E98: The IEP Process Step-By-Step
Knowing how it's *supposed* to go enables you to know when things are a little different, and of course to ask really great questions because you have come context! In this episode we cover: 1) Steps 1-10 of the annual IEP Review process (referencing the handout -- link to get the handout is below!)
Knowing how it’s *supposed* to go enables you to know when things are a little different, and of course to ask really great questions because you have come context!
In this episode we cover:
1) Steps 1-10 of the annual IEP Review process (referencing the handout — link to get the handout is below!)
2) 3 Common deviations from the normal steps and why this happens!
Download FREE IEP Process Step – By – Step Guide
E98: The IEP Process Step-By-Step
[00:00:00] I get anxious. I don’t know that. I would say I have diagnosable anxiety as there’s several people in my life who actually have a diagnosis of anxiety. But although I like doing new things, I really like to be prepared on what to expect with those new things. Even if that really goes off the rails and doesn’t exactly happen like I was prepared for it to happen.
And really this helps my stress level because at least I have some reference point about what’s supposed to happen. And I have that awareness of when it’s not happening the way it’s typically supposed to. Right. I don’t have to rely on other people telling me that this is kind of odd
or this is out of the ordinary because I have that context of ready. I was really like this, about my birth story a couple years ago. And of course, of course I had all kinds of things go wrong in my birth story.
But what happened was I had the idea of what was supposed to happen. And then I knew when we were deviating off course, and I could be more [00:01:00] calm. And understand my options when it came to that point. And I’m wondering if you are the same way. IEP are one of those things that it’s really amazing that they’re individualized.
But it’s also really, really hard to nail down. Uh, this is supposed to happen. And then this is, and then this is, and it happens like that every single time. I think, you know, by now it probably won’t go as planned and you’ll have some things that don’t go like you were expecting them to. But the thing is that when we go through the IEP annual review process, step by step a, you know, if things are going out of order in your own situation,
And you can ask why things are being done out of order, because you have some sort of context you can ask really good questions. And B you can decide if going off track is a big deal or if it’s not,
And if you actually need to do anything about it, or if it’s actually going to end up benefiting your child, that they are going out of order. So in this [00:02:00] episode we are going through the iep annual review process step-by-step including what to share for your parent input and where to share it so that you actually feel heard during your next iep meeting so stay tuned we’re going through the iep annual review process step-by-step
You are listening to the parent IEP lab, the podcast that helps you get an effective IEP plan for your child so that you can get them supported and learning in school. I’m Beth LEAs and Feld occupational therapist who started to notice trends in parents who got effective IEP for their kids without having to fight the school.
My mission is to help you turn insider knowledge from the school side into effective parent advocacy for your child,
the parent IEP lab focuses on providing you knowledge about your parent role in the IEP and taking away the stress of an upcoming IEP meeting through the ultimate IEP prep course, but also on the podcast we highlight commonly missed parent advocacy opportunities between IEP meetings, which is really how you avoid having to fight with the team. So let’s dive in and think about [00:03:00] what we can change and tweak to get the right formula for success for your child to learn and grow at school. Welcome to the lab.
And this episode happens to fall directly into alignment with my newest freebie handout, the IEP process step-by-step guide. So click the link below this podcast in your podcast player to have the handout in front of you before or after you listened to the podcast, we are also really getting ready for
our IEP bootcamp. And that is January 27th through 29th. I’m so excited to have all of you parents in the bootcamp so that we can break down how to actually read your child’s IEP, figure out what is in it. We’ll also talk at the end of this podcast about a couple of things that you should definitely be able to read and your IEP.
And if you don’t know exactly where to get that information from your child’s IEP right now, then you definitely want to consider the bootcamp, the link to sign up for the bootcamp at camp is also below this podcast and your podcast player.
Hope to see you there.
Okay. So again, we’re [00:04:00] actually following step-by-step through my freebie handout. So definitely check that out. You can go to the IEP lab.com/iep. Or the link is below the podcast in your podcast player, so that you can download that freebie and have it in front of you. If you’re listening or driving right now, don’t stop and look at it and you can look at it afterwards as well. And that can be to jog your memory.
If you already have that download, then this is wonderful. You just get more of an explanation today about what is actually in it and why it’s so important. Um, when you go through that and handout. So this is really going to be a lot of fun, I think. And you know, the holidays, a lot of podcasters will not do new episodes or they will do reruns of episodes that they’ve done before.
And I just, I felt like this was a great opportunity to go back and do some basic IEP work to. To make sure that we’re all on the same page. Right. We can talk about, you know, inclusion and really complicated situations. But a lot of times we skip over the [00:05:00] most basic things. Like what the heck are these acronyms?
