Parental Advocacy Strategy Selina Davis, B.A.  2020 

The Special Needs Parental Advocate Strategist: IEP Document Part 1 (Video Series) 

Video Transcript 

Hello, I'm Selina Davis. I am a special education advocate and today's session will be about working with the IEP. So on IEP there is a section. Our first page is usually the data sheet. This page has your child's biographical data, as well as, information regarding when and where the meeting took place. It will have or it will indicate who has attended the meeting. And signing, this page does not necessarily mean that you agree or that you disagree with what was written. It just records all of the people that have attended the meeting. 

Data Sheet Section: 

This page has your child’s biographical data as well as information regarding when and where the meeting took place. This page also documents all who attended. Signing this page does not mean you agree or disagree with what is written it is just a record of who attended the meeting. 

The second part is where we look at the present levels of academic achievement and functional performance and this is one of the most important sections of the IEP. This section outlines your child's strengths and weaknesses in the academic, social and emotional areas and information from your child's teacher. And the evaluations will always be summarized here. 

Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance (PLAAFP) This is one of the most important sections of an IEP. This section outlines your child’s strengths and weaknesses in academic social and emotional areas. Information from your child’s teacher and the CST evaluations will be summarized here.

Then there's a section that will if, if your child is eligible for transition and that means that the child is 14 and older getting ready to go to high school. That this section and this information will be contained here. And this one will become a very the important piece as you get older. So this is in grades eight usually going on into high school and this section will become very detailed. It has to be very specific so that your child has a plan of action. So this is a part where your child will be transitioning from school to a college to work vocational school, military or some type of program that is a higher educational level. And your child's realistic future plans would drive the IEP. So your child's program is developed to help him or her achieve their goals, their future goals. And the IEP team will discuss your child's interests and preferences. 

They will look at goals related to postsecondary education, employment and career. They've needed to be a community participation plan and an independent living plan. And the plan becomes, like I said earlier, very deep, very detailed. And usually when you have a transition meeting, it is a very detailed oriented but very long and very, specific to exactly what your child is going to need. Now, I do want to put it a little, what they call a caveat or a little Easter egg in here. Usually IEPs only do with information for a year for your child. 

Transition Section If your child is 14 or older the IEP team will begin discussing transitioning your child from school to college, work, vocational school, or the military. Your child’s realistic future plans drive the IEP. Your child’s program is developed to help him/her achieve his/her future goals. The IEP team will discuss your child’s interests and preferences. They will look at goals related to post-secondary education, employment/career, if needed community participation and independent living. The plan becomes much more detailed and more discussion is devoted to this part of the IEP.

So moving on, we're going to talk about the behavior interventions. This is another tricky space of the IEP. if your child is having a difficulty adjusting to school, getting along with others, a plan is developed to help your child improve their function. And the plan usually includes the development of a target behavior, the target behavior that you wish to change, what has been tried in the past to improve the behavior and what has been successful in improving the behavior. Then there is also a new plan. There is data that is collected and when, and how and what and all those wonderful when, how, what, who, those types of questions are always, addressed or should be addressed when you're talking about behavioral interventions. Also in that part, you want to know the word which is a behavior intervention plan (BIP) and functional behavior analysis (FBA). Those are two very, big topics that will be discussed later and in the more advanced part of advocating for your child. 

Behavioral Interventions If your child Is having difficulty adjusting to school, getting along with others etc. a plan is developed to help your child improve his\her functioning: the plan includes the development of: 

• A target behavior, the behavior you wish to change 
• What has been tried in the past to improve this behavior with what success • What is the new plan 
• What data will be collected and when 
• Who is to do what when and how

So then there are the goals and objectives. Your child's goals and objectives are based on weaknesses identified in the present level section that we spoke of already and the transition plan. So the goal is where your child will be at the end of the school year for the or the IEP. So sometimes we have IEPs that are revised and they have a different set of dates. IEPs are usually a year long unless the parent and the school has agreed and that usually doesn't happen. So IEPs have to be, have a certain time period to be accomplished and revisited and looked at and revised. That will be also, in the other part of the advents, advocacy. The objectives are benchmarks at each marking period, which allows us to determine if the child is on target for meeting the goal. For example, my child will be able to read 50 words per minute with less than three errors, objectives by the end of the first marking period, which could be, you know, from March to September, my child will be able to read 25 words per minute with less than ve errors by the end of the second marking period. 

So that's another maybe progress report or progress time. You'll usually see like semesters, that type of thing. It depends on when the IEP, has the end date and the start date. But, by the marking period, we'll be able to read 50 words per minute with 10 errors by the end of the third marking period. And we'll be able to read 50 words per minute with less than six errors. So those can be very, tedious and confusing. And what you'll want to do is end up trying to out actually exactly how many minutes that is a day, during the school day. So we'll talk about that too and advance advocacy. And so we're just really doing basics here. Just, just to introduce you to all the concepts of what's in an IEP and what it takes to have an IEP.

Goals and Objectives Section: 

Your child’s goals and objectives are based on the weakness identified in the PLAAFP and the transition plan. The goal is where your child will be at the end of the school year or this IEP. The objectives are benchmarks at each marking period which allow us to determine if your child is on target for meeting the goal. 

