Jessica Leath 1

IEP Overview Essay

An IEP serves as an education plan for an individual student. It is a great teaching tool to help

meet the needs of specific students. An IEP meeting is held after a child is evaluated and meets the

qualifications of eligibility for disability. If a parent disagrees with the evaluation, they can have an

independent evaluation done at the cost of the school system. The IEP meeting must be held within 30

days after the child is determined eligible. During an IEP meeting there are four persons required to be

in attendance. Those persons are the parent, general education teacher, special education teacher (who

is often in charge of writing the IEP) and an agency representative (someone in administration). It is

possible for other people to become required participants if the student needs other services such as

speech intervention, physical therapy, occupational therapy or nursing needs (some examples for

needing a nurse present are if a child has a feeding tube, severe allergies, or seizures).

An IEP is a legal document and if it is not followed the parent can bring forth a lawsuit against

those involved in not following the accommodations and/or modifications. An IEP must be review

annually and a reevaluation for eligibility is required every three years. The purpose of a student having

an IEP is to help them succeed in school according to their specific needs. It helps support students in

special education because it allows accommodations or modifications to be made. An IEP is also a

reflection on FAPE. FAPE stands for Free and Appropriate Public Education. The reason FAPE relates to

special education is because without an IEP a student with disabilities (no matter how great or small)

would not be given a Free and Appropriate Education. An IEP contains different elements.

The first element in an IEP is goals. Goals are made according to the student’s individual needs.

When goals are being made it needs to something that helps the child with skills to master the content

of the curriculum. All goals are set as with the purpose of being accountable to working on them, but

they are not a guarantee of accomplishment. When making goals they must meet a certain criterion.
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First, all goals must be meaningful; meaning they are directly related to that child. They should not be

generalized based on what “everyone” needs to learn. Secondly, the goals need to be measurable. This

means that the goals need to be able to be tracked for progress and growth. Thirdly, for a goal to be

measurable it needs to be monitorable, meaning there must be a way to collect data on the goal. Lastly,

they need to be useful in decision making regarding the student’s education; helping determine if

accommodations and/or modifications are enough or if more are needed.

The second element of an IEP is services. This involves the environment where the services

should be given, keeping in mind IDEA’s requirement for Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). The

environment that services are given can vary from the student’s general education classroom (LRE) to a

residential school. The student should remain in their LRE for the largest amount of time possible and

should only be removed from that environment when education cannot be achieved at a satisfactory

level with the assistance of aids and services. Some other places that services could be given are in

resource rooms (part-time; for specific needs), extended resource rooms (full-time; little to no time in

general education), community (learning working skills or groceries shopping), special schools

(designated to help with specific needs; behavioral), hospital/home (cancer patients), or residential

school (boarding schools for specific needs; deaf and blind).

The next element of an IEP is the accommodations and/or modifications. There is a difference

between the two of them. Accommodations are practices or procedures to help reduce or eliminate the

effects of a student’s disability, but do not change the learning expectations. For example, my daughter

has a hearing impairment and she had accommodations for preferential seating, closed captioning on all

videos played in class and the use of a FM headset by the teacher. Though she had these

accommodations her expectations of learning were the same as her peers. Modifications, however,

change or reduce the learning expectations according to the disability or the child. Examples would be
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the expectation of learned materials is lowered or decreased. This also includes things like revising tests,

or assignments to make them easier. Generally, more severe cases require modifications, not just

accommodations.

Another element of an IEP are transitional plans and behavior plans. Transitional planning starts

when the student is 14 years old (sometimes younger) and helps the student plan which classes to take

for success in gaining skills to use post-school. At about 16 years of age, but no later, transitional

services begin. Transitional services are based on what the student will need as they move from school

to live as an adult. This could include employment training, learning to live independently, preparing for

higher education (if that is an option), and doing things in the community.

The final element of an IEP are behavior plans. Behavior plans are separate plans that involve

behavioral needs. A behavior plan is often referred to a Behavior Intervention Plan and can result in the

need for a BI (behavioral interventionalist). BI’s are specially trained to handle challenging behaviors.

Behavior plans are made to help the school be synced on the expectations and how to handle the

behaviors so that there is consistency in how everyone will address those behaviors. A behavioral plan

also allows the people involved come up with the best way to teach the student the target behavior.

IEP’s are made to help students accomplish their goals and help them work their way through

the challenges they have that stand in the way of their learning. It is very important for everyone

involved in the IEP process to know the child’s strengths and to take into consideration the parent’s

ideas on what would best help their child succeed in their education. IEP’s are, without a doubt, a lot of

work, but they are worth it so that a child can have the chance to succeed in an area where they would

normally not be able to do so.

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References

A Guide to the Individualized Education Program. (2000, July). US Department of Education.

https://www2.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/iepguide/iepguide.pdf

Natalie Raass. (2021, February 2). What is an IEP? YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv0JIG94t1I&feature=emb_title