Is An Individual Education Program (IEP) Right For Your Child?

IEP FAQ

if your child is falling behind, time to catch up becomes critical. You hear about Individual Education Programs (IEP) and you wonder, what is an IEP, can an IEP hurt my child, what’s involved?  This article answers these questions.

Bottom line, an IEP can be tremendously helpful as not only is it legal documentation and free access to a team of experts, but it is also a plan to get your child back on track.

What is an IEP?

IEP refers to the Individual Education Program authorized under the IDEA (individuals with Disabilities Act).  The concept is to provide a full-on effort to help children who are falling behind. IDEA makes the school duty-bound to set aside extra resources to help.

IEPs establish instructions for special education and other supports for a student’s education. During the IEP meeting, parents, students, and educators sit to draw up an educational program suitable for the student. Thus, for proper referencing, every IEP decision must be documented.

IEPs are not only legal documentation but also a roadmap. It provides a layout for the child’s education and progress. Note, an IEP includes special educational services – in contrast to a 504 plan that focuses on accommodations only

Why IEPs Are Important

IEPs are beneficial because:

• They create room for the parents and the educators to set expectations about the student.
• Both parties can agree on the student’s needs and what is required to meet them.
• The educators and parents can iron out areas of disagreement for a child with a disability.
• The child also enjoys procedural protection rights to avoid abuse.

The process involves building a deep understanding of each child, and the areas of need. And from there creating a plan that everybody signs off on.

Can an IEP Hurt My Child?

No doubt,  an IEP can be a great tool for helping children with disabilities receive the support they need in school. However, despite all the good intentions, there are some potential drawbacks that parents should consider when deciding whether to pursue an IEP for their child. Here are some possible negatives:

1. Potential Stigma or Labeling. Your child might feel singled out or different from their peers. Older students, especially in middle or high school, might feel self-conscious about receiving accommodations.

2. Possible Lowered Expectations. Teachers or classmates might have lower expectations for a child with an IEP, even if they are capable. While that is often an appropriate response, accommodations such as a modified curriculum could lead to a less challenging, less-effort treadmill.  Teachers may inadvertently underestimate the child’s potential and push them less academically.

3. Time-Consuming Process. Getting an IEP involves evaluations, meetings, and documentation, which can take weeks or even months. Parents must advocate for their children, attend annual reviews, and sometimes deal with bureaucratic hurdles. And even once started, parents might need to push for better services, which can be exhausting.

4. Potential Conflict with the School. IEPs are expensive for a school. Some schools may be reluctant to offer an IEP due to budget constraints or fear of additional responsibilities or suggest less intensive support (like a 504 Plan) instead of an IEP, even if the child qualifies.

6. Impact on College Admissions.  The IEP itself does not appear on high school transcripts. But be careful. If your child is college-bound and is doing modified coursework, it might not meet college entrance requirements.  Check with the school on this.

7. Challenges with Transitioning Out of an IEP.  There are concerns about how a child will fare once the wraparound support of an IEP is removed. Yes, that’s a concern, but it’s more important that your child finishes school.

The concern that an IEP could hurt your child is legitimate. But an IEP can provide crucial support for students who need specialized instruction, accommodations, or related services (e.g., speech therapy, occupational therapy).

If are worried about the IEP challenges above, an alternative is to pursue an intervention at home to help your child. Gemm Learning provides learning interventions and is an approved provider for several state scholarship programs that will cover the full costs of the Gemm Learning program.

To find out how our program works, request the free brochure.

Who Qualifies for an IEP?

IEPs: Knowing Your Rights as a Parent

So, what are the rights and responsibilities of parents towards a child’s IEP? Here are your main rights:

Right to Attend IEP Meetings

Federal laws give you the right to be a part of your child’s IEP meetings – to hear what the experts are saying and what the updated plans are. It helps you know the processes, and you can also request IEP meetings.

This is not only a right, however. It’s also good practice. Despite all the years of training and experience of the teachers and special education professionals, you are the world expert on your child. You have valuable insights to offer. In addition, you might have feedback on how your child is receiving changes at school.  Are there complaints at home? Is your child happier or more frustrated?