And what does this section supposed to have in it, which is exactly what we’re addressing in the bootcamp. So this is just a really great basic episode. I bet I’m going to reference it a lot. Moving forward.
Um, because it’s just one of those things that if we don’t know what we’re looking at in the IEP, You’re not going to have effective advocacy leader because you don’t understand what’s actually in the IEP and what’s missing. Right. So, you know, I can teach you all of these amazing strategies of.
You know how to approach the team and how to, you know, really look at your priorities and how to communicate with that with the team. But the thing is, if you don’t understand what you’re looking at, when you get that draft IEP. Then you’re just going to lose your train of thought. You’re going to lose your confidence. So really we’re just going to focus on some of these basics for the next couple of weeks. And I’m so excited to have that bootcamp. It’s going to be so much fun.
So, what we’re going to do is we’re actually going to go through the handout. And so I’m going to explain the process. Step-by-step this is an, an [00:06:00] annual review and so this is assuming that you have already gone through the evaluation process
and then you already have an IEP for your child, right? So an annual review happens every single calendar year. And so this is okay. I know that my child’s IEP meeting is coming up in the spring. What do I do to prepare? This is exactly the thing that you want to look at so that you kind of know what’s coming up and you can kind of figure out
what to decide for your parent input and then how to communicate that with the team inside the process. Right. The thing is that I’ve had parents, you know, wait until step seven to share any kind of parent input. And what happens is the team, the IEP team from the school side. They have momentum. They have, you know, I don’t know, like one case manager might have 25 IDPs in a year.
And they might have 10 of them in the month that your child has their Zen. Right. And so it’s just a flaw in the system. And that they [00:07:00] don’t get a lot of time to spend on these. And if you happen to be in a cluster like that, what happens is if they’re already past the draft IEP and they already have.
Things written and you’ve already met, you know, they want to close that out. They feel that pressure of wanting to get that IEP done, get it finalized, get their corrections, get it reviewed by somebody at the district office. I get it back, do their edits and then have it finalized so that they can move on and actually spend time with their kids, which most teachers came into the business because they really want to work with your kid. Not because they want to sit through a bunch of IEP meetings.
So that’s what happens is once you get this process rolling, it’s really hard to go back and do things in retrospect or change things that have already happened. Because there’s such a momentum that is happening every single time. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of context, so, okay. So we’re going to jump into the handout now. So step one.
Is that hopefully you can look at your child’s IEP and you can read [00:08:00] when the next IEP annual review meeting is due. This happens once per calendar year. So if it happened April 6th, I dunno. That’s my birthday. If it happened April 6th last year, you know, that it has to at least be started by April 6th, this year.
Okay. So, you know that it’s coming up on that date or hopefully before that. There are a couple of situations where teams will move it forward. And so oftentimes that is because, if your child had. An IEP that happened over the summer. Let’s say they turned three over the summer. And so
they needed to have that transition meeting between early intervention, which is birth to three services into school services. And so what happens is they have a team that works all throughout the summer. And they will qualify kids and they will do their IEP over the summer. But the rest of like preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers will not work over the summer.
So, what they do is they move it [00:09:00] up. Instead of having it in June because it’s going to be overdue at that point. By the time they get back in the fall. They will go ahead and have it in the spring. Like April. And so they will move things earlier around sometimes, but most of the time it’s going to happen one calendar year from when it happened last year. Okay. So the next step, step two, is that in a perfect world, your case manager, whether that’s a special education teacher or the speech language pathologist.
We’ll contact you and usually a phone call and say, Hey, can we schedule this? What works for you? Or maybe they’ll do an email to you and say, Hey, you know, we’re looking at having this due in April. You know, what is your schedule look like? What’s best for you. So they should really be reaching out to you first
to see what your preference is to make sure that you can make it. But there’s also all of this other context behind the scenes of when they can get, you know, related service providers in the building. And. All of these things. So. Just know it’s a complicated process, but they really should be contacting you first to make sure [00:10:00] that you can attend.
At a time that they’re proposing to the rest of the team. Now step three, is that you get the official notice of meetings. So this could be called something different. I think Texas calls it something different, but it is an official notice of what the meeting is. So it’s probably going to say annual IEP review meeting, right. Where it’s going to be held, whether that’s virtual or whether it’s at the school, that kind of thing when, and who will be there.
And this is really important, but who will be there part. So a lot of times, you know, we just had an episode about excusals. If you’re wondering about excusals go back and listen to that episode. but if it says that they’re supposed to be a principal there or an occupational therapist there, then that’s where you’re going to get that information on the official notice of meeting that you get once it’s scheduled.
