Bad Present Levels = Bad IEP

Bad Present Levels of Performance=Bad IEP

If your child's IEP has no specific, educationally relevant data, your child's IEP is a bad IEP.

Present Levels of Performance should answer the questions: -What are my child's specific skills and needs in academic subjects? SPECIFIC not vague. Related to grade level standards not some lettered reading level that tells you nothing about your child's decoding, fluency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. If they are struggling in math, how?? Specific grade level skills??? How about writing? Can they write a sentence independently? A paragraph? An essay? If not, why not? What are the skills they need to develop?? Spelling? Grammar? Details? Main idea? What?

-What type of instruction/strategies/supports work for your kid? What have teachers tried that your child responds to? What supports (accommodations and modifications) help?

-What is the impact of my child's disability? How does my child's disability affect their involvement in the general curriculum? What are the areas that are most affected and preventing them from moving forward without special education?

-What are my child's strengths? In academics? Social skills? Physical skills? What things are they good at?

-Does my child have things that are preventing them from being involved with the school and community bc of social skills needs? Physical needs?

Why? Why is this important? Bc if you and the Committee on Special Education/school district don't understand where your child's skills and needs are right now- how can they understand where your child needs to make progress?

Bad present levels lead to bad goals and bad supports which lead to bad programs which lead to bad placement.

Resources: 1. Guide to Quality Individualized Education Program (IEP) Development and Implementation pages 18-25 https://www.p12.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/iepguidance/IEPguideDec2010.pdf

2. "Present Levels | PLOP | PLAAFP | The Most Important Section of the IEP-Find out Why!" https://adayinourshoes.com/present-levels-iep/

3. "Setting an IEP baseline: PLOP, PLAAFP, and PLP" https://www.understood.org/.../setting-an-iep-baseline...

4. "Why Present Levels are the Foundation of Educationally and Legally Correct IEPs" https://www.wrightslaw.com/howey/iep.present.levels.htm

5. Understanding the Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance statement (PLAAFP) https://www.pacer.org/parent/iep/plaafp.asp

6. "Summer School 2017: Present Levels in the IEP. What's so Important?" https://www.wrightslaw.com/nltr/17/ss.present.levels.htm