Rights Around Evaluations

The IDEA law requires schools to get written permission before offering special education services. You can also select to consent to or decline the aspect. Your option to give or deny consent for an IEP evaluation is known as informed consent.

Furthermore, you may choose to have your child evaluated inside or outside the school. You may choose an outside professional because of your child’s unique circumstances or just to get a second opinion.

You may have to pay for such services. Also, remember that the school can consider the result but decide not to accept the outcome.  A diagnosis for a school is a big step. Once a child has a learning diagnosis that the school accepts, the school is responsible for providing services, sometimes for years.

Right to Disagree with the School’s Decision

If you feel something is amiss about the school’s decision regarding your child, for example, the diagnosis or the planned actions, you can ask for a mediation team.

You meet with the school to discuss areas of disagreement. If the issue is not resolved, they will call for a due process hearing involving the third party. In this situation, the hearing officer will decide the outcome.

There are thousands of special education advocates you can hire to help you in this process. They understand your rights, the rules that the schools are bound by, and they know special education. You can often get a free consultation from an advocate on the merits of your case.

Right to Private Paid Education

In some situations, the district school may pay for your child’s tuition in a private school. This is particularly common if a school lacks the specialized services your child needs.

However, the process may have to go through a due process hearing. Also, note that there would be no reimbursement if you decide to transfer your child to a private school without a justifiable cause. Again, consider consulting a special education advocate if the school doesn’t see it your way.

How to Get an IEP for Your Child

So, how do you get an IEP for your child? First, you need to know that IEPs are provided by public schools only. If your child attends a private school, a “Service Plan” is possible. This is a plan paid for by the local school district for students with disabilities who attend private schools. A service plan does not have to ensure a child is provided with free appropriate public education or FAPE. Your child may need to attend a public school to receive the services outlined in a Service Plan.

If your child attends a public school, the process starts with an evaluation of your child. But you have to apply, and then the assessment helps see if your child qualifies. Once you have the process in place, it becomes easier to speak for your child. Here are some essential points to help you get started with the IEP application:

IEP Child Evaluation

As we stated earlier, you need to have your child evaluated to participate in IEP. It helps the school decide if your child is a good fit for IEP services. In addition, the management can now determine what support they will receive.

The primary concern for most parents is the requirement for the evaluation. For some others, it is the fear of rejection. What if my child gets rejected? Well, having ample knowledge and preparation reduces the chances of failure.

Every step of the process contains questions that help identify the unique needs of your children. It makes it easier to determine why your child is struggling. Then the school’s management and the parents can better help the kids.

The Process of School Evaluation for IEP

Formal Application

To start the process, you need to write a formal letter to the school requesting IEP. That means you are asking for an evaluation. The letter is a request. But it a consent from you to have your child evaluated.

Since the application process is not complicated, it doesn’t take much time to apply. You will find a guide that gives most of the information you need to supply the details. It also makes it easier to follow up.

Often, your child’s teacher or resource room teacher will be able to help you. This is a letter where you are making a case for the school to commit to devoting extra resources to your child for an indefinite period. And so it needs to be persuasive. Most notably, be sure to include as much background information as possible, family, and other information the school might not be aware of.

For instance, many learning difficulties are hereditary. If there are similar instances in your family – you, grandparents, siblings – mention it, as this helps make the case that there is a clear disability that needs attention.

Your letter should also give consent for your child to be evaluated for an IEP. Your consent requires the school to conduct a test on your child. Then they can decide if they genuinely need an IEP. Please remember to ask for a “Consent to Evaluate” form so you can sign. The form is part of the legal requirements for evaluation for IDEA and IEP.

IEP Testing and Child Evaluation

Testing or evaluating your child could sometimes be referred to as an educational assessment. The special education law requires the school to conduct your child’s evaluation within 60 days after you have given consent.

While waiting for the formal response, you can seek temporary support from your child’s teacher. You will also find relevant support through the Response to Intervention (RTI) process, which provides struggling learners with interventions at increasing levels of intensity to accelerate their learning rate.

After the evaluation process, the school’s team will decide the result. The outcome will determine if your child is eligible for IEP special education services. They may, alternatively, recommend your child for 504 Plan support.

