E141: Understanding the Importance of Progress Reports
In this episode, we dive into progress reports and discuss what you need to look for and how important they are for your child's education. Here's a quick rundown of what you can expect in the episode: -An overview of the importance of progress reports and how they help gauge the effectiveness of your child's IEP.
In this episode, we dive into progress reports and discuss what you need to look for and how important they are for your child’s education.
Here’s a quick rundown of what you can expect in the episode:
-An overview of the importance of progress reports and how they help gauge the effectiveness of your child’s IEP.
5 keys you’ll learn:
- When to expect progress reports and how often you can advocate for additional ones, if needed.
- What progress reports include and how they are typically structured.
- Common issues parents face with progress reports and how to address them.
- Insight into the information provided in the progress reports and its significance.
- Tips on how you can take an active role in understanding and utilizing progress reports effectively.
- Fun Fact from the Episode: Did you know that progress reports are usually released around the same time as grades? So, keep an eye out for them during that period!
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Beth [00:00:00]:
When did your kiddos go back to school? As this podcast serves people all across the country. We have people who started back at the end of July or even two weeks ago in the middle of August. So in anticipation of your first progress report coming out, let’s stay ahead of things and talk about what you need to look for and how important progress reports are. You are listening to the Parent IEP Lab, the podcast that helps you become an informed parent advocate to get your child supported and learning in school. I’m Beth Leesenfeld, occupational therapist, passionate about leveling the information playing field for parent advocates. My mission at the Parent IEP Lab podcast and also the online courses, workshops and summit of the IEP Lab is to break down barriers to being able to advocate with collaboration, as it’s the most effective approach to advocacy I saw in over 400 IEP and 504 meetings. We do this by providing you insider information from the school side so that you have context for what’s happening and create informed, thoughtful questions of your IEP team to have a clearer voice in your child’s plan. So let’s dive into the topic today of progress reports and think about what we can change and tweak to get the right formula for success for your child to learn and grow at school.
Beth [00:01:09]:
Welcome to the lab. Okay, but first, I promised some amazing free resources this fall, and I’m so happy to announce that two of those free resources are available for registration, and one of them, you can start downloading your free resources right away. First up, Scotty from Reframe Parenting, who was on the podcast a few months ago talking about how to know what to ask for. Remember her? She has a free bundle ready starting today that I have something not available anywhere else that you can download as part of the bundle. If you haven’t heard of a bundle, it’s someone who pulls together over 30 resources and offers them all in one place. Then you can scroll through that one page with all the free resources, all of which have some sort of value attached to them, and they’re not any of the freebies that you can find on anybody’s website. And you can pick and choose the ones that are most helpful to you, or you can download all of them and get them delivered to your email. I have a school support orientation guide that’s for parents who don’t have an IEP or 504 yet and need to know the difference between the supports.
Beth [00:02:09]:
And I’m very proud of my where to start flowchart, which helps you make the decision of who to contact at the school and what exactly to ask for inside that resource. So to sign up, go to theieplab.com bundle bundle and sign up there. It’s only available for a week starting today, so go quickly to download your resources. The second resource I am so proud to be a part of it’s. Penny Williams at Behavior Revolution, and she has a registration open for her amazing school struggles. Summit. I am speaking on inclusion, and of course, we talk about vision statements in there, too, and how to get inclusion in that vision statement. And I’m honored to be among speakers like Seth Perler, the Executive Functioning guy, and Greg Santucci, occupational therapist, and Debbie Reaver from Tilt Parenting, just to name a few.
Beth [00:02:58]:
The summit is September 20, eigth to 30th, and if you upgrade to the FastPass, you will see my name pop up again, as Penny asked me to do a special assistive technology workshop with her that’s available only on the FastPass registration page. In that workshop, we dive into four common assistive technology tools to address the challenges of reading, writing, and organizing. And it was so much fun to film. We just filmed it on Friday, and you can go get that. It’s on demand. And we share our screen so that you can walk through and actually see how these technology tools are working and if it is a possibility of working for your child as well. So to register for that, it’s completely free. Just go to theieplab.com schoolstruggles or the link is below this podcast in your description and go sign up for free.
Beth [00:03:44]:
And again, if you want that workshop, you have to upgrade to the Fast press, so look out for that. Okay, now let’s get into the episode. Okay. Progress reports are so important because without them, you don’t really know if your IEP is effective or not. So today we’re talking about when you should expect your progress reports to come out, what they contain, and one very common issue with progress reports that we see all the time to notice once you get them and what to do about it as well. So first, let’s just start with what they are. So progress reports are like a grade report for your child’s IEP goals. They are due when grades are due.