And then step number four is to respond to the notice of meeting. Sometimes the notice of meeting gets sent home in a backpack and it’s like an actual sheet of paper. And sometimes it’s an email. The cool thing about [00:11:00] schools is that most of the schools in the U S. Use the Google system. So typically what they do is they send out an invitation, a Google invite. And so you will see everybody’s email address on there. So it’s pretty easy for you to respond to that email, include everybody on there. Cause that’s everybody who’s invited to the meeting and you can respond and request, right.
So you want to respond to the notice and share your vision statement, which it’s episode 41. If you need help writing your vision statement, or you can hop into the Facebook group and ask about that. And at the same time, you can ask for a draft IEP to be delivered to you about three to five days before the meeting. So this gives the team
a really nice heads up that you’re asking for that IEP. And you’re asking for it by a specific date, because now you have the date of the meeting. So you know how many days you need to review it beforehand as well. So just a little heads up. That’s like a perfect time to share your vision statement and request a draft IEP as well.
And then step [00:12:00] five is to develop your parent input. So while you’re waiting for the draft IEP, Put together your parent input statement. And this is what we focus on in the prep course. If you haven’t gone through the prep course yet. This is the main meat of the prep course is deciding your priorities. We go through two different frameworks to narrow down all of the challenges that you’re seeing your child having and what your priorities are for them, whether that’s building up on their strengths or whether that’s addressing some frustrations that they’re having.
We kind of boil that down using those two evidence-based frameworks, and then we teach you, you. You know, I give you of course a format to do this, but you fill out your parent input statement so that you can take that into the meeting. Now you can turn that into your parent input statement that gets copied and pasted directly into the IEP, or you can choose to have that parent input plan in front of you.
And that has, um, you know, I’m referencing the one that we have in the prep course, but the one we have in the prep course has like, Things that really annoyed me [00:13:00] personally, because teams will put parents on the spot with so many things like strengths. Like what are your child’s strengths? Well, if you would have prepared me for that,
I would’ve been able to come up with amazing strings for my kid. But now that you put me on the spot, I can’t think of anything and that’s just not true. Right. So that has a list of those things where I don’t want you to get caught not having things prepared. So That’s also what’s on the parent input plan as well.
So moving on to step six, this is when you receive the draft IEP. So hopefully by the date you requested it, you will get the draft IEP. And hopefully that draft IEP has some draft goals. It has some draft present levels so that you can review that.
And again, if you struggle with knowing what you’re looking at with the draft IEP, please consider joining us in the bootcamp. You can find that link and get more information and register below this podcast in your podcast player, just click that link and you’ll be taken to a landing page where you can kind of see what’s included, but it will definitely [00:14:00] help you if you get that draft IEP back. And you’re like, well, I don’t even know what I’m looking at.
Right. So when you get it back, you want to compare the draft to your vision statement. Did they incorporate what your priorities were into the draft IEP? Are you all on the same page or are you not. And you can kind of get a feel for what the meeting is going to be like, depending on how they listen to your vision statement. Right? Little hint there.
Um, and then you can look at that IEP and say once you know how to read it right. Will this IEP, get your child closer to their vision that you had for them or not. And what’s the issue with it, right. Would you want to advocate for during the meeting? It just helps direct your advocacy so much better. And you have a reason for everything that you’re asking for. Right.
Step seven is to submit your parent input. So after you have the draft, you can see, okay, is this going to be good? Is it going to get your child closer to the vision or not? Do we need to change some things? Do I need to add some things to my parent input statement that gets put into the parent section of the IEP?
So that I [00:15:00] make sure that if they’re missing something in present levels, that I put it in my parent input statement. Right. So it gets into the IEP. And that’s really, really helpful and important.
Step eight is to actually attend the meeting. So if you can bring somebody with you that is within your parent rights, of course, check your procedural safeguards.
And your parent rights with your state, but you can always bring somebody with you and remember you want to solid IEP out of that meeting, but some things can be changed later in phase two. This is why my business is called the IEP lab, because I do believe that IEP are a trial and error process, right.
There are very informed trial and error process. But you’re not going to know what works for your kid until you just try something and you have some evidence and say, okay, I really think because of this strength that they’re really going to benefit from this accommodation, but then something can happen or a teacher’s personality isn’t what you expected.
And so you might need to change that and that’s okay. Just remember when you [00:16:00] go to that IEP meeting, you want a solid IEP. You want. Certain things to be represented accurately, such as placement, that kind of thing. But really if there’s some little things that you’re like, oh man, like, I didn’t want that to be like that, but I think we can change it later if it’s not going to work, then that is okay too.
