Bad Annual Goals= Bad IEP
- Resources LongIsland
- Jun 13, 2022
- 2 min read
After your child's Annual Review meeting has been held, you are due a Prior Written Notice describing what the committee agreed to/recommended and what was not agreed to. AND You are due the new IEP for the new school year.
This IEP may come right after the Annual Review meeting, it may come closer to the start of the new school year. REGARDLESS, you need to make sure you are reading over the IEP when it arrives. Does each section make sense? Are the present levels good? (See our previous blog post on present levels here: https://boobooblue45.wixsite.com/resourcespecialed/post/bad-present-levels-bad-iep )
What about the annual goals? Will your child be working on skills that will actually help them move forward toward grade level in academics? functional skills? social development? physical development? Are the goals addressing foundational skills? Are they clear? Observable? Measurable?
#1 Annual Goals must be tied to the Present Levels of Performance!!!
There must be a need identified in the present levels- this goal has to be tied to a skill that your child needs to develop in order to move forward toward grade level standards- it can be academic, social, physical- tied to 1 of the need areas. There has to be data to show where how your child is currently performing a skill- how well and to what extent- so that the goal has a starting point and an ending point.
If an academic goal, what do the present levels say about your child's skill in relation to the grade level standards? Ex. reading goal for fluency- what grade level are they reading at? That
should be the "starting level" and the goal should be written to expect reaching a higher level of skill by the end of the year- making progress toward grade level standard Every goal needs to start with baseline data.
#2 Annual Goals must identify observable skills, behaviors and strategies to address the student’s needs as identified in the present levels!! IT MUST BE MEASURABLE!
If you can't see the student performing the skill, behavior, or strategy, the goals is NOT MEASURABLE. You can't measure what you can't document. The annual goal should be telling you exactly what to LOOK FOR! If you can't read the goal and know exactly what your child should accomplish, if the goal makes you ask, "What does this look like?", then it's a bad goal.
#3 Annual Goals must have a specific method which will be used to collect data to measure if the student is making progress on the goal- how well the student is doing. It should be a method that the school district can easily share with you. You CAN ASK FOR THE SPECIFIC DATA that is being collected. It shouldn't be random notes- it should be a method that is everyone can understand, that measures the observable skill, behavior or strategy, and that is collected consistently- not 1x per marking period!!! Must be collected frequently so progress can be measured frequently.
Resources: "Measurable Annual IEP Goals: Self-Check" https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sped/pdf/rda-ccr-iep-measurable-annual-goals-self-check.pdf
"Questions to ask about your child’s IEP goals" https://www.understood.org/en/articles/checklist-what-to-consider-when-developing-annual-iep-goals?_sp=7176dcec-e2b4-4838-a03b-c24e3b1978d5.1655139241475
"Setting annual IEP goals: What you need to know" https://www.understood.org/en/articles/setting-annual-iep-goals-what-you-need-to-know
"Annual Goals in the IEP" https://www.parentcenterhub.org/iepgoals/
IRIS Module: "Challenging, Ambitious, Measurable Annual Goals".
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