Beth [00:04:20]:
So you should see them come out around that time with a big but, because within your child’s IEP, there should be at least a statement, if not a whole section in that IEP that says how progress on these goals will be communicated to parents. This means, you guessed it, that it’s something you can advocate for if you want to get more progress reports than the one that they’re guaranteeing as a default. But if I’m being honest, if your IEP is pretty effective, three or four times a year should be the right amount of time to check in, as long as the plan is pretty good and you’re pretty happy with the way things are going. If you check in too frequently, then it’s not enough time to actually collect that data. So there is like a too much and too little check in here. So it is a balance. But just so you know, it typically comes out around grades. Now I’ve had several parents show up to the prep course and say when was I supposed to get progress reports? I don’t think I ever got them.
Beth [00:05:17]:
And this is when you email your case manager and ask for the past year of the progress reports. If you don’t have any or if you can’t find them, it shouldn’t happen. But it does because grades are an automated system that is school wide, so those automatically get sent out to parents. Whereas with progress reports most of the time that case manager has to make sure that everybody has their stuff in and then print them out and send them home manually. So it does happen that case managers will get overwhelmed, they won’t get them sent out, or maybe, possibly they’re even being neglectful and not getting them out appropriately. So just know that it does happen and that I’ve had several parents be like, I don’t have them. So just find your case manager, that’s the person that you have the most contact with. And if you don’t know your case manager, then go to the principal and ask for the past year of progress reports so you can check them out.
Beth [00:06:08]:
And now you know that the next grading period when you see grades come home that you should get progress reports as well. So if you’re not seeing them in that time period, then you know to reach out sooner rather than later if you don’t see it. So let’s talk about what they include in most IEP software programs. It’s set up that the goal is listed and then there’s a drop down menu next to it for the responsible staff person to fill out with a text box below that. For each goal in the drop down, you have the options of goal met, progress made, insufficient progress made, and did not work on goal. I’m sure that there’s other options that are in there depending on the program in the district, but those are the ones that are most commonly in there. So I was always told as a staff member that you only legally have to fill out the drop down for it to be considered a legal progress report. So you might get a progress report that only says goal met progress made, insufficient progress made, or did not work on goal.
Beth [00:07:06]:
Now, I think we can all agree that it’s not best practice, even if it is true that you only have to do the drop down because there’s a lot more information that we’re leaving just out of the whole progress report if that’s the only data that we get. So data should be provided in that text box to back up the information in the drop down, especially if progress hasn’t been made or the goal isn’t worked on. There should be a note on why and as every goal should be measurable. And if you want more information on goals, go check out episode 58 of this podcast where Matt Cloven and I talk about IEP goals, there should be some sort of data or number associated to that goal so that they can support that checkbox in the drop down of if their progress was made or not. Okay, so after that discussion, I think you can probably figure out what the number one problem with progress reports I see is, and that is no data in that text box at the bottom. So if you’re just getting a progress report that says progress made, progress made. Progress made and nothing else, no percentages, no description of what’s happening, no, hey, they’re doing really well at this part of the goal, but they’re really struggling with this part of the goal, then what do you do about it? Well, you email the case manager back and perhaps include the person above that case manager. I’d rather have you loop in someone like a special education coordinator or an assistant director over like a principal, because sometimes the principal doesn’t have that special education knowledge.
Beth [00:08:32]:
And just ask for that data to back up the choice on the drop down. And I’ll give you one huge humongous hint. Explain why you need that data. Now this depends on what it is in the drop down, of course, but something to an effect of I want to see if the progress is on track for this goal to be met by the end of their IEP year. If not, if anything needs to be changed in the IEP, I’d love to talk to you about it. Right, because the goal is that they meet that goal by the end of the IEP year, and if they’re not on track, then we just need to change something. No big deal, right? But without that data being reported, then we really have no idea if the IEP is working or if it’s not. And here’s the thing, we talk about this all the time in the prep course and in the membership office hours.
Beth [00:09:20]:
That the time to trial and error and really figure out how your child learns. And if the IEP is being effective is between IEP meetings. And that progress report is exactly how you know. If you have any more questions about progress reports, hop into the Facebook group and just ask. The link is below this podcast in the description and I would love to see your additional questions about progress reports, many of which are case by case basis. And so of course, I can’t really cover that in the podcast, but I hope you’ll jump into the Facebook group and look there. And please, please do not forget to sign up for both Scotty from Reframe Parenting’s Bundle, especially if you would like to see my Where to start flowchart and the School Support Orientation Guide, as you only have one week to do that and that’s the only place where you can get it. And Penny Williams’s school struggles.
Beth [00:10:08]:
Summit is something I am so excited to jump into and listen to as well. So you get special pricing right now for that fast pass, so jump on it if it’s something that you might be interested in, and especially if you are interested in that extra assistive technology workshop. All of the links that you need to access all of the resources are below this podcast in your podcast description, in your podcast player. And of course you can just send me a message on Facebook or Instagram at the IEP lab if you can’t find what you need. Thanks so much for listening and we will see you same time, same place next week. Thanks so much.