IEPs – WHAT A WASTE OF TIME

My wife saw the title of this post and said “You are getting old and crotchety.” 

I have found the SPED community online and in the blogosphere is much more in tune with Special Education law, why an IEP is important and what makes a quality IEP, whether they are parents, educators or other interested professionals.  The online community also appears to be much more aware and involved with their student’s education than the average parent or educator of a Special Education student.  So while the SPED community online is very knowledgeable and vocal, it is my experience that unfortunately they/we are not the majority.

Often we tend get into “we squeak” mode where everyone is saying something to simply say it and that what said is politically correct instead of being bluntly honest.  Even this post is not bluntly honest, just honest, I am a practicing educator and don’t want to go down that road and have chosen tact over bluntness.

The Individual Education Plan or IEP as most everyone calls it, is the supposed foundation for Special Education services that our students receive.  Below is the first paragraph from the guidance provided in Department of Education’s A Guide to the Individualized Education Program

Each public school child who receives special education and related services must have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Each IEP must be designed for one student and must be a truly individualized document. The IEP creates an opportunity for teachers, parents, school administrators, related services personnel, and students (when appropriate) to work together to improve educational results for children with disabilities. The IEP is the cornerstone of a quality education for each child with a disability.

This is great in theory, but what is the reality?  In my opinion reality is something vastly different than what is in that very carefully crafted paragraph.

When I was the parent of a Special Education student, we would have the PET, then the Special Education Teacher would develop the IEP and then send a completed copy home – this was the procedure in the 5 different states that my daughter attended school in.  The only time I would look at it was when there were issues at the school, otherwise it sat in what came to be a 4 inch thick file that contained all of the Special Education paperwork generated by the schools and me.

I became a Special Education teacher in 2002 and have prepared several hundred IEPs.  Each IEP takes between 2-6 hours to complete dependent upon the nature of the disability, services needed and many other factors.  During this time I sincerely wonder how many times someone has actually read them beyond the Special Education Director – who wanted to ensure I did it correctly.  I don’t believe that too many other educators, ever bothered to read them, even though I emailed each approved IEP to all the student’s teachers or provided them a hard copy if they didn’t “use” the computer.

Goals and objectives in most IEPs are a joke, they to me are useless and are almost always written to be easily met and therefore make the IEP successful – where is the incentive to stretch a student, when we will be penalized for them not meeting their goals?  Most goals as written (they have become formula goals with statistics changing from student to student to be individual) do not have any bearing on how the student will be educated.  If the goals was met, it does not mean the student’s progress was a result of the Specially Designed Education Program, it could be any variety of factors from a change in medications to something as simple as the student maturing a little bit or the goals were so low, that the student had to meet them or already had when the IEP was written.

I have seen IEPs come to my schools with obvious and glaring mistakes, goals and objectives that don’t mean anything, transition plans that could make you puke, yet neither the parent or the other school thought enough about correcting it to take the time to do so or even worse didn’t realize that they needed to.

All the regs, books and experts say that the IEP shall be completed by the PET – that is a crock of crap.   Who actually completes the IEP – is the Special Education teacher/case manager 90% of the time without  input from anyone else.  They prepare the IEP from the notes they take at the meeting and their interpretation of those notes, with it being reviewed by a school administrator or administrative assistant and then mailed off to the parent.  Does the IEP reflect the PET’s wishes for the student?  Most of the time fairly well, but it does leave a lot of responsibility in the hands of the Special Educator who actually is preparing the IEP and there is quite a margin for error in the preparation.

I am going to stereotype for effect here.
The parent (if they showed up at the PET – many don’t) may or may not glance at the work done by the Special Educator and put it in a pile someplace or just throw it in the trash.

Other parents have a very negative history with schools either from when they were students or as parents and are are sometimes too intimidated by the school to say anything and just let the schools go along their merry way on how to educate their son or daughter whether it is working or not or this is usually when the lawyers get involved and everyone digs their heels in, in order to be right.

More stereotyping. At the school after the IEP is approved, it is usually put into a caseload notebook/file and the student’s special education file never to be seen until the quarterly reviews or the annual review.  In some  places – the Special Educator takes it upon themselves to email it to all of the student’s teachers or post it on the school’s “secure” database so that the classroom teachers can review the IEP.  I wonder how many classroom teachers take the time to review the IEP when they get it?

Most will say time and numbers make it impossible for them do it, for all the students, but they might look at a student who is having difficulty in their classroom.  The more likely scenario will have the classroom teacher complain to the Special Educator that “their” student is causing “problems” in their classroom and they want you to fix it.

Stereotyping done

For the most part, it has been my experience that no one really reads the IEP, unless there is a contentious issue surrounding the services being rendered or some other “problem” that needs to be resolved.  Most of the time the IEP  is only a procedural item that must be completed and in the file no matter how onerous or far away from what is actually happening in the classroom or at home.

This is too bad, because I honestly believe that the laws requiring an IEP and the different sections, were put in place with the best of intentions – to help ensure that Special Education student receive the services they are entitled to and should receive.  But it seems a little bit daunting that a blank IEP in the State of Maine (with no student data in it) is 9 pages long.  A blank form this long is a bit ridiculous.

The IEP has become a Lawyer’s document to show adherence to the law, not an educator’s document which develops and implements an educational program.  So in reality what use is an IEP other than to cover a school district’s butt in a legal argument or to prove that they did not provide FAPE from a parent’s perspective?  To me IEPs have devolved into a useless document that have to be completed due to regulation and law, not because they are beneficial to the student.

For the 80-90% of school/parent relationships that don’t require the legalese in the IEP, couldn’t we go to an IEP short form?  When there are disputes then we could go to the full protection IEP.  It would certainly save a few trees.

But that would require something called trust between the parents and the school and in some places that seems to be in short supply.  Unfortunately, too many schools have not kept their part of the bargain and not properly educated students and then many parents have had unrealistic expectations of what a FAPE is.  So you have the system that is in place today – a paperwok nightmare created by a mismash of confusing rules and regulations created by Federal and State (Congress, Legislatures or Regulatory agencies) then interpreted by the Courts.  This mishmash of unrelated but still pertinent laws, regulation and case law has created a system that works (sort of ) inspite of itself.  It is confusing, contradictory at times, duplication of intended results and only mostly understood – hopefully by the Judges who decide the cases and the Lawyers, who defend their clients – whichever side they happen to represent.

I have become rather jaded about the usefulness of an IEP, in my opinion IEPs have become little more than a paperwork exercise that are prepared more for CYA and legal purposes than for student educational support.  IEPs are not a living document that accurately reflects a student’s actual educational program and provide very little actual value added to a Special Education student’s individual education program.

I know many out there won’t agree with me, but that is what is so great about blogging — we don’t have to agree, but we get to see how others believe and usually do so fairly respectfully.

However, I will stand by my title – IEPs – what a waste of time and will add in there has to be a better way – now to find it.

As always – do the right thing for the right reason – today and everyday and remember its about the kids, not you or me.