How can school administrators support implementation of high-quality IEPs?
Page 4: During the Meeting
The purpose of an IEP meeting is for the IEP team to work collaboratively to identify the special education services and supports that will be delivered to the student, based on her unique needs. This process produces a written record, the IEP itself, which formalizes these services and supports. During the IEP meeting, the school administrator should take steps to ensure that all team members have enough time to:
- Fully engage in the discussion
- Thoroughly discuss and plan all the IEP components
Fully Engage in the Discussion
Procedural Requirements Guidelines
Ensure attendance at IEP meetings by all necessary team members- Involve parents in the IEP process
- Include the necessary components and content in the IEP
The school administrator must make an effort to ensure that each member of the team attends the meeting. An IEP team that does not include the required members is not properly constituted and is therefore considered a procedural violation. More, the absence of any one of these individuals creates a potential loss of that knowledge and expertise, jeopardizing the quality of the IEP and the subsequently provided services. For more information on the IEP team review the following document.
It is not enough, however, for IEP team members to merely attend the meeting. They also must be actively engaged. Because an IEP meeting can often feel intimidating to some members of the team—in particular, parents and new teachers—the administrator should create a climate that encourages collaboration and engagement. Parents, particularly, should feel like their input is being seriously considered and treated with due respect. The administrator can engage in the following actions to help all team members feel comfortable sharing their thoughts.
Create a welcoming environment
- Because parents often feel as though they are walking into a situation where they are outnumbered, ask school personnel to wait until the parents have arrived before they enter the room or sit down. This way, everyone enters the room at the same time, on equal footing.
- To help parents feel at ease, encourage school personnel to engage parents in conversation as they arrive.
- To ensure that school team members are not clustered in one area, create a balanced seating arrangement (e.g., use round tables).
- So that all team members are aware of how each individual will contribute, begin the meeting with introductions that include a description of each person’s role.
Example
I am Juan Martinez, and I teach 5th-grade mathematics here at Lincolnshire Elementary. My role in today’s meeting is to answer questions and provide information related to Kurt’s current performance, in both academics and behavior, in the general education classroom. Additionally, I will help the team understand the general education curriculum and its grade-level content standards. I can also provide insight into typical versus atypical 5th-grade behaviors.
Encourage parents to share
- Make sure staff are attentive to the parents.
- Ask the parents for their perspective on their child, including development, strengths, and challenges. Encourage them to give voice to any concerns they might have.
- Avoid using professional jargon or specialized language that might be familiar to school personnel but not to parents.
- Periodically ask the parent open-ended questions that solicit input rather than those that can be simply answered with a “yes” or “no” (e.g., “What else would you like us to know about your child?” versus “Do you have anything else to add?”).
Monitor meeting productivity
- Begin and end the meeting on time.
- Consider calling for a break if team members appear to be growing frustrated or tired.
- Ask the team to consider scheduling another meeting to continue the discussion in the event the team is not making progress or the meeting is running long.
For Your Information
On those occasions when members of the IEP team do not agree, the administrator is responsible for consensus building, making certain that all ideas, opinions, and concerns have been taken into account. Although not everyone will get what they want, consensus has been reached when each member of the team agrees that she or he can live with the final decision. Consensus can be more reliably achieved by:
- Seeking input from all team members
- Listening to others
- Identifying area(s) in which compromise is needed
- Brainstorming possible solutions
- Listing the most viable solution(s) and discussing the pros and cons of each
- Selecting one or more solutions that can be supported by the entire team
Discuss and Plan All the IEP Components
It is essential that all team members have a shared understanding of the purpose of the meeting and that they address each component of the IEP. To facilitate a productive meeting and encourage thoughtful discussion, the administrator can:
Create structure for the meeting
- Post a visual agenda and provide a copy for every member, noting the allotted time for each of the meeting’s various components.
- Assign organizational meeting roles, such as:
- Facilitator: Helps the group focus and manage time for discussion in accordance with the agenda
- Recorder: Listens objectively and accurately records team decisions
- Timekeeper: Helps the facilitator move the group through the agenda and promotes equity, preventing any one person on the team from dominating the discussion
Establish shared understandings
- Emphasize that this is not just an obligatory meeting in which team members “go through the motions” and check off the requisite boxes. Rather, everyone should understand the importance of the IEP as the blueprint for the student’s education and a communication tool for the team members to refer to throughout the coming year.
- If a draft IEP has been developed prior to the meeting, make it clear that the services proposed are initial recommendations for review and should serve only as the starting point for discussion. The team should understand that they can and should make additions and deletions and reword the draft document to create the final IEP.
