How To Get An IEP

Is your child finding it hard to complete their schoolwork? Are they not able to keep up with their academic work? Is your child also having trouble staying focused, causing them to miss out on necessary instructions? Are they finding it hard to get along with other children? 

Pre-Referral Intervention 

During the pre-referral intervention phase, general education staff will carry out certain interventions and gather data that will determine if the student can make progress with that level of support. Students can be identified for these interventions through screening measures implemented by the school or district, or concerns that have been brought up by the parent, teacher, or other school staff. Many schools refer to this process as Response to Intervention (RtI).   

Some students who receive these interventions usually make good progress. This means that they are progressing at a rate which will get them to a level of meeting grade-level expectations over an acceptable amount of time. However, if the student is not making meaningful progress, a special education evaluation is recommended. 

Special Education Evaluation 

During the special education evaluation phase, formal evaluations are done, and additional data is gathered which is later used to determine if a student meets eligibility criteria for special education services. The formal evaluation may include psycho-educational evaluations and evaluations that are done by other specialists, including speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, assistive technology, behavior specialists, or others.   

The special education evaluation process has more than just the formal evaluation results. During this phase, the school will maintain the use of interventions to gather and monitor data on how the student is progressing. Additional information to consider in the eligibility determination will also be gathered. Examples include attendance data, disciplinary records, standardized test score results, classroom grades, classroom observations and work sample analysis.   

Private Evaluations 

The school will have private evaluations to ascertain if the student meets the criteria in order to receive the special education services. In a few cases, information from private evaluations is allowed to be used in special education eligibility decision making. Take some caution with this though, the criteria that is used in special education eligibility determinations and the criteria used for diagnosis by private providers are not always the same. 

Evaluation Timeline 

Before the formal evaluation can take place, parents must provide written consent. This is an important point in the evaluation process because this is the start of the special education evaluation timeline. It is a 60-day timeline and there are some state-specific rules around these timelines but usually, the special education evaluation process should be completed and an eligibility determination should be made within 60 days of signing the consent for evaluation.

A lot of parents will mistakenly think the timeline starts when they have RtI meetings during the pre-referral intervention phase in order to discuss their child’s progress. However, that is not the case. There is no timeline for the pre-referral interventions. Many students will receive pre-referral interventions for several years before being referred for a formal evaluation. This is unfortunate because problems can compound and grow worse over this period of time.

Parents do have the right to make a direct parental request for an evaluation which might get the student into the special education evaluation phase more quickly. The federal government has issued guidance indicating that Response to Intervention (RtI) cannot be used to delay a special education evaluation.   

Special Education Eligibility Determination 

After the special education evaluation is finished, the committee will convene for an eligibility meeting. The eligibility committee will gather together and look over the formal evaluation information and the additional data sources mentioned before. The committee will make the decision as to whether or not the student meets the eligibility criteria for any of the 13 categories of special education eligibility categories.

Parents are members of the committee that makes the eligibility determination. Being educated about the procedures of how to get an IEP, the eligibility criteria, and the data used in the decision-making process can help you to advocate effectively for the services that your child needs. 

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