Just yesterday I was contacted by a client who is attending a remote IEP for her daughter, today. She asked me to look over the proposed IEP, 25 pages in all, and let her know if I have any thoughts.
She is happy with how her daughter is doing this year - based on what we put in place last year and felt that due to the remote learning environment - this IEP would be easy.
After reading the IEP and providing feedback, in the form of questions I would want answered and some suggestions to further support her child, she noted that she ‘never would have thought to ask these questions’ and that ‘this would be easy’. Easy is one thing. Accurate and accountable is something else.
All IEP’s and 504 meetings are important. It is true that you can always ask for a meeting to review and update the plan, you need to know what the current plan is providing, what growth will be monitored, measured and reported and what the school is doing.
Your IEP should not say we are providing accommodations through remote learning that were on the IEP so they no longer need to be listed. (This was on another IEP I was asked to review.) What were they and how are they being delivered now? This alone would require a new IEP when the child returns to school. Would you remember that if there was no specific reference as to what has been dropped? I wouldn’t.
Here is the litmus test of whether or not you have an IEP that you understand. If you walked out of the meeting and met your mother-in-law and she asked you about your child’s learning plan would you be able to describe it with confidence? The goal here is to be able to tell someone who loves your child how they are being supported in school in easy to understand language.
You should be able to ‘see’ your child’s learning in your mind’s eye.