Example: 

Goal - X will be able to read 50 words per minute with less than 3 errors. Objectives - By the end of the rst marking period X will be able to read 25 words per minute with less than 5 errors; by the end of the second marking period X will be able to read 50 words per minute with 10 errors; by the end of the third marking period X will be able to read 50 words per minute with less than 6 errors. 

So the next section is evaluation criteria, procedure and schedule. We incorporate our criteria and schedule into a goal and objective. This section will tell you when and how you will be informed, of the child's progress. So I kind of misread that. But really what happens is they incorporate a schedule and they tell you how it's going to be done and by whom and when and how long it will take and that type of stu. So this is the tricky part. So research has shown this is placement in the least restrictive environment. This is the law. Right! This is the primary thing that drives our law for special education. So rich research has shown over and over that students progress best when they are in general education classes.

That is the least restrictive environment for a child. The IEP team by law required to EXHAUST all possible methods to have a student in a general education class prior to placing in a special education class or placement. So if your child will be in special education for more than 20% of the day, the IEP team must justify their decision in course, of course by course. Answering three questions. So you'll never see the three questions on the IEP. This is just what you need to think of and see if that's what they're providing. So what supplementary Oh my goodness. Excuse my French. What supplements, Oh, what supplementary aides and services are considered and why were they rejected as not being appropriate. 

Research has shown over and over that students’ progress best when they are in general education classes. The IEP team by law is required to exhaust all possible methods to have a student in a general education class prior to placing in a special education class. If your child will be in special education for more than 20% of the day the IEP team must justify their decision course by course answering three key questions. 

• What supplementary aides and services were considered and why were they rejected as not being appropriate? 
• Document the comparison of the benefits provided in general education class and the benefits provided in the special education class. 
• Document the potential beneficial or harmful effects that a placement may have on the student with disabilities or the other students in the class.

Document the comparison of benifiets provided in general education class and the benifiets provided in special education class. I really can talk you all, I'm sorry. Document the potential beneficial or harmful effects that a placement may have on the student with disabilities or the other students in the class. Now I want to add something in here because you have to realize as a parent you are the number one driver of the IEP. So if you don't feel like this is the appropriate for your child, do you need to speak up and document those. And that's where advocates usually come in. And eventually if there's no agreement, then we would, you know, you would have to go to a legal route with other processes, other ways of dealing with things that you are concerned about and not being addressed.

So, another part that you want to look for is the modification in extracurricular and nonacademic activities. So the IEP team, and that includes you, you are a member of the IEP team, is charged with outlining what if any modifications are needed for your child to participate in extracurricular, and nonacademic activities. If your child is not going to participate in nonacademic and extracurricular activities, it needs to be stated here. If your child is placed out of district, a plan needs to be developed, which enables your child to participate in activities in their home school placement decision. So the IEP team has developed a present level and that's what that acronym (PLAAFP) means. Made a transition plan if your, if your child is 14 or older, if need be developed a behavior behavioral intervention plan created goals and objectives, looked at all the course offerings to determine, okay what services your child needs in order to benet from education. 

So now it's time to determine what type of setting your child will be in to receive instructions in each area. This is also a part of the LRE or the least restrictive environment. Very big concerns that you have to think about a lot. That part. So when you are doing a plan for a student that is going to go to a separate setting, a separate setting is defined as a building without general education students. This is considered a restrictive placement. Anything that does not involve general education students is restrictive. If your child is in such a setting or if the decision of the IEP team was to place your child in such a restrictive environment that the IEP team must by law develop a plan to return students to district or move them to school that has general education students. That is a balance between two things. So there are a lot of things that are behind this part of the least restrictive environment and it's very complex to talk about that here. But it is something that will be addressed in advancing your advocacy. But these are things that you generally need to know about when you get to this part. If you are nding that it's a more restrictive environment in a setting, you have to start thinking in a different way and put a different hat on.

So participation in general and special education programs you will see and it's not grid so I apologize for that, but you will see an explanation of how they're going to administer and give, option for programming. So you have to see that there's the option, the frequency, the duration and the location of the program is very important. You will receive this document so you will be able to, read through it to get it further, or clear understanding and the grid will be included. So forgive me for not having the grid in there. Okay. But if your child, is going to participate in social studies, but they need help in math or or reading, they could be pulled out that's restrictive. They could be pushed in, which means that a resource person would come in and help them. If they are not in a school that has anything like that, then that would be a more restrictive environment. 

The IEP team is charged with outlining what if any modifications are needed for your child to participate in extracurricular and nonacademic activities. If your child is not going to participate in nonacademic and extracurricular activities it needs to be stated here. If your child is placed out of district a plan needs to be developed which enables your child to participate in activities in their home school.

Nonpublic schools are usually those types of environments, special day classes, that type of stu. So the length of the school year and the school day for federal, for the law, the federal government requires that the information be put into the I E P because prior the individual I D E A the individuals with disabilities education act, special education students were not always given the same length of day or school year as other students. Often they had a shorter day or a shorter year. And for the majority of special education students with this was the same, I'm sorry for the majority of special education students, this will be the same as for general education students now. Okay. So we are going to pause for a little bit because we are at the halfway mark. Okay. So I'm going to pause it for you to take a break. So moving on to Part 2.

*Please be aware that there may be some misspellings and grammar mishaps in the transcription. 

Downloads

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