(Describer) Title: The Basics of an IEP. Valorie Dombroskas:

(female) An IEP stands for an... And basically what that means is that for every child with a disability living in the United States, we have an obligation to provide them with what's called a Free Appropriate Public Education. And we do that by providing them with educational services that are individualized to their own needs through that IEP.

(Describer) Lisa Bonner:

So an IEP is an... ...that a team develops based off the needs of the individual student. The ETR is the driving force. It should be the driving force of that IEP.

(Describer) Joy Edgell:

It's a lot of data. For one child, it looks like a huge packet. You take the data-- Baseline data is what it's called. You lay out the testing reports from the ETR, the baseline data, and say, "Here is where the child is with the skill they're struggling." The IEP is a plan where the team that gave tests through the ETR process can say, "Based upon your child's disability, "he might need 30 minutes of speech a week, or 120 minutes a week." Then we bring those specialists in. They explain to the parent, "Here's the services I'm going to be providing. Are you okay with that?" SDI, or Specially Designed Instruction, is how the instruction that we're giving looks different compared to our typical peers. So, small group instruction using manipulatives, using touch points, that's all Specially Designed Instruction that would be geared towards math. So it's what the instruction looks like. Inclusion means my child is going to be included to the best possible ability in the general ed curriculum. Where can I put your child that is the most typical, but they're going to learn the best? If my child's diagnosed with a reading disability, she could be pulled out 30 minutes a day to work with an interventionist. There are IEP students who are in the classroom all day. The interventionist comes to them and maybe pulls students who need the same skill. It is a yearly review.

(Describer) Dombroskas:

It takes place every year where they're reevaluating, looking at the needs of the student and developing goals and objectives to help assist the students to make gains. I tell parents they should understand they can ask for an IEP meeting whenever they think it's necessary. Sometimes the school will contact the family and request an IEP meeting. For some kids, they're going to do really great, blow through their goals, and make lots of progress. If they do, we want to make sure we come back and identify new goals. Other kids may be having problems. We want to make sure we address those as well. Whenever either party thinks there is a need to have an IEP meeting, we can do that.

(Describer) Edgell:

That goal would be set until the parent comes in. We sign off again. As soon as the parent says, "I want this goal changed" or the team says, "This needs to be fixed," the document changes.

(Describer) Titles: Individualized Education Program Funding provided by the Ohio Broadcast Educational Media Commission in partnership with the Ohio Department of Education. WOUB Public Media Copyright 2016 Accessibility provided by the US Department of Education.

Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education.