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CAMPS & SCHOOLS • OCTOBER 25 - 31, 2017
CAMPS&SCHOOLS Breaking Down IEPs BY ALLISON EICHLER editorial@antonmediagroup.com
It happens every year. A child comes home from school and says their classmate was taken out of the room during a subject lesson or they were taking a test and their classmate was able to have an extra 20 minutes to work. The child wonders why their classmate is getting special treatment. These accommodations in the classroom occur because of a student’s Individual Education Program (IEP). In other words, the student is receiving a special education because they have some sort of disability.
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What is an IEP?
n IEP is the product of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which promises that, within every school district, children with a disability are entitled to a free and appropriate public education. Part of this education includes an IEP. “Every year, when the child is eligible and receiving special education, the parents and teachers and whoever else is involved with working with the student sit down and have a meeting and talk,” said Julie A. Yindra, Director of Student Access Services at Hofstra University. “[The IEP] outlines what the specific goals are for the student…and the whole idea
is that it’s the document that binds the school to the agreement of ‘this is what we’re going to work on with the student.’” Along with including a student’s individual goals, the IEP also includes any sort of therapy and other accommodations that must be made for the student during the school day. The document is rewritten with each academic year to include new sets of goals and expectations. The goals made for the student are broken up into smaller benchmarks so teachers can have “a guideline for what they’re doing with the student to make sure that [the student is] making progress toward the goal at the end of the year.”
How does a student become eligible to receive an IEP?
Before writing and integrating the IEP into their education, the student must first be deemed eligible for special education. Either a parent or teacher may notice that something isn’t quite right with the student’s progress in the classroom, and then the parent will contact the school or the school will contact the parent. There is a referral process in which “somebody has to determine that the student is struggling in some way in the school setting,” Yindra said. In the case of an obvious physical disability, eligibility is near automatic. For something like a learning
see IEPs on page 23A
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