An IEP, or Individualized Education Plan, is a complex document with many different parts. Understanding each part will help you be a better IEP advocate for your child.
I’ve spent over a decade as a Special Education Advocate, attended hundreds of IEP meetings and more conferences and workshops than I can count.
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The IEP Process As many of you know, along with this website, there is a very large Facebook group. And, at least once a week it comes up. The question of “Should I be emailing the IEP team….” and 90% of the time, the answer is YES. For me, the IEP process is not something…
How to tell when you have a crappy IEP. I’ve attended more IEP meetings than I can count. Or even care to count. I get it–parents only call in a Special Education Advocate when there’s trouble. If you were happy with things, you wouldn’t need help, right? But what that means is that as an…
Interpreting IEP Evaluations For me, both as a Special Education Advocate and a Parent, I find the hardest part of the IEP process to be the IEP eligibility evaluations. For each re-evaluation, my son (or my clients) may receive upward of 10-12 assessments. That’s a dozen protocols I have to look up, read and understand….
School, IEPs And Moving To A Different School/State Families move. It happens. Jobs, marriage, divorce, lots of reasons. The most important takeaways from this article are: Just because a child moves, does not mean that their needs have changed. So why should their IEP change? The new school district MUST PROVIDE you with any proposed…
Getting Started in the World of IEPs IEP stands for Individual Education Plan. It is just what it says. Children with disabilities are entitled to a “free and appropriate education” but what that looks like for each child is Individual. The concept of Special Education has only been around at the national level since 1975….
Important items that must be on your child’s IEP. “I got a call to pick up my daughter today because she put a child in a choke hold.” And of course this child with an IEP was on her way to a suspension. That’s what one of our group members posted recently. Sounds awful, right?…
ESY Extended School Year What is ESY? ESY (extended school year) is anything that extends beyond the normal six hours a day, 180 days a year. It is a provision of IDEA and is not just summer school. See ESY booklet below, IDEA regs on page 4. It can be anything (as long as the…
New Beginnings I have this love-hate relationship with winter. I live in the mid-Atlantic and the weather here is less than desirable. Sure, we have some winter days with sunshine and temperatures in the 50s. But most of January through April is cold, gray and wet. But, I use the shorter, darker days and long,…
IEP Coach Lately I have started calling myself an IEP Coach instead of an IEP Advocate or Special Education Advocate. For me, it’s not just a matter of semantics. I am changing the entire structure of my business and business model. And, while I will still be an Advocate, I am much more looking forward…