Step nine is to finalize the IEP and just a little hint about what happens behind the scenes. Is that typically there’s a review quality control person at the district level. So what happens is your case manager will make all of the changes that you guys talked about in the meeting. Personally, I love to make changes during the meeting. I know that that’s interpreted as rude sometimes if I have my computer out, but I’m going to be honest.
That with, you know, 80 people on my caseload a year, I would not remember every little detail of what we talked about in that meeting. And so I would have my computer out and I would say, okay, I changed the school to this and I would read it back before we ended the [00:17:00] meeting to make sure that it’s in agreement, right. That it makes sense.
And like the service minutes and things like that. If I changed them from the draft IEP, I did it during the meeting. So that it didn’t have to be changed later because my memory was just not very good. I loved my kids and I would remember what I was doing with them, for sure. And their progress. But I also needed some help to remember what we talked about in that IEP meeting. So finalize the IEP, the case manager, then finalizes, it turns it into the district person. Then the district person kicks it back with any changes that need to happen from a compliance standpoint with your state or with your federal laws.
Sometimes they would get it kicked back for a comma. I’m I’m serious. They would get it kicked back because a comma was out of place and incentive that quality control person changing it. They kicked it back to the special education teacher. So the special education teacher or the speech language pathologist really has
a lot of paperwork on the backend. And oftentimes they’re like [00:18:00] fixing things or a goal might need to be rewritten because it didn’t have a certain part in it that it was supposed to have. And so you will see some changes based on the feedback from the district person. If they have one, some districts don’t have one.
We can talk about that at a later date, but I definitely have an opinion. I like having some sort of quality control. But again, we can talk about that leader and then once it’s finalized, then guess what? We’re on to step 10. And that is to switch to phase two of the IEP cycle, which is the implementation of the IEP. Okay. So your job is the parent in the IEP team is to become a supporter to become the accountability partner for the school.
And. Focus on building good relationships with that school team check in. Say, I know we kind of like guessed on some of these accommodations. Are they working? Are they not working? Are you able to implement all these? Do we need to take some out? Like this is when you can really build up those relationships so that they know that you’re not going to, you know, file for state complaints that [00:19:00] every single second, or you’re not going to criticize them, you’re just going to help problem solve with them. But you also very much care about this IEP being implemented, because it’s the best thing for your kid, right?
So that is the end of the handout that I have. And again, you don’t have that yet you can follow the link below this podcast to download that because it is free. All you have to do is put in your email so that I can send it to your email address and it will be sent to you.
Okay. the last things that I’m going to talk about is. Really common things that happen to do rail this pretty nice, like step one through 10 schedule that often often happen. So number one is scheduling of the meeting and you guys have probably been through this already.
Oh, shoot. This is a chore. This is really complicated, especially with a big team. This can feel like it’s taking forever. Um, like I said before, I kind of owe you an episode on just scheduling in general, like a peek behind the curtain of how teams do scheduling. And why things might feel like it’s really hard to get a [00:20:00] schedule that everybody can come to. We’re going to talk about that more in depth later, but I’m also going to be honest, you know, I want to give them grace that it’s really hard to schedule everybody. I get that. Sometimes though it is the school IEP teams fault. I’m going to be honest. So sometimes things can happen where they usually have a spreadsheet for every IEP on that team that the case manager has, or the school has even with different case managers in there. And they will have a schedule and a spreadsheet that has all of the dates input and on it.
Oftentimes, this is done like first thing in the year in the school year. And so some things happen where somebody didn’t input the date correctly. And so all of a sudden they’re like, Oh, no, we thought that was due in April, but it’s actually due in February. Oh my gosh. We have to get that scheduled. And so there’s a panic because
you can’t be late scheduling that IEP or else it’s out of compliance. So that’s a big deal and teams do not want to be out of compliance. So what happens is they scramble and they might seem really, really [00:21:00] stressed to get this meeting scheduled. And so you might feel that on the other end,
So sometimes it’s just a clerical error that happened, and it is their own fault, but like something happens with the dates. And so it might be a little bit panicked. The other thing that happens is sometimes if you move mid-year or something happens where they didn’t. Start school the right time, or they’re coming back from being homeschooled or like something is different about the timeline and they didn’t get put on that initial spreadsheet that they do at the beginning of the school year. Sometimes it gets missed because it didn’t get put on the spreadsheet or something happened or somebody was looking at it and didn’t get it to the case manager in time or something like that.
All kinds of things can happen on the backend to make this not land in their system, because I’m going to be honest that the systems are pretty like, oh, well, let’s organize it this way. And it’s very team by team organized.
