Individualized Education Plan Interview

By Megan Brewster

I was introduced to Mary Peterman last year and was offered the chance to shadow her at her job
as a Special-Education Preschool teacher. Throughout my time shadowing her she got me other
opportunities to shadow other professionals in her school including: a preschool Speech-
Pathologist, an elementary Speech-Pathologist, an Applied Behavioral Analyst (ABA)
professional, an Occupational Therapist, and a Physical Therapist. The experience taught me a
lot about the different fields and helped me realize what I wanted to do after college. Without
these opportunities that Mary provided me I would not be working toward the field I am. In this
interview I talk to her about the document that connects all of these fields: The Individualized
Education Plan (IEP).

How do you define Special Education?

I don’t think there is any such thing as regular education. I think that every person learns
differently and I think that every child needs to have an Individualized Education Plan so I don’t
think there is any such thing as regular education. Special Education is meeting the child’s needs
to get them where they need to be with the appropriate accommodations and modifications for
the program and different expectations for them.

How would you describe an IEP and how they are used to someone who has never heard
about them before?
It is a very intensive document that if you take it word for word; you are supposed to be able to
program for that child without ever having met that child. You should know their present levels
of performance in all areas including: social and behavioral, all the academic areas, adaptive
living, and their social skills. If you read their present levels of performance you should know
where the child is. Their goals tell you where the child should be going in one years’ time and
then how it impacts their education and then I think the most important thing in an IEP is the
accommodations and modifications page. Which tells you what that child needs to support them
to be able to reach their goals and objectives because goals and objectives should be for every
child. Every child should be expected to make one years’ growth in one years’ time. But how
they’re going to do it is different for your children with special needs and I think that’s what the
accommodations and modifications page does on the IEP and that’s the thing that people should
most pay attention to. It is an ever evolving document. It changes as the child’s needs change.
Everything has to be in there including: their transportation, whether they need adaptive or
augmented communication, hearing aids, and brail – everything that child needs. So you should
from an IEP be able to expect to know what to program for a child without every meeting them.
In your opinion, why are IEPs so important?
Because if a child moves tomorrow they need to take their IEP with them and the incoming
school has to, by law, meet the IEP. So until they meet again and change it that receiving school
whether it be in the next town or on the other side of the country the federal law states that that
IEP is law. So that child gets whatever is in that program no matter what school district they are
in. They are that important so that every teacher, not just the Special Education teacher and the
regular teacher but the art and the music and the gym and all of the related service people and the
people who are even doing cafeteria duty and lunch duty need to know what that child’s special
needs are especially when it comes to medical concerns. That is all listed in the IEP. So it is a
vital document.

Who is involved in creating an IEP for a child and what are their roles in that process?
It goes from administration to teachers to related service personal which could be physical
therapist, occupation therapist, speech and language pathologists, board certified behavior
analysists, ABA people, the regular education teacher, the special education teacher, anybody in
the school who is in contact with that child, and of course the parents. The parent is a vital part
of the PPT process and an active part in helping to develop goals for their children. Which
doesn’t happen all of the time and it needs to. Because a planning and placement team means
team and parents are or should be an active part of that team. You don’t just get told what your
child needs. You should be asking for what your child needs as well.

As the Special Education teacher what is your role in the process of making the IEP?
I am the case manager for all of my special education students. So my job is to write the IEP in
every area except for related service. Social-emotional, behavioral, academic, language
academic, math, and then communication is done by the Speech and Language Pathologist
unless they don’t need Speech I do that too, and then physical and gross and fine motor is done
by the Occupation Therapist and Physical Therapist unless the child is age appropriate then I just
check off age appropriate. I have to get all of the people to put in their portion of the child’s
present levels of performance, make sure they write their goals and exceptions, and make sure
that they are graded appropriately according to what the IEP says, and distribute to the parents.
The IEPs are graded as report cards at the same time as report cards so if you’re getting three
report cards a year then the IEPs are graded three times a year as well and have to go home to
parents. So my job is to manage the paperwork.

