The Language of IEPs & 504s

Language of IEPs and 504s-All and Before

The Language of IEPs and 504s: The Importance of “All” and “Before”

Imagine your child has the following on his IEP:

“The IEP will share reading data with parents on a monthly basis.”

After six months of meetings, your internal parent alarm starts going off because the data provided by the school doesn’t match what you’re seeing at home.

You submit a FERPA request for all reading data related to your child.

The FERPA response provides you negative reading data that the school didn’t previous share with you.
You want to complain to the school and/or submit a complaint to the state, but . . .

The school followed the IEP. It did share reading data on a monthly basis. There wasn’t anything in the IEP that stated all data had to be provided.

The Language of IEPs and 504s: The Problem with “Engage”

Imagine an IEP with a goal along the lines of the following:

Teachers will engage with student to ensure student understands and accurately records all assignments in student’s planner.

Now imagine attending an IEP meeting at which this goal is being discussed. You push for more details, but the staff member helming the meeting insists that engage means the following:

“It’s not that they’re waiting for to come to them. They’re going to engage with .”

What could go wrong?

Writing Goals: The Problem with “Measured Quarterly”

Quarterly measurements invite skewed and misleading data. Imagine the following goal is being proposed for your student: “Given content-area vocabulary (English, History, Science, Math), STUDENT will earn 85% accuracy on 3 out of 4 vocabulary assessments per quarter.” In the case of vocabulary, students are provided content-area vocabulary on a daily basis. Depending on the type of assessment (more on this below), the student could be assessed on vocabulary once-to-a-few times a week during each grading quarter. Which assessments count toward the goal? The first four consecutively administered assessments? The last four consecutively administered assessments? Four randomly chosen assessments administered throughout the grading quarter? Four cherry-picked assessments administered throughout the grading quarter?

The Language of IEPs and 504s: Ban “As Needed”

If “as needed” appears on any IEP or 504 plan put in front of you, request that the words be removed.

If you’re advised “that’s how we do it”, ask for documentation citing this to be true, and pull out IDEA or Section 504, and point out “as needed” doesn’t appear in either.

A child doesn’t need an IEP plan or a 504 plan as needed.

Children need everything in their IEPs or 504s period.

The Language of IEPs and 504s: Yes, You Have to Define “Accessible”

Accessible is another of those words to consider inserting every chance you get.

If something is accessible, it is often an alternative method of access.

For example, a student might need a ramp and an elevator as alternatives to the stairs used by his peers.

Another student might need Braille or large text as an alternative to the text provided to her peers.

Accommodations Don’t Have a Word Count: Clarity Trumps Word Count When Writing Accommodations

No laws or implementing regulations state accommodations must be written within a specific word count.

However, pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the unique needs of students must be addressed.

In other words: Clarity and ensuring the unique needs of the child are met is more important than word count.

The Language of IEPs and 504s: Eliminate “Access” and Define “Use”

A friend shared her daughter’s IEP. It included the following accommodation:

“Access to Flash Pass”

“Access” is up there with “as needed” and “all” and “before”.

What is “access”, other than a word that is over-used and under-defined in IEPs and 504 Plans?

The Language of IEPs & 504s: Just When You Thought You Knew the Definition of “Assessment”, Wrong Again

In my world, an assessment is any kind of quiz, test, evaluation, etc., whether it is graded or not graded.

In IEP and 504 Plan worlds, assessments are interpreted as differently as a person might interpret a piece of poetry. Whereas one person might interpret Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” to be about being an individual choosing a different path, marching to a different drummer, and so on, there are others who point to this understanding as nonsense, as the incorrect interpretation.

Who knew assessments could be the same way?

Category: The Language of IEPs & 504s