- Underscore the student’s adult life as the long-term focus of the IEP process. As such, the members need to understand that anything developed during the meeting should lead to eventual post-school outcomes.
Guide the IEP development
- Help the team adhere to procedural and substantive requirements.
- Whether working from a draft or developing the IEP during the meeting from scratch, frequently ask whether there are any questions or whether further clarification might be required to ensure that everyone understands what is being included in the IEP.
- Ensure that the information in the IEP is written in such a way that the school’s commitment of resources is clear to parents and other members of the IEP team.
- Make sure that decisions address the student’s individual needs and are based on data (e.g., initial comprehensive evaluation, ongoing progress monitoring).
- Provide adequate opportunity for the team to review, explain, and discuss each component of the IEP listed in the table below.
| IEP Component | Content |
|
Present levels of academic achievement and functional performance (PLAAFP) |
These statements summarize the student’s abilities in both academic and/or functional skill areas and include how the student’s disability affects her involvement in the general education curriculum. Substantive Requirements Guideline
|
|
Challenging, ambitious, and measurable goals |
These goals describe what the student is expected to accomplish, in academics and/or functional skills, in a 12-month period. The goals help IEP team personnel determine whether the student is making educational gains and whether the program is providing meaningful educational benefit. Note: Make sure there is an annual goal for every area of need presented in the PLAAFP statement. In some cases, it is appropriate for an annual goal to meet more than one area of identified need. Substantive Requirements Guideline
|
|
Description of special education and related services and supplementary services |
This is a statement of all of the educational services to be provided by the school to help the student meet her annual goals. These services should be based on peer-reviewed research to the greatest extent possible and be provided in the least restrictive environment (LRE)—a guiding principle in IDEA. LRE plays a critical role in determining not only where a student will spend her time in school (i.e., setting or placement) but also how special education services will be provided. For more information, view the following: x
peer-reviewed research Research findings that have been through a standard process of review by experts in the field, who also make recommendations regarding possible revisions and whether or not the manuscript that describes the findings is worthy of publication; although this term was used in the 2004 reauthorization of IDEA, the term evidence-based practices is more current. x
least restrictive environment (LRE) One of IDEA’s six guiding principles; requires that students with disabilities be educated with their non-disabled peers to the greatest appropriate extent. Substantive Requirements Guideline
|
|
Method for measuring and reporting progress |
This is a description of how the student’s progress toward the annual goals will be measured and how and when school personnel will inform parents about that progress (e.g., quarterly reports, concurrent with the timing of report cards). Substantive Requirements Guideline
|
|
Explanation of the extent the student will not be educated with students without disabilities in the general education setting |
The “reverse phrasing” of this requirement is purposeful. IDEA requires the IEP team to justify any decision that removes the student from the general education setting. |
|
Statement of the student’s participation in state and district-wide assessments |
This not only includes the extent to which the student will participate but also any testing accommodations or modifications that she may require. |
|
The date of service initiation, frequency, duration, location |
Service initiation—the date that the special education and related services identified in the IEP begins—should start as soon as possible. The frequency (e.g., number of times per week) and duration (e.g., length of time for each session) specify the amount of services to be provided to the student, clarifying the level of resource commitment. The location where the services will be provided, or placement, cannot be determined until all of the other IEP components have been determined. |
Ensure that the continuum of alternative placements is considered
As described in the table above, when they develop the IEP, the team will make decisions about the type, frequency, duration, and location of special education services and supports. As they go about doing so, particularly regarding where and how the student’s individualized services and supports will be provided, the administrator should make sure the IEP team:
- Identifies placement only after specialized instruction, services, supports, frequency, duration, and person(s) responsible have been determined. The LRE requirement within IDEA necessitates that:
- Students with disabilities receive their education alongside their peers without disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate.
- Students should not be removed from the general education classroom unless learning cannot be achieved even with the use of supplementary aids and services.
- Recognizes that, for some students, placement in more restrictive settings may be necessary to ensure an appropriate education
- Documents the reasons for any decision that results in the student’s services being delivered outside of the general education setting
For more information on LRE, view the following:
For Your Information
A student’s services and supports need to be based on her educational needs. As such, school administrators need to understand that the expense of special education services is not to be considered in the decisions about what services and supports are to be provided. Further, the administrator often serves as the local educational agency (LEA) representative on the IEP team. As such, the administrator is responsible for committing district resources and ensuring that the services written in the IEP will be provided. When the LEA representative signs the IEP, he authorizes the district’s commitment to provide the services. For example, if a student requires specialized transportation, the team decides how the student will get to and from school, and the LEA representative signs the IEP stating that the district will make certain that funds are available to pay for that service.
