How to Include Students in the IEP Process

I’m excited to introduce this week’s guest blogger: Maureen from Spoonful of SPED to talk all about how to include students in the IEP process! Make sure you check out another perspective from an elementary and secondary education teachers here!

Imagine sitting in a meeting where people are talking about you. Making choices about your life. And you’re thinking what’s going on? When is it my turn to talk? What are we even talking about?

Now imagine attending a meeting and knowing what’s going on. You start with introducing yourself and the people around you. Then you’re sharing what you’re good at and things you want to work on this year. Your input is valued and people ask you questions. Big difference right?

I bet you can instantly tell me which meeting you’d rather be in. Our students with IEPs deserve to be in meetings like the second one where they are the star of the show and contributing meaningfully to development of the annual IEP. We need to include students in the IEP process. I’ve attended many IEP meetings and found several strategies that include students in the IEP process.

Generate the hype

When you are sending out the IEP invitations to families and school team members, send one to the student too. Make sure that they know this is a special event just for them. It’s something positive and to be celebrated. Often those computer generated letters are way to difficult for our students to read. Make something at their reading level. We need to include students in the IEP process.

I’ve created a printable invitation you can send to your student. It’s free and you can get it here. You can even invite the student first, then have them help you invite the rest of the team. This really generates the hype and fosters student buy-in. 

Take time to set up a pre-meeting

Meet with the student before the IEP meeting to give them the lowdown on how the meeting is going to go. I know teachers are so busy so definitely try to make this happen at least once. If you can have several, that would be even better. At this meeting, start with explaining what the IEP is, get the student’s input on their transition plan and talk about their strengths and areas of need together.

Virtually, this could look like sending them a separate zoom or google meet link during independent work time. In person, pull them aside for this meeting in another empty classroom. This is really the most important step! Without preparation, nerves, confusion, and behavior could prevent successful participation and decrease confidence- we don’t want that! We need to include students in the IEP process.

Let them create something to share during the meeting

This is totally open to whatever best suits your student. Do they like to draw? Maybe a drawing of their interests. Are they good at using their communication device? Maybe record a message before the meeting to share during the meeting about where they want to work when they leave school. Are they awesome with the computer? Let them rock a slide deck.

By giving them a chance to create and share, it allows the meeting to be more student-centered. In the virtual setting, we’ve had great success with two different approaches. Some students use Google Slides to create a presentation to share with the team. We need to include students in the IEP process.

Another way is for staff to write out a script based on the pre-meeting that the staff and student had so the student can read from the script when the teacher prompts them to during the meeting. However you do it, make sure that they have had time to create and practice whatever they made and give them all the praise when they share their work in the meeting.

It doesn’t have to be wildly elaborate for it to be impactful. Students’ voices matter and are essential to the development of advocacy and communication skills that students need for the rest of their lives. Start today. No age is too young. Plus I made it easy for you… Remember these strategies to support student participation in IEP meetings with the pneumonic GTL (like from the good ole’ days with Snookie and JWOW).

If you have further questions, I’d love to collaborate. We need to include students in the IEP process. This is one of my passion topics and I’m itching to help you find ways to make student participation easier. Reach out to me on Instagram @spoonfulofsped or email me at [email protected]