Support Without an IEP

An IEP is a legal document that triggers a range of responsibilities for the school administration, your child’s teacher, your child, and you. There can also be a stigma attached if a child is pulled out of class frequently or even separated from the general student population.

Oftentimes, your child can get informal added special ed or resource room support without an IEP. If you are unsure about how serious your child’s learning delays are, advocating for this type of support might be preferred.  This is especially true if your child is being held back by emotional or behavioral issues that could be related to maturity that will eventually resolve.

From another angle, applying for an IEP can be treated by the school as unwelcome. Yes, it’s your right, but if the school does not agree that your child needs that much help, the advocacy for an IEP can disrupt the all-important teacher-parent partnership.

Due to the fears of stigma around an IEP, some parents hesitate.  It’s a difficult question sometimes.  You don’t want to subject your already struggling and stressed out child to too much testing, but sometimes an evaluation is the only way to get an answer.  You start the process, get an evaluation, and then make a decision.

Gemm Learning works with many children on IEPs.  It’s a learning intervention that addresses the underlying causes of difficulty. Many parents have been able to get their school districts to pay for Gemm Learning on the basis that no such intervention is available from the school. Other states have scholarships and grants available for children with known learning difficulties.

Your Role As a Parent in an IEP

As a parent, you’ll be expected to share your perspectives on your child’s needs and strengths at all stages of the IEP process – development, implementation, and review. You might also have to play the role of leader, managing the various professionals around your child.

Your role as a parent is enshrined in case law. A US Supreme Court decision (Board of Education v Rowley [1982]) emphasized that school districts should adhere to the “procedural requirements” of the IEP, particularly to have the student’s parents “meaningfully involved in the special education process.”

Researchers writing about the case more recently, say: “Special educators must ensure that a student’s parents, general educators, administrators, and special educators work together to make important educational decisions for eligible students with disabilities, from the initial evaluation to the final exit from special education.”

School staff are responsible for ensuring the IEP includes services your child needs. Meanwhile, school districts are legally obligated to create for parents a proposal detailing the services their child needs. Specialists provide input, too. All parties work together to reach a consensus about what’s needed to help your child with learning.

If you need extra help at home, bear in mind tutoring and interventions like Gemm Learning are sometimes tax deductible.

Children’s Rights

While students with an IEP don’t have to attend IEP meetings until they turn 16, it doesn’t mean they can’t turn up and get involved. The IDEA Act says they should be engaged in their annual meetings. Your child might need assistive technology(ies) to access the meeting fully.

When students do attend their IEP meetings, they talk 3% of the time, special educators 55%, general educators 19%, and a family member just 16%. That’s what a 2014 study by the Office of State Superintendents of Education found.

Researchers found that students with an IEP often have “poor self-determination skills and lack the necessary communication skills to take on a leadership role”.

“Student-led IEPs are student-centered and student-directed, empowering youth to actively contribute to the planning and implementation of their IEPs,” say the researchers.

It makes sense to give students more ownership in the annual IEP process because it’s about their goals and needs. Consider how you can help your child have more agency in advocating for their needs with you.

However, your child’s role in the IEP annual review will depend on their age and abilities. Assistive, as well as augmentative and alternative communication technologies, can help here. They include presentation software (PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi), voice-to-text apps, supporting your child’s communication with tech-generated words/symbols, speech-generating devices, or videos.

Legal Rights Around IEPs

The rules for implementation

As mentioned above, the IDEA Act doesn’t explain how the right to an IEP should be implemented. For insights, you’ll need to check the rulings of hearing officers, judges as well as state education agency staff.

To date, school districts do have some leeway in implementing IEPs. Even if the IEP isn’t followed to the letter, it’s not a violation. The courts are looking for the school to materially fail to implement an IEP. That’s when the services for a child with a disability substantially fall short of what the IEP sets down. The courts have yet to spell out the parameters of an IEP’s implementation falling materially short, though.

But, they’re getting close to it. This case before circuit judges in the United States Court of Appeal involving the Baker School District offers some insights.

“We clarify that the materiality standard does not require that the child suffer demonstrable educational harm to prevail.