For more information on developing a high-quality IEP, see the following IRIS Module:
Each of the interviews below offers expert insight into conducting an IEP meeting. In the first, David Bateman offers administrators tips for engaging parents. In the second, Breanne Venios describes a typical IEP meeting at her school.
David Bateman, PhD
Professor, Department of Educational Leadership
and Special Education
Shippensburg University
(time: 1:39)
Transcript: David Bateman, PhD
The advice I would give to school administrators about conducting an IEP meeting is, first, make sure that when the parents do come to the meeting that everyone talks with them and talks with them about the weather, talks with them about their child, talks with them about something, doesn’t let the parent just sit there and be quiet. Then introduce everyone so everyone understands who everyone is at the meeting, but then start the meeting by asking the parent to tell us about your child, and listen to the parents, pay attention to what the parents think. It serves multiple purposes. It grounds us to understand exactly what is important about this child. Remember, we’re talking about a child, not just some paperwork that we have to finish up and cross some T’s and dot some I’s. Second, pay attention to what the parents hear about the child. I mean, there’s that little known statistic that the child attends full-day kindergarten and doesn’t miss a single day of school. By the time they’re 18, they will only be in school about 10 percent of their life. Ninety percent of their life, those parents are responsible for the child. Hopefully, and I sincerely hope that a third of that time they’re asleep, but for some parents that’s not the case. So parents are hearing about how the child’s functioning in school, they’re hearing about what the child likes, they’re hearing about what the child dislikes, and the parents also have a long-term vested interest in where we are with this kid. Just make sure that they talk with the parents and then listen to what the parents say. We don’t have to provide every single thing that the parents ask for. But we have to fully consider every single thing that is addressed and then use that information appropriately in the development of the IEP and any other programs for the child.
Transcript: Breanne Venios
We want the whole team to be there, and that includes the regular ed teacher, learning-support teacher, special ed director, school psychologist, the parent, the administrator—which would be me—and then our school counselor is often there. We let the parent know this is just a draft, so anything can be changed. We work together, and if there are any concerns in the IEP we stop and discuss as a team. If there are any questions regarding goals, we discuss what we have so far and where we would like to see that student going. And because we’re the middle school, we have to make sure that our goals are appropriate from elementary to middle and then from middle to high school. There are some parents who are extremely involved. If they want to add anything, and often times they might have a question about something or we discuss a concern that they might have heard from a teacher and then they want to put that in, so often times some concerns might come up just from what they’re hearing or a lot of positives come out of what they’re hearing like, “Oh, wow. They’re doing really well” and then they thank everybody for helping and moving their student along. So we really just walk through it all together as a team, and then at the end we mail home the final copy for the parent.
For Your Information
There are a number of serious procedural and substantive errors that IEP teams should avoid during an IEP meeting. A few of the more common are listed below.
Procedural Errors
- Determining a student’s placement before programing
- Failure to include required components in a student’s IEP
Substantive Errors
- Failing to document all of a student’s educational needs in the PLAAFP
- Failing to create challenging, ambitious, and measurable annual IEP goals
- Failing to provide special education services that address all of a student’s educational needs
- Making placement decision for reasons unrelated to a student’s individual needs
- Failing to adhere to the continuum of alternative placements
According to IDEA, the school cannot begin providing services outlined in an initial IEP until the parents have given informed consent. This is not the case for subsequent meetings, although requirements may vary by district or state. To adhere to additional legal requirements, at the close of the IEP meeting, the administrator needs to ensure the parents have been provided with:
- The annual procedural safeguards notice. This written explanation of parents’ legal rights and protections under both IDEA and state laws must be given to the parents of a child with a disability at least once a year. To better serve parents, consider having a parent-friendly version of this information, in addition to the full packet. The example below was developed through a collaboration between the Tennessee Department of Education and STEP (Support and Training for Exceptional Parents).
Quick Guide to Parent Rights and Responsibilities in Special Education
- A copy of the IEP at no cost
For Your Information
The National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII) and the Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education (CADRE) have made available resources that can be used when facilitating an IEP meeting.
The school administrator’s responsibilities do not end with the development of the high-quality IEP. Now they must oversee its successful implementation and make certain that the student’s learning or behavior outcomes are in fact improving. On the following pages, we’ll go into more detail about this stage of the process, including information on monitoring the student’s progress and reporting those results to her parents.