Um, some districts have more organization, but a lot of times it’s up to the teams to make sure that they’re in compliance. [00:22:00] So sometimes it’s their fault, but sometimes this doesn’t get scheduled or you don’t have a month beforehand to ask for it or. Oh, my gosh, we have it in a week. Like, can I get a draft IEP? And that’s just feels really rushed. So sometimes this can get rushed because of the scheduling of the meeting, which is also really important that you know how to read your child’s IEP so that, you know, when it’s supposed to be right.
And if it’s a month out and you’re like, Hey, this isn’t scheduled yet. You can reach out to the case manager and say, Hey. What is this going to happen? Because I’d really like a draft by this time. And, um, that will be helpful for your team as well. The second thing that can happen is that you get a really bad draft IEP.
I have heard of draft IEP is being submitted to parents that didn’t have any goals on it that had like half of the present levels. This does happen and it can happen for a couple of different reasons. Either. The team is very overwhelmed. And they didn’t get time to actually work on it. They just need to get you something to say that they gave you a draft [00:23:00] IEP, but they really might not have a lot of information presented. And that just really stinks. There’s not a ton you can do about it other than moving the meeting. And you can do that if you would like to.
And this can kind of mess with the timelines. And so you don’t necessarily want that to happen. Just be really cognizant about when the IEP actually needs to happen to being compliance. Just keep that in mind, jump into the Facebook group. If you have questions about that, because I have a lot of opinions about that, about why you don’t want that to happen, but, um, that is more than what we’re going to cover today.
And then the other reason why you might get a. unfinished draft IEP is that teams are very, very, very careful of not predetermining. So you might get teams who really hate to do draft IEP. Because they don’t want to ever be called out and say that
they were predetermining goals or services, because that is kind of a legal no-no for teams to do. So it should say draft in front of all of the goals. You know, even [00:24:00] if it doesn’t, it is the understanding that’s a draft IEP, but you might have some teams be really touchy about giving you a draft IEP. And that’s just a little bit of context on why they might be doing that.
The third thing that might happen to disrupt this really simple one through 10 step-by-step format is if you have multiple meetings that kind of circle around so that you’re not going through this, like linear one through 10, but it might’ve gone on to two meetings. And then you cycle back to what you’ve already done before and all kinds of things. So it can get messed up if you have multiple meetings, it is your right to have multiple meetings.
Like I don’t want to discourage you from doing that. I just, again, want to give you a heads up that this might kind of change that one through 10 process as well. So one of my most favorite teachers that I worked under in the middle of school. I had a really hard time
sitting through her meetings. She was an amazing teacher. Oh my gosh. I loved seeing her with kids. I learned a ton from her. But she herself wanted everybody to feel [00:25:00] heard in those IEP meetings. And so it wasn’t the parents that were asking for like four, sometimes five meetings to get everything done. It was her kind of taking her time getting through everything. So there is a balance to this. Um, but what happened was the step one through 10, like the new IEP wouldn’t be implemented until months later.
And obviously I don’t think that’s really right. It should be a pretty quick turnaround even. Even if you have multiple meetings. That you can like, get everything settled, get everything good enough to go. And then if you need to amend it later, you can amend it later. Right? So that’s obviously my very strong opinion on how that should go. Um, so of course have additional meetings if they’re necessary. You know, this teacher had the absolute best of intentions, but she just like hung on to every detail and it made this step one through 10, go for like months.
And that’s, that’s not the way it’s supposed to go. Hopefully that makes sense to you.
Okay. Hopefully that was really helpful to go through the IEP annual [00:26:00] review process. Step one through step 10, if you feel stuck on how to read your child’s IEP and if step one, you’re like, I don’t even know what to look for the date. There’s two different dates up here. There’s three different dates up here.
This is a preschool IEP that has like five different dates up here. I really want to encourage you to join us in the bootcamp. And that link again, to check out more information is below this podcast in your podcast player. So I’m really excited to see you guys in the bootcamp. It’s going to be so much fun, even if you can’t make it live for those trainings, you will get the recordings automatically.
So it’s going to be a ton of fun. You can upgrade to VIP to get some really personalized attention into your child’s IEP as well. So that’s going to be so much fun.
So hopefully this helps again, if you need the handout, go ahead and go to the link below this podcast in your podcast player, or you can go to the. IEP lab.com/iep to get your copy. And again, if you want to check out the bootcamp, that is the IUP lab.com/bootcamp. And I hope to see you there. Thank you so much for [00:27:00] joining me and we’ll see you. Same time, same place next week. Thanks so much.