What Frustrates Teachers Most About the IEP Process
The most frustrating part of the IEP process, for the special education teachers I asked, isn't the paperwork itself. It's the breakdown between the people responsible for it: missing records from a previous district, parents who don't attend, goals nobody can measure, and team members who never show up to the meeting.
I got a new student in late March one year and never saw his out-of-state Individualized Education Plan before he walked in the door. Three firm knocks, and there stood the school secretary, two parents, and a wiggly, noisy boy in red silicone break-resistant glasses I'd never met. No time to pull a desk. No time to warn my other dozen students, several of whom don't handle disruption well. No file, because the parents left almost as soon as they'd handed him over.
Fortunately, the office got a phone number. During the first few weeks I used it a lot. A. LOT.
His previous district was the kind that doesn't return calls from teachers in a new one, even when we're calling only to learn a child's goals and needs. When the paperwork finally arrived, here's what it told us that nobody else had. The student had a seizure disorder, which we'd already discovered the hard way. He pulled hair constantly, which I learned the day a handful of my hair stylist's best work ended up on the table in front of me. He wasn't potty trained. And one of his sixteen goals- that's right, sixteen- was to recite his ABCs, which is a tall order for a non-verbal child with no communication device listed anywhere in the plan.
So we did what teachers do. We watched him and anticipated what he needed. What we couldn't do was throw out his old plan and start fresh just because he'd crossed a state line. When a student transfers from another state during the same school year, IDEA requires the new district to provide services comparable to those in the previous IEP, in consultation with the parents, until it conducts an evaluation if one is necessary and then develops and adopts a new IEP consistent with federal and state requirements. Without the old document in hand, we couldn't establish what comparable even meant.
How the IEP process is supposed to work
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) sets the structure every public school follows. A student is referred and evaluated, and the team determines eligibility. For a child newly determined eligible for special education, an IEP meeting must be conducted within 30 days of that determination. The IEP is reviewed at least annually, and the student is reevaluated at least every three years. Transfers work differently, as the previous section describes.
IDEA also names who has to be in the room: the parents, at least one general education teacher if the child is, or may be, participating in the general education environment, at least one special education teacher, a district representative, and someone who can interpret the evaluation results. That last role is the one schools most often try to fold into somebody else's job.
Worth knowing before you get angry at an empty chair: IDEA permits a required team member to be excused under specified circumstances, with the agreement or written consent of the parent and the district, and with written input submitted in advance where the member's area is being discussed. An absence isn't automatically a violation.
And IDEA requires something that would have saved me a spring. Each regular education teacher, special education teacher, related services provider, and other service provider responsible for implementing a student's IEP has to have access to it and has to know their specific responsibilities under it. The U.S. Department of Education's Guide to the Individualized Education Program walks through each step. On paper it's tidy. With a transfer student and a silent sending district, it isn't.
Where the process actually breaks down
My story isn't unusual. Years ago, back when our phone screens slid open to reveal a miniature keyboard, I was a school administrator supervising the Special Education Department. The two Special Education Teachers on my staff were the most resourceful people I knew. I could ask one about an IEP issue, and she'd cite the paragraph from IDEA from memory, because she'd looked it up so many times it had stuck.
So when Little Man Glasses landed in my room with his goal-heavy plan and his silent previous district, I emailed both of them to ask whether I was alone in finding it maddening. I wasn't.
What we kept circling back to is how many jobs one document is asked to do. The IEP touches every adult in that child's education, and it's the only instrument any of them share, yet it so often gets treated like a signature line. Just sign here. When I buy a car, my 846 questions get answered before I sign anything. Why do so many of us bring more scrutiny to a vehicle purchase than to the plan governing our own child's education?
What special education teachers say frustrates them most
I took the question to a special education forum I belong to on Facebook: what part of the IEP process is the most frustrating for you? The answers came in fast, and they sorted themselves by who each teacher was frustrated with. What follows is what practicing educators said, in their own words. Read it as professional opinion and shop-floor preference, not as a summary of what IDEA requires. Several of these describe practices that make a plan easier to work with, which is a different thing from a legal obligation.
What teachers want parents to know
- Parents…WHERE ARE YOU?? Why aren't you attending EVERY meeting called on behalf of your child?
- Parents…why do you ask for meetings to be rescheduled numerous times but then don't show up to the appointments? Your attendance is wanted and valued.
- Parents…why do you bring advocates who are arguing for what YOU want and not for what is best/most appropriate/most necessary for the student/your child?
What teachers want other teachers to know
- Teachers: there is no need for double-digit numbers when writing goals. No need for twelve or eleven or twenty-two goals.
- Teachers: proofread the paperwork you have completed. It is understandable that if a meeting is held in January, you may accidentally write last year's date, but to have no dates is unacceptable.
- Teachers: don't copy/paste from other students' IEP's to save time…and if you do, PLEASE proofread. Billy's name is not Suzie.
- Teachers: don't write so many goals!!! If you are unsure as to an appropriate number of goals, contact someone in your school or district who has been doing this for longer than you and seek their direction.
- Teachers: write goals that are GOOD goals, not broad or too general. Make them specific, measurable, achievable, and time-bound. A good goal: Given instruction in writing and sentence starters, Suzie will complete a journal using options or her own thoughts with 90% accuracy in 5 out of 5 trials by the end of the second nine weeks of school.
