age 4) on Sunday evening. Our meeting was Tuesday afternoon, so this required urgent attention. My wife and I briefly scanned it Sunday evening. It was 23 single-spaced pages long, and I was immediately overwhelmed. My wife started digging into it, but I didn’t know where to start or what to do. The volume of paper and small, close type made me frustrated. After my wife made some initial insightful comments, I asked a friend who works with children with disabilities to also take a look at it. She did and also forwarded it to one of her colleagues with over 30 years of teaching special education. The comments from my wife and our friends helped me to find areas to focus.
I decided to look closely at two key areas – the goals and the therapies provided. Basically I ignored the rest of the document. This is not a good practice, but I was time and energy limited, so I focused on what I could understand and do. Goals I understand. Therapies I understand.
The document included input from Speech-Language Pathologist, Special Education Coordinator, Physical Therapist, Occupational Therapist, and an Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) Teacher. These people would all be attending the IEP meeting.
Each of these groups had specific goals listed. There were eight. I looked very closely at each goal. Was it important? Was this something that my son needed to learn? Or did the goal need modifying to make it more applicable? Was the goal challenging? If the goal was too easy, then my son wouldn’t really be asked to make much progress. I felt that some of the goals would not be much of a challenge. If the goal wasn’t challenging then the educational time would be wasted. I tweaked each goal. I added a few things. I took out others. I added my own goals for the possibility of including them in the final document.
To come up with my own goals, I imagined learning situations or life events that my son might participate. What would he need to know how to do? These likely also involved situations that would affect his learning, so I could make them goals. For instance, one of these situations might be – what if my son and I took a trip to the Philippines? What skills would be helpful for that trip? Then I came up with a list of things – potty-training, putting on clothes, eating a variety of foods with textures, social interaction with other children. All of those things also affected his learning in school, so they could be made into goals.
After I finished editing the goals, I focused on the proposed therapies or accommodations provided. If I thought the goals could not be achieved with the number and length of proposed therapies, then I suggested extending the duration or number of days of the therapies. I thought that the amount provided was a bare minimum. Since I thought some of the goals were not very challenging, the therapies were probably adequate. But if I was able to change the goal, then the therapies would be insufficient.
After talking with my wife and our friends, I felt pretty good about my preparation for the meeting. I was anxious, but I thought I was prepared. Some of my anxiety was relieved by people reminding me that this document is “living” and can be changed if necessary. So if I really screwed something up, it could be fixed later.
I went into my second IEP meeting more prepared, more serious and more cautious. This was about my son’s future, and I wanted to be the best advocate I could be. My wife and I would be his only advocates. I only participated on the goals and therapies section. But I was very deliberate and made sure I understood everything. I would not allow myself to be rushed through the process – and the meeting eventually did run two hours. I offered my suggestions and concerns, and some times they were accepted. Other times a reasonable explanation was given as to why there were better alternatives to my suggestions. Fantastic. I had to keep prodding at times. I had to keep asking questions. I didn’t give up if I was refused immediately. I was uncovering things that could be very helpful to my son. I was pushing it a bit. Is this possible? Why can’t we do this? If something was a dead end, then maybe another approach was more promising.
In the end, I think we came up with a set of nine or ten goals that I was very satisfied with. The IEP is written for one year, so I would be satisfied if my son achieved those goals in that time.
For the therapies, I just tried to base it on achieving the goals. Would the amount of time and number of sessions be sufficient? I had the most experience with my son. I had attended dozens of therapy sessions with him. So I offered my suggestions, and they were mostly accepted. For one, I knew that one session a week was not as helpful as two shorter sessions. At one therapy a week, often the first half of the session is just trying to remember what was going on last week. Much of the time is wasted on just getting to where last week left off. So either we needed a longer session or more sessions. Often we did both.
At the end of the two-hour meeting, I felt pretty good. I felt like I was about the best advocate I could be for my son in this time and under these circumstances. Because it was all for my son, and it was not about me, I had to take my time and push a bit when it was necessary. I came to the meeting well prepared with an understanding of the motivations and limitations of each person present. I had a clear idea of what I thought was necessary to help my son, and I had a one-year vision of his progress. I had a better understanding of my legal rights as a parent – this is a very powerful tool. I also had the helpful input from several experienced professionals – my wife and friends. This was very helpful and necessary. Finally, I had a year’s worth of experience of just dealing with the private and public educational system – receiving therapies, attending school, and other families’ IEP stories. It was all helpful.
Good luck with your IEP. But more than luck, I wish you good preparation!
For more information on our Educational experiences.
What Parents Need to Know about IEPs – from the Global Down Syndrome Foundation