Pen Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I'm looking over my child's IEP (has one concurrent with home school for lang arts area-- I suspect dyslexia, though we have not gotten an official detailed diagnosis of that) prior to signing. It calls for him to be writing (correctly and on a given topic) 3 sentences by April, 5 by June, and a 5 paragraph essay by November (which will be grade 4). I am concerned that he won't be able to do a 5 paragraph essay and that it is too much to ask for by Nov. OTOH he seems willing to try to work toward that goal. But clearly is unsure he can manage to do it by then. What is the "penalty" so to speak for not reaching an IEP goal? Is it better to aim higher and fail or lower and not do as much as might have been done? We are working on lang arts in a variety of ways as can be gleaned from my signature--not specifically on 5 paragraph essay--but I don't think that it is a problem for him to work on that at same time in his at school extra lessons. OTOH most of the time between the 5 sentences goal for June and the 5 paragraph goal for Nov. would be during the summer. I don't want to shift homeschool lang arts over the summer to trying to focus on a 5 paragraph essay. OTOH what we are doing with IEW might perhaps have us heading to being able to do that anyway. What says the hive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houseofkids&pets Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 My oldest ds is in ps and has an IEP. For him, that would definitely be quite a leap and he does attend summer school every year. I would discuss this with the school. BTW, there is not a penalty for not achieving a goal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pen Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Thank you. Knowing there is no penalty is helpful. I also just realized there was a typo (or perhaps I misread) and it gives goal at June to be 3 paragraphs--not 5 sentences. So the summer jump is not so great. What instead got changed was to focus on correct after editing. He still will write things like "Dead bad," (instead of Dear Dad). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmyinMD Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 There isn't a penalty as far as I can tell and at least on ours they will count just about anything as progress. One of my son's goals used to be that he would answer a what/where question with a 2 word phrase. This is way beyond his ability (functionally nonverbal autistic). They said he was making sufficient progress on the goal because he was sitting and paying attention some of the time instead of getting up and running around the room. I'd make the goals challenging but ones that could possibly be attained. We just had to redo ds's IEP because they watered down the goals so much that they didn't seem like enough. We had the issue where they were too difficult and now they are not challenging enough so it can be hard to strike a balance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houseofkids&pets Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 :iagree:You don't want "watered down" goals that look good on paper since they are easily achieved. However, the goals should be realistic and based on your child's needs when looking at the "present level of performance" (it is called that the PLEPs on an IEP here in NY). Have you ever checked out http://www.wrightslaw.com ? There is a ton of info on here about IEP's, goal writing, annual reviews, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riverland Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 When in public school, my dd had an IEP. The goals were not always met. There was no penalty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shellers Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) There isn't a penalty for not meeting an IEP goal. However, next time the team gets together, if the goal hasn't been met, then another plan should be arranged to meet the goal. My DS had an IEP for 6+ years in public school. He has severe dyslexia. His IEP goals weren't being met year after year and the IEP never changed. There wasn't a plan on how to get him where he needed to be. My DS's IEP was a failure! I didn't know my rights or the rights of my DS. If I was you I would get informed and learn to be an advocate for your child. There are plenty of books on the subject. Complete IEP Guide is a good one. I ended up pulling my child from school last October and am now homeschooling him. He's finally learning to read! :) ETA: After I pulled my DS11 out of school, I got a phone call from the principle of his school. They offered me another schooling option. The principle said my DS could do homeschooling as part of his IEP and I could choose the curriculum as long as his special ed teacher approved. Some options he brought up were my DS coming to school half a day, coming to school on Fridays, or DS coming to school for library day and parties. The principle said I would be required to meet with DS's special ed teacher once a week to review work we had done at home. I declined but just wanted to mention it to the OP because if I had known this was an option prior to pulling DS from school I may have given it a try. Edited February 7, 2012 by Shellers Added more info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pen Posted February 8, 2012 Author Share Posted February 8, 2012 There isn't a penalty for not meeting an IEP goal. However, next time the team gets together, if the goal hasn't been met, then another plan should be arranged to meet the goal. My DS had an IEP for 6+ years in public school. He has severe dyslexia. His IEP goals weren't being met year after year and the IEP never changed. There wasn't a plan on how to get him where he needed to be. My DS's IEP was a failure! I didn't know my rights or the rights of my DS. If I was you I would get informed and learn to be an advocate for your child. There are plenty of books on the subject. Complete IEP Guide is a good one. I ended up pulling my child from school last October and am now homeschooling him. He's finally learning to read! :) ETA: After I pulled my DS11 out of school, I got a phone call from the principle of his school. They offered me another schooling option. The principle said my DS could do homeschooling as part of his IEP and I could choose the curriculum as long as his special ed teacher approved. Some options he brought up were my DS coming to school half a day, coming to school on Fridays, or DS coming to school for library day and parties. The principle said I would be required to meet with DS's special ed teacher once a week to review work we had done at home. I declined but just wanted to mention it to the OP because if I had known this was an option prior to pulling DS from school I may have given it a try. Hi, thanks, I feel like I am an excellent advocate for my child. And I have gotten for him almost the opposite of what you were offered, which I'll mention to you because I think it is an option as part of national law--though I could be wrong. It could be of interest to you--or to others on here. We are homeschooling--and the IEP is in a sense a part of the home-schooling. I choose my own hs curricula as I like. My son gets 2 half hour sessions at school daily and a chance to use high speed computer and library. Sometimes members of his IEP committee which includes me discuss what we are doing at home so as to make things fit together (for example not to be doing double spelling programs that might be too much, and so that things will reasonably mesh together--neither to be doing double that is too much, nor to be missing areas entirely), also it has been helpful to know what the typical child in school is doing. But there is more a situation of working together to figure out how to deal with the problems--they don't know what our whole home program is, nor need to approve it. In general though, the suggestions have been helpful. In both directions, I think. I really like his Sp. Ed. teacher a lot (also the reading teachers)--this makes a huge difference--and I think she is both committed to trying to help the kids and skilled--we talk either there or via notes by email. We just talked today and got the current situation fixed up as to the confusing typo, and clarified as to, yes, it is correct that there is not a penalty if he does not meet the goal. The official goal will be 5 para. essay--but we are all going to aim at the ability to write a research paper (he's bright, and it should be possible, and certainly desirable). She'll work on the 5 para. form... I'll continue with IEW etc.. So, we are all on track together. Thanks to everyone for comments, suggestions, and all!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lecka Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 This is my understanding -- if the goals are not met, then maybe the services will be increased. Or, a different program might be tried. My son didn't make good progress on goals in K in speech, and his speech teacher helped me get him set up for private speech, and that has been wonderful for him. But before that, he went from 2 sessions a week to 3 sessions a week at school. Now he is back to 2 sessions a week. Pen -- that sounds like a great situation for your son! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.