When you first started teaching what were IEPs like? Were they similar to today?
They were very similar. They were just written by hand and now it is all computerized which
makes it a cleaner document and easier for people to read. But they haven’t changed much at all.
I think they’re a little bit more specific now with a little more options for children but, they’re
very much the same as when I first started.

In what ways do you think they could be improved now?

I sometimes think that the length of time you have to wait for service delivery. Which is fifteen
days to implement an IEP because it is five days’ notice for the parent and then ten days for them
to change their mind. So, if you’re making a change in a child’s program unless you give them
pages one, two, and three of the IEP right at that PPT meeting right there; there is a fifteen day
waiting period and I think that if a parent is in agreement at the meeting I don’t think they need
the additional ten days to decide whether they want the program or not. Sometimes it prolongs
the services that the child needs. I think that the reason that was done was to provide the child
with an appropriate program and I don’t think that is why it is being done now. It’s like they’re
delaying the child and what they need.

How are the IEPs carried out in the classroom, at home, and in other areas?
Every person working with the child reads their IEP which is a confidential document. There is
data taken on all of their goals and objectives by all of the specialists, teachers, and even the
paraprofessionals. The case manager then takes all of that data and transfers it into how to grade
the IEP. So, it is a working document on a daily basis. So, all of those children have goals in all
of the areas that they are working on and everything we do is designed for them to meet their
goals and objectives.

How do you measure the success of an IEP? How do you know whether a child is meeting
their goals or not? If they aren’t how do you go about changing it so they can meet goals?
You measure by the daily data and if you see that a child isn’t making progress in one area then
you might need to go back to PPT to change their goals and objectives. You might need to add a
certain specific accommodations and modifications. For example, I have a little girl who started
with me. She has BCBA consult from our board certified Behavior Analyst. She does not have
any support in her IEP right now. So, we take data every day to support the need for her to get
the support that she needs. She needs a one on one ABA therapist with her. Also, she needs to
come out of the classroom and be taught to achieve instructional control and that doesn’t easily
happen in a center-based preschool that is fully-included. She doesn’t have many of the
prerequisite skills to be successful in the program the way it is run now. It’s very hard to tailor it
for her needs when there isn’t someone to help her be successful on a daily basis. So, we are
taking data, we already got permission to go back to PPT from the administration, and now we’re
contacting the parents to say we need to go back to PPT because we need to change her IEP so
that it meets her needs so she can be successful.
You keep mentioning accommodations. What accommodations do you guys provide for
each of these students?
It can be anything. Anything is an accommodation. Even if you’re saying that a child needs
highlighted text on a study guide that can be seen as an accommodation. So it’s anything that
makes it different from what regular education is. For example, like reading from a text book
and the child has to have notes taken for them or if they get broken down text. If they get an
AEC device that reads the text for them that all has to be listed in their IEP. For preschool I can
speak to it as if it says they need an AEC device then we have to have that at all times and it says
what they need and when they need it. So for us accommodations are total communication,
meaning sign language and pro-lo-quo which is a program on an IPad where a child can touch
the picture and it will speak for them. That all has to be written out in the child’s IEP. If they’re
getting visuals to support instruction, for example, if they need a visual schedule to be successful
in their day; those are the things that you write in the accommodations page. Then all of those
things have to be provided for them and the last thing in the column on the grid it says where
would these accommodations be appropriate? So, for preschool it is usually in all activities for
the duration of the IEP. As you get to the older kids it might be in all reading activities or in just
math activities. So it’s very different when you’re talking school-age versus preschool. My
accommodations are very different than theirs. It’s important for people who are in school to be
able to write IEPs for anybody because special education goes from ages three to twenty-one and
you should be exposed to all of those IEPs because a three year olds IEP and a twenty-one year
olds look very different and you should be acquainted with all of those.