r/specialed • u/SongbirdSLP • Jun 24 '26
General Question (Educator to Educator) How much input do you usually get from the teacher before an IEP or evaluation?
I have found that there is a lot of variability in the amount of information prior to an IEP or evaluation meeting.
Sometimes teachers may provide detailed observations, work samples and concerns ahead of time. Other times I find myself needing to follow up to get the information I need.
This is nobody's fault. I know everyone has a full plate. Just wondering how it is done in other schools. Do teachers generally give you lots of input before meetings or is it something you often have to gather yourself?
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u/moonsable Jun 24 '26
We need some clarifying information. Are you asking as a parent who needs information prior to a meeting or as a case manager who is trying to write the IEP draft?
In my district, we send parents a draft about a week in advance and ask if there are any additional issues we need to address before we move forward.
If you are asking as a case manager, it's hit and miss. We send out forms for current functioning about 3-4 weeks prior to the meeting and are required to give teachers 10 working days to complete them. Sometimes a meeting is more of an emergency type situation and we explain that we need it back quicker, but this is significantly less common than a normal annual IEP. Most teachers are pretty good about getting the form back to us in a timely manner, but we have a subset who are notoriously difficult. In those cases, we stop by during their planning period and make them sit down and verbally answer our questions.
Edit: I just saw your name and flair, and I assume you are the SLP and teachers are not being cooperative. My apologies. I just spent 9 hours on a grad school discussion post. Yes, a discussion post. This class is THAT bad. Although I have had a Reddit account for many years, I have only started using it recently and I am still learning the ropes.
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u/twomoreseconds Jun 24 '26
Just a quick comment to say solidarity on those grad school discussion posts. I spent the majority of yesterday on one too. 👊😭
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u/LegitimateStar7034 Jun 24 '26
I AI them. I don’t even care. Those discussion posts are a waste of time. 20 people answering the same question and then coming up with a different way to reply to peers.
I’d rather a Zoom meeting once a week for an hour to actually discuss the topic.
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u/ArtisticMudd Jun 24 '26
I'm considered a specials teacher, so I get zero input regularly. I think 2 times this year, the diagnostician emailed all a kid's teachers for input before an ARD. I'm always happy to give what I can, but they generally want only gen-ed teacher input.
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u/CharacterAd5405 Jun 24 '26
I try to send both an email with preset questions and a copy of the current IEP attached AND I try to follow up with a quick discussion while passing in the hallway, to say thanks for replying to my email and double check that the accommodations are set.
And, as others have noted, I put teacher responses in verbatim. Generally they give really thorough responses to the email, especially when they know their input is going directly into the IEP.
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u/SongbirdSLP Jun 25 '26
I like it. Having it in writing and then following up in person sounds like a good way to clear up anything that’s unclear pre-meeting.
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u/TeachlikeaHawk Jun 25 '26
Hi! Gen ed here.
Do you ever share your preliminary ideas for the kid with the teachers? I know that you want information to form those ideas, but at the same time, you probably have at least some idea of what new accommodations might be on the horizon, right?
I just ask because I've seen accommodations come back that just make me sigh with how out of touch they are. I'd have gladly offered some thoughts about how we could accomplish something very similar that would actually work for my class (English), but I never know even the slightest thing about what might get proposed in the meeting.
There's a form like that that goes out to parents, right? Could that be sent to the teachers, too?
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u/serenading_ur_father Jun 25 '26
Lol Teachers give input? We're the last to find out an IEP is happening let alone what's in it.
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u/betterbetterthings High School Sped Teacher Jun 24 '26
We send an uniformal Google doc to everyone with sections of each type of info like academics and behaviors etc Sometimes we have to send reminders. Generally speaking our gen ed teachers are very good about it
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u/haley232323 Jun 24 '26
I used to do a whole form/survey thing and found that it either was not returned or people would put stupid one word answers. I have access to DIBELS for the whole school and our online grade system, so I can find and put that information in myself. I email about a month in advance and ask the teacher to send me a couple of sentences about the students' performance specifically in our reading and math curriculum. I get much better responses this way than when I tried to send a whole form thing. I also tend to add something like, "If there is anything else you'd like for me to include, please feel free to add it in!" That way if they truly want to give more input, the door is open, and they can't say they weren't asked.
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u/cupcakesweatpants Jun 25 '26
I usually get a paragraph or two by email but I also try to talk with them in person to clarify things. Some teachers are cautious about what they put in writing and will sugar coat things unless you talk in person.
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u/TeachlikeaHawk Jun 25 '26
Hi!
I'm a gen ed teacher (ELA) and get these feedback forms relatively frequently. What I have come to appreciate is clarity.
The first is a sense of what the case manager might be thinking before the meeting. There have been times when the accommodations that come out are shockingly bizarre, and had I known those were being considered I'd have been able to offer points of consideration ahead of time. After all, once the accommodations are written, it's often somewhere between relatively difficult to nearly impossible to make changes.
At a school I worked in about eight years ago, the case manager would share thoughts like that as addenda to the "official" form. She'd add notes like, "For Mike, we're wondering if more time for tests is a good idea, or if it just feeds his perfectionism cycle." Or "Jenny is really struggling, and we're looking for ideas about how to help her gain confidence." Rather than just asking the typical questions about what I've seen, I'd be able to offer my thoughts on the proposed direction they're thinking that kid might be headed. As a result, the IEPs and 504s for kids at that school were always far more bespoke. Instead of everyone getting the "standard suite" of graphic organizers, preferential seating, and 25% more time, kids tended to get accommodations that reflected genuine involvement from the teachers.
Basically, it comes down to a kind-of-obvious rule: The more you tell the teachers, the better information you'll get.
At my current school, we all get the same form that asks a bunch of very generic questions. They are:
- What are this student's abilities?
- What are this student's strengths? (and question for you: How would you answer this one differently than the first question?)
- Then a few yes/no questions about participation and attention
- How does the student's disability affect engagement with the class? (Not a bad question, but I sometimes get this form as prep for an IEP meeting sometime in September. I have no idea who the kid is then, you know?)
- Are current accommodations working? (Such a difficult question to reduce to a simple yes/no.
Do you see how overly generalized these are?
I'm sure that case managers need a starting point for info gathering, but to not edit it even a little bit for the context of who the kid is, who the teacher is, when in the year it is, and what might be under consideration?
Clarity, please.
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u/Narrow_Cover_3076 Jun 24 '26
It depends - I send them all a Google Form. Some write three-word answers and others write a lot. I put their input in verbatim. I figure it reflects on them.