“However, the child’s educational progress, or lack of it, may be probative of whether there has been a significant shortfall in the services provided. For instance, if the child is not provided with the reading instruction called for and there is a shortfall in the child’s reading achievement, that would certainly tend to show that the failure to implement the IEP was material. On the other hand, if the child performed at or above the anticipated level, that would tend to show that the shortfall in instruction was not material.”

This 2007 case pivots on the issue of the impact of the instruction – did it, or its omission, harm your child’s learning or not?

Tensions over what represents progress

More recently – in June 2019 – a court looked at the link between the child’s attendance and behavior problems and the IEP.

A lawyer from Special Education Solutions writing about the case says: “Moreover, said the court, many services that the student missed were due to the failure to attend school or other behavior problems. The court adopted the view of the district court that the attendance and behavior problems did not result from failure to implement the IEP, though the court emphasized that “a child’s absence from school neither relieves the school of its duties under the IDEA nor absolves the school from liability when it fails to satisfy those duties.

“Where a child’s school refusal is attributable to the school’s failures to implement an IEP, the school cannot rely on that refusal as a hall pass to escape responsibility or as a license to give up.”

One judge dissented on part of this, though. He concluded the school had materially failed to implement the IEP despite the difficulties. He pointed to the IEP specifically requiring lesson plans to be provided a week in advance. However, over six weeks, 25 out of 30 plans were late, which “deprived the parent of enough time to review the upcoming lessons and go over them with a student”.

Material failure principles

The bottom line? The legal concept of ‘material failure’ is still fuzzy, but let these principles from Sped Solutions guide you:

• Ask what proportion of services were provided – or not provided
• What was the importance of the services?
• What did your child’s academic and functional progress look like (and have measurements/metrics to back you up there), and
• What were the practical difficulties, if any, of implementing the IEP?

As you’ve read above, you definitely can’t let your guard down as a parent of a child with a disability who has an IEP. Your school may hook into neuroscience-based programs your child can tackle online at school or home, such as Fast ForWord, offered at Gemm Learning. You can find out here if they might be a good fit for your child’s needs to support their learning. This is software that’s helped more than three million people across the globe.

What is the IDEA?

Our student population consists of many amazing children who live with varying degrees of learning difficulties. Recently, several parents have asked, “What is the I-D-E-A?” We generally explain that the IDEA is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It is a federal law that requires schools to provide for the educational needs of students with disabilities.

As this law has a long history and can be of crucial importance for children with learning struggles, we thought a longer answer might be helpful.

Before 1975, schools did not have to provide services to students with disabilities. They could choose to assist, but there wasn’t a mandate in place to aid students in need. In fact, according to the archives of the US Office of Special Education Programs, in 1970 only 20% of students with disabilities were educated in public schools. Moreover, many states had laws excluding children with disabilities. Therefore, many families found it difficult to obtain support.

The History of the IDEA

In 1975 amid growing awareness that many children were not given adequate access to an education, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA or Public Law 94-142). Essentially, the law required all federally funded schools to provide equal educational access for children with disabilities.

The law met four goals as listed on wikipedia.org:

1. Ensure that special education services are available to children who need them
2. Guarantee that decisions about services to disabled students are fair and appropriate
3. Establish specific management and auditing requirements for special education
4. Provide federal funds to help the states educate disabled students

In 1990, the EHA was replaced by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The intent behind the law has not changed, although the concentration shifted to the individual as opposed to the learning struggle of the student. The law continues to protect the rights of the child while giving parents a voice. The law has been amended several times since 1990.

Who is Covered Under the IDEA?

Not every child with a learning struggle qualifies under the IDEA. Students must fall within certain categories.

There are 13 conditions covered under the IDEA – covered above

Additionally, each student must also meet a second requirement. He/she must need assistance as a result of his/her disability to make progress in school.

What to Do If You Suspect a Learning Struggle?

Should you suspect a learning struggle, contact your child’s teacher or school to begin a dialogue. A conversation is the first step in determining whether or not to seek help. If indeed it is determined that there is a learning struggle that qualifies for assistance, you should be able to request and help establish an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) for your child.

For more information on the IDEA, please visit: http://idea.ed.gov/explore.