Your Child’s IEP Is Coming Home: Here’s What You Need to Know

The IEP comes home in the backpack, six or eight pages of it, and you read it twice at the kitchen table without being sure whether it is any good. That is a normal reaction, first IEP or fifth. What follows is how a special education teacher reads one, in what order, and what to do in the two weeks after it lands.

What the IEP is, and what it is not

An Individual Education Plan is a written plan describing the special education program and services your child requires. That is the ministry's own wording on what an IEP is. The same page is blunt about what it is not: not a description of everything your child will be taught, not a list of all the teaching strategies used in regular classroom instruction, and not a daily lesson plan. The ministry calls it a working document, which is the most useful thing to know about it.

Ontario law sets the floor. Under O. Reg. 181/98, s. 6(3), the plan must include specific educational expectations, an outline of the special education program and services your child will receive, and a statement of the methods by which progress will be reviewed. If your child is 14 or older, it must also include a transition plan, unless they were identified solely on the basis of giftedness (s. 6(4), 6(5)).

Two words do most of the work in the document. Accommodations change how your child learns and how they show what they know. The ministry is clear that providing them "in no way alters the curriculum expectations for the grade level or course". Modifications change what your child is expected to learn, either by using expectations from a different grade level or by changing the number or complexity of the grade-level expectations. Not every child with an IEP has modified expectations.

Read it in this order

Start with strengths and needs, not with the accommodation list. Everything else in the plan is supposed to flow from that first section, so if it is wrong, the rest is built on sand.

1. Strengths and needs.
2. The list of subjects or courses, each one labelled AC, MOD or ALT.
3. The accommodations section.
4. Human resources: who is providing support, and how much.
5. Assessment and reporting.
6. The transition plan.
7. The log of parent and student consultation.

What to check on the first read

Read with a pencil. These are the checks that catch the most problems.

• Do the strengths sound like your child? The ministry standard says this section should describe learning styles and preferences, previously acquired learning skills, and cognitive processing and communication abilities.
• Do the needs name a challenge, not a support? The ministry says it is not appropriate to write a need as "the student needs an educational assistant" or "the student needs speech therapy" or "the student's math skills need to improve".
• Is every subject labelled? Each subject or course requiring accommodations or modified expectations, and every alternative program, must be listed and marked "Accommodated only" (AC), "Modified" (MOD) or "Alternative" (ALT). A subject needing none of those is not listed at all.
• Are the accommodations only the ones that differ from the rest of the class? That is the ministry's test, word for word.
• Under human resources, is there a type of service, a start date, a frequency and a location? All four must be recorded. "Special education teacher, 40 minutes, 4 to 5 days a week, resource room" is what a complete entry looks like.
• Are both dates there? The date your child began the placement and the date the IEP was completed must both be recorded.
• Is the consultation log filled in, with a date and an outcome for each conversation?

What to ask the school, in writing

Email the classroom teacher and the special education teacher, and copy the principal. Short and specific beats long and general.

• Which of these accommodations are instructional, which environmental, and which assessment? The IEP has to sort them into those three groups.
• Which of them will be available during EQAO testing? Testing accommodations must already appear in the IEP as classroom accommodations, and must be described in specific terms.
• When will progress be evaluated, and will it come on the Provincial Report Card or an alternative report? Both have to be indicated in the plan.
• If this is not working by the next reporting period, what changes?

Your copy, the record, and what happens next

You are entitled to a copy, and the plan is not finished when it arrives. Within 30 school days after your child's placement in a special education program, the principal must ensure the plan is completed and a copy sent to you, and to your child if they are 16 or older (s. 6(8)). The ministry notes that this 30 day rule applies to every student with an IEP, including students who have never been identified by an IPRC.

After that, three things keep it alive. The learning expectations must be reviewed at least once every reporting period and updated as appropriate, with the updates entered and dated in the plan, and you must be told about them. If a revision would significantly change the learning expectations or the level of accommodations and services, you must be consulted before it is implemented. And the IEP goes into your child's Ontario Student Record unless you object in writing (s. 8). Keep your own copy of each version anyway. Read side by side, three years of IEPs show you what has actually changed.

Go deeper

If the bigger question underneath all this is how the plan got made in the first place, or how to get one started, read how to get an IEP in Ontario. It covers the two routes into an IEP, the written request to send your principal, and what to do when the school stalls. If a meeting is already booked, IEP meeting questions for Ontario parents has the question sets and a checklist. Reviewing an IEP line by line with a parent, and drafting proposed wording to raise with the school, is also one of the things we do in our IEP Review & Strategy service, if you would rather not do the first read alone.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to sign my child's IEP?

You are asked to sign the parent/student consultation form attached to the IEP, not the plan itself. The ministry standard says that form records the date and outcome of each consultation, and asks you to indicate whether you were consulted, whether you declined, whether you received a copy, and whether your comments are noted on it. Signing records that the consultation happened, not that you agree with everything.

How quickly should the IEP reach me?

Within 30 school days after your child is placed in a special education program the principal must ensure the plan is completed and a copy sent to you, and to your child if they are 16 or older. That is section 6(8) of Ontario Regulation 181/98. The ministry says the same 30 day rule applies to students who were never identified by an IPRC.

Does my child need an IPRC to have an IEP?

No. An IEP must be developed for every student identified as an exceptional pupil by an IPRC. An IEP may also be developed for a student the board deems to need a special education program or services without any identification. The ministry adds that if a principal decides achievement will be assessed on modified expectations, an IEP is required even with no IPRC.

What if the IEP does not sound like my child?

Write down the specific lines that are wrong and send them to the principal and the special education teacher. Ask for your comments to be recorded on the consultation form. The ministry requires that you be consulted before any revision that significantly changes the learning expectations or the level of accommodations and services, so a written record matters.

Where is the IEP kept?

In your child's Ontario Student Record, unless you object in writing. That is section 8 of the regulation. The ministry adds that the working copy should replace the filed copy at the end of each school year or semester, or when your child transfers schools, so the next teacher sees the current version.

Sources

• O. Reg. 181/98: Identification and Placement of Exceptional Pupils
• Special education in Ontario, Kindergarten to Grade 12: Components of the IEP standards and effective practices
• Special education in Ontario, Kindergarten to Grade 12: What is an IEP?
• Individual education plans (ontario.ca)