What teachers want administrators to know
- Teachers/administrators: attend the meetings. Get a sub. If you can't attend or can only stay briefly, have a written statement to be shared at the meeting identifying the progress and other information required to be shared.
- Administrators: don't say, "I don't know anything about the Special Education Department. I trust my teachers." You only make yourself appear uneducated and foolish.
What the whole team needs to get right
- Everyone: don't bring food/drinks to the meetings.
- Turn off /silence your cell phones and focus on the child being discussed.
- Everyone: be on time for the meetings. Start on time.
- Everyone: be open to discussing anything. The IEP is about the child's needs, and if everyone is honest with each other, the needs can most fully be met. When people are in denial about a child's needs, needs are left unmet.
- Everyone: be civil even if there is cause for disagreement. Calm demeanors create a more productive session. If need be, table the discussion for another day, which is determined prior to departing.
- Special Education Team: SHOW UP EVEN IF YOU'RE A CONTRACT WORKER. If you are an Occupational or Physical Therapist, chances are growing that these services are contracted out by school districts as a cost-saving measure. Coordinate with your company's leadership so you can attend these meetings, be it in person or by conference call/Skype. Your lack of presence does not demonstrate a commitment to the child-from the perspective of the parent.
- Special Education Team: one of my friends made her point with an eloquence for which only she can espouse… "Ooooh, girl, their PLAAFP had BETTER line up with their goals, and vice versa; otherwise the whole thing is just a ridiculous mess and makes no sense! Everything has to correlate!!" Additionally, the PLAAFP "had better" reflect data collected during formal assessment time, informal assessment times, and any-other-assessment-times. My Really Smart Friend Dawn, whose role as a compliance officer in her district causes her to review IEP's written by Special Education Teachers across her district on a daily basis. From her perspective, if the PLAAFP and the goals aren't aligned, nothing matters. Nothing is in sync. It's like wearing golf apparel to play hockey. It's just not going to work out well for anyone.
Three of those deserve a footnote. IDEA does not require every related-service provider to attend every meeting simply because their service appears in the plan, so a contracted occupational or physical therapist who doesn't show is not necessarily out of compliance, however much the team wanted them there. IDEA requires present levels and measurable annual goals based on the child's identified needs, but it doesn't prescribe a particular mix of formal and informal assessment behind the PLAAFP. And it requires goals to be measurable without mandating the specific, measurable, achievable, time-bound formulation. SMART is a useful discipline, not a federal standard.
Why alignment matters more than any single document
That last one deserves unpacking, because it's the most technical item on the list and the easiest to get wrong. PLAAFP stands for Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance: the section describing where the student actually is right now. IDEA requires the plan's measurable annual goals to be built on the child's identified needs, so the goals and the present levels have to hang together. When they don't line up, a compliance officer can't tell what the goals are responding to, and neither can the teacher who inherits the student next year.
Reading through all of it, one word kept surfacing: synchronicity. If the team's efforts around a child aren't synchronous, the document doesn't matter much. A car running low on oil runs fine for a while. Then the engine seizes, and it's no good to anyone.
Stay in touch with the team. Keep the child's needs at the front of every decision. The path won't be straight or narrow, but at least you'll be on it together.
RELATED IEP READINGS:
- Parent Participation at the IEP Team Meeting
- 9 Questions to Tackle in Demonstrating Knowledge of Your Students
- Get OUT of the BOX! Our Kids Aren't Succeeding
- 4 Terms for Translating Behavioral Jargon
- Individual Education Plan Goals: The Heart of It All
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most frustrating part of the IEP process for teachers?
The educators I asked frequently named coordination failures rather than the writing itself: records that don't follow a transfer student, team members who skip the meeting, and goals written without measurable criteria. That's an informal forum discussion, not research, but it points to something real. The document is only as good as the people who build and carry it out.
What does PLAAFP stand for in an IEP?
Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance. It's the section describing where the student is currently performing. IDEA requires measurable annual goals built on the child's identified needs, so the goals should follow from what the present levels establish.
How many goals should an IEP have?
IDEA sets no required or maximum number. The number of goals should be driven by the student's identified needs rather than a target number, so whether ten or more is appropriate depends entirely on the individual child. IDEA requires goals to be measurable and tied to those needs. It doesn't prescribe a formula, though many teams find the SMART discipline a useful way to get there.
Who is required to attend an IEP meeting?
IDEA requires the parents, at least one general education teacher if the student is or may be participating in the general education environment, at least one special education teacher, a district representative, and someone who can interpret evaluation results. Additional individuals with knowledge or special expertise about the child may participate at the discretion of the parent or the district. A required member can also be excused under IDEA's rules, with the necessary agreement or consent.
- The paperwork isn't the problem - the educators I asked frequently named coordination failures rather than the writing itself.
- IDEA sets the structure - an IEP meeting within 30 days of a new eligibility determination, annual review, reevaluation at least every three years.
- Transfers get comparable services - an out-of-state IEP isn't replaced on arrival; it's matched until the new district develops its own plan.
- Everyone responsible for implementation gets access - IDEA requires each teacher and service provider carrying out the IEP to have it and know their responsibilities under it.
- Goal count follows the student - IDEA sets no required or maximum number, and the right count is driven by identified needs.
If the IEP side of the job is where you want to build expertise, the special education programs listed on this page include initial-licensure routes, master's degrees, and add-on endorsement options. Requirements for special education credentials vary by state, so check what your own licensing agency expects before choosing a program.
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