Individual Education Plan Enhanced: Our Top Five Tips

If you have a child with special needs, you know that the most important thing is that they lead a happy, productive life – especially when they are at school. Individual Education Plans are developed to assist your child with specific needs they may have, but you may be asking yourself, what can you be doing during the summer to maximize the effectiveness of your child’s IEP? When it comes to making sure a student with special needs gets what they deserve to succeed, grow, and feel confident doing so, Cherice Fleming Togun takes the responsibility seriously. The IEP can ensure your child’s success in the classroom and make a huge difference in your child’s life. That is why we want to be thorough and considerate to any needs they may be having.

During this time, it can be stressful, and many points get lost in the fast-paced fun of the summer. Preparing can indeed take that stress away, and we at OLG always employ lists to keep our best tips and tricks at the top of our priorities. In this blog, we will detail some great recommendations for you to improve the effectiveness of your child’s IEP, all from Cherice, one of our excellent paralegals, and a mom with extensive experience on the matter.

Tip Number 1: Create A Bio for Your Child‘s Individualized Education Plan

Of course, you will have the legal document provided by the public school, but we think just talking about your child, their personality, likes and dislikes can really provide a lot of personality as well as provide your direct contact information. This opens the line of dialogue and helps humanize what can sometimes be reduced to a black and white document.

Sometimes, what can happen during these meetings – through no fault of anyone’s – is that, as you are dissecting the child’s needs, the details and nuance can become lost. Furthering that human connection with the teacher really creates that team mentality that betters comfortability, confidence, and an intricate understanding of that student. We recommend including information about the child’s favorite foods, what they enjoy doing at home as well as how you like to reward them and some of their favorite interests. What is so fantastic is, as your child gets older, they can participate in this and help write their own bio, playing an active role in the team’s objective: which is to make learning fun and effective.

Tip Number 2: When Going to Meet the Teacher, Connect

Have copies of the bio available for the teachers and for the staff. Email works as well, but truly getting to know these individuals and helping them to get to know your student will make a world of difference. In a school system, there are so many moving parts that, unfortunately, details concerning your child’s Individualized Education Plan can become lost in the process. It is vital to, what we call, stand out amongst all of the noise that expectedly takes place, especially at the beginning of the year. 

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