Breaking Down An IEP

Have you ever read through a student’s individualized educational programming (IEP) and not been sure what exactly you’re reading, what to focus on, or what is relevant to you? You are not alone! IEPs are extensive, complex legal documents with many pieces and parts that can be challenging to understand. Here is a quick guide to the main sections in an IEP, what to look for, and how information in these sections might apply to you. (Please Note: IEPs and IEP-related documents vary between countries, states, and school districts. IEPs in your district may label things differently or be laid out in a different order or format. Do not take any of the following information as legal advice, and always check in with specialists in your own district if you have questions!)

1. Meeting Documents

The first several pages that you will see in the way most IEPs are formatted are legal meeting-related documents including the invitation for the IEP meeting, a prior written notice detailing what happened at the IEP meeting, and meeting summary and signature pages that the team members will all sign physically or virtually at the IEP meeting. At the end of the IEP, there are often a few more legal meeting-related documents, including documents related to transportation, which assessments students will participate in, disclosures for information, insurance forms, and any other addenda required by the district you work in. While these documents may look overwhelming at first glance, they often share information that you already know, and you will not often need to access any of these after the meeting as a general education teacher. That being said, it is still helpful to familiarize yourself with documents you will often see in the IEPs in your school district so that you know how to reference them if you ever need to.

2. Strengths & Areas for Growth

In this section of the IEP, the team members share what they know about the student, including strengths, areas for growth, goals, and new discoveries or progress since the previous meeting. This is one of the main areas in which general education teachers are asked to share their input for the IEP. This section also includes input from the student’s other teachers, caregivers, therapists, medical personnel, and other service providers as applicable. This section is also a great one to read when you have new students or are joining a new IEP team, to get to know the student!

3. Goal Areas

The primary section of an IEP consists of the goal areas for the student. The areas in which a student has goals included in an IEP is dependent on the results of their evaluation for services. Some students only have goals in one area, while others might have several. The number of goals on a student’s IEP varies greatly and is dependent on individual students, their needs, and how their team best feels that they can set them up for success. Common goal areas that you might see on an IEP could include cognitive, adaptive, gross motor, fine motor, speech and language, social emotional, behavior, reading, writing, and math.

Each goal area on a student’s IEP will have its own section dedicated to relevant information. The first thing included in the discussion of each goal are the present levels of performance (PLOP), sometimes also referred to as the present levels of educational performance (PLEP), or the present levels of academic and functional performance (PLAAFP). The PLOP can include a variety of sources of information, including results of an evaluation in that area, observations from parents, teachers, and therapists, and data taken from a student’s previous goal(s) in that area if applicable.

Following the PLOP, a discussion is included in each goal area about where we will move forward next in the student’s education in this area. If it is a new goal area for the student based on the results of an evaluation, the team will collaborate on creating a goal that will be applicable for that specific student. If the student had previous goals in this goal area, this section will discuss the progress made on those previous goals and whether the team would like to continue, modify, or discontinue and replace them. At the end of each goal area section, the new goal(s) in that area will be stated in goal statements.

4. Accommodations

Following a discussion on each of the student’s goal areas and statements of their goals for the upcoming year, a section is provided to discuss a student’s accommodations. These vary greatly between students, and each IEP you read will likely have a different set of accommodations created for that specific student. First, accommodations include things relevant to the student that would be provided by the school or district such as mobility equipment, assistive technology, communication services sign as sign language or braille instruction, multilingual services, and additional staffing support. Next, grading is typically addressed as the IEP team determines whether the student will receive standard grading, specific alterations to standard grading, or progress reports on IEP goals in place of standard grading.

Other accommodations included in a student’s IEP are things to be implemented in the classroom. All students will have different classroom accommodations that best fit their needs and support their learning in the classroom, but examples of accommodations you might see would include access to visual schedules, movement breaks, simplified directions, concrete examples, small group or individual settings for test-taking, and access to a break space outside of the classroom. This section of the IEP is important to look at as a general education teacher, because you are responsible for making sure the student is receiving these accommodations in your classroom.

5. Service Matrix

This section of the IEP details what services a student will receive, from whom, where, and how often. As a general education teacher, this is an important section of the IEP for you to review to understand how much time the student will be spending in your classroom, what supports they will have in place, and what service minutes will be delivered outside of versus inside of your classroom. A student’s service matrix includes the academic services they will receive, services through any therapists such as speech therapy, occupational therapy, or physical therapy, and any other services relevant to the student’s time spent at school.

Have more questions about what is in an IEP, or how to follow one in your classroom! Leave a comment below or reach out to talk further at accessibleeducating@gmail.com.