Keeping up with IEPs and Evaluations

 

Selfie taken during last IEP season

It comes every year. You think you're prepared. You think you're ready. You know it's going to be difficult, but you're going to survive. Maybe you stash an extra candy bar or seven in your desk. Maybe you feel yourself staring daggers at people who seem happy and carefree. Perhaps you kiss your pillow and beg it for a few hours' reprieve with no nightmares about missed deadlines. 

There is always a time of the year called 'IEP season'. For some, it's right at the beginning of the year. For us, it's that February-April stretch. For a lucky few, it's the end of the school year, and once it's over, it's summer. And sometimes, it happens twice a year, like a terrible version of El Nino. It's that time when you have 17 IEPs and 6 evaluations due within days of each other, and you have no idea how you're going to get through it. 

You will, though. And the best way to get through it, as Scar from The Lion King would tell you, is to be prepared. The best way to prepare is to know that the tsunami of paperwork is approaching. To-Do lists are great, but how do you stay on top of your due dates? Do you rely on whatever computer program you use to sort through by due dates? Do you have a list for the year that you keep with you or post on the wall? Do you have a 90-day calendar that you mark with due dates? What works best for YOU?

What works best for me is an Excel spreadsheet that I print out at the beginning of the year. Spreadsheets have never been my jam, but a colleague showed me how to create multiple pages of a spreadsheet and it changed my world. My Excel file is called 'compliance [School Year]', and that's exactly what it is. I have pages for each month, and I'll list each student's name, IEP due date, and reevaluation due date in the appropriate month. Sometimes, the IEP and reevaluation aren't due in the same month; in those cases, the student gets listed in whichever month the earlier one is due, since we typically will hold an IEP and reevaluation meeting together in my school whenever possible. I'll relist the student in the later month, too, if we for some reason don't do them both together. I am analog, so I print this list, and just write in new students (new evaluations, kids who transfer into the building, etc) on the printed sheet and will add them to the computerized master once their new IEP meeting is held. 

I staple these pages together and write the months at the bottom so I know what I'm looking at just at a glance. This gives me a chance to figure out when I'm going to be busy. 2024-2025 is going to be ROUGH for me in February and March, but January is really light, so I am already thinking that I'm going to hold a lot of my February meetings in January/early February, and then start scheduling the March IEPs throughout February and March; so, rather than have 17 meetings in February and 18 in March, I'll have 10 in January, 10 in February, and 15 in March (ideally) - it's still a lot, but I don't know that we have 17 school days in February, so 10 feels a lot more manageable. 

As I go through the year, students whose meetings have been held get crossed off, so it feels good to see the progress. I also try to make sure that all meetings for the following month are scheduled by the end of the current month, and this list makes it easy to keep track of who needs to be scheduled. I'll also highlight reevaluation dates for the current year for myself so I can see those at a quick glance. If I see that I have 3 reevaluations due in February, I'll make sure I've got those permissions out in December for updated testing so I've got enough time.  This has proven helpful this past year, as it seemed like both my school psych and I could NOT keep '2024' and '2025' straight. In May, we were talking about what consents we needed to meet for in September, and she kept mentioning one kid over and over. I grabbed my list and looked, and asked her why we were doing it a year early. "He's due in November, we need to have it done." "But I have him on my list as November 2025." "Yeah, November....wait...crap, it's only 2024 this November." I've done the same, but that's the most recent example I have. ;) 

Like most of the 'master copy' forms I use, it may take a little time to set this up, but once you have it set up, it's SO easy to edit and have ready for the next year! 

I've made an editable blank version available for FREE in my TpT store, too! Just download and go! 

Screenings and Evaluations

 Well, nothing says 'fun' like talking about one of the most important parts of the job, right? Let me soapbox for a moment, though. ;) 

Multiple times every year, I am reminding teachers that 'screening' and 'evaluation' do not mean the same thing. They aren't synonyms. "I told the parents you're going to evaluate the kid for speech." Well, that's great that you told them that, but I'm not doing that; I'm screening them to see if I need to ask them for written permission to evaluate. During one school year, many years ago, in a different district, a teacher put in writing to several parents that she was recommending their child for a special ed evaluation. Our special ed director was livid, to put it mildly, as the teacher was committing hours of testing by the school psych and myself without any Child Find, MTSS, or any other intervention to go on. Many of these families were also very upset by getting a letter stating they needed to be evaluated without any other background. They just thought their students struggled 'a little'. And, in 6 of the 7 instances, they were correct. That's right; 7 evaluations, 1 student who qualified for special education. And 6 sets of parents who were very angry at the district because they felt they had been pressured by the teacher into the evaluation, despite our director providing them procedural safeguards and stating they were absolutely within their right to decline the evaluation. [In hindsight, a prior written notice may have been more appropriate, but that's another topic and it was a learning experience.]

Back to the topic: screenings and evaluations. Yes, they go together like peas and carrots, but they aren't the same at all. For us as SLPs, we have an interesting role in the schools as the only evaluating case managers in the district most of the time. I, and many colleagues, firmly believe we need to screen a student when a teacher or parent has concerns as part of Child Find to determine if we have enough data to proceed to an evaluation, or if we need to bring other professionals into a possible evaluation. We all have our different methods of screening, preferred screening tools and setups, but one thing that I'd absolutely, positively beg (and have begged) SLPs to do is: get it in writing. Yes, I know a lot of times, things in writing feel scary, but a paper trail is your best friend, and I'll share three instances of why I feel this way: 

1) Many years ago, a family requested a speech screening for articulation. The student was aware of their errors and stated they didn't like to answer in class because of their speech. I asked the teacher to complete a referral form, and also had the family complete family input forms. The teacher had 0 academic concerns other than 'sometimes needing the student to repeat things'. The family had 0 concerns other than the articulation. Student qualifies, works on sounds, moves to middle school. The family, during the summer between elementary and middle school, has the student tested for dyslexia and student is diagnosed 'mildly dyslexic.' Family sues the school for denial of FAPE, stating they had shared concerns for 'years' about student's reading abilities. In our meeting with the district's legal team, I presented all of my documentation - including those screening forms and input forms. Our lead attorney's eyes lit up; she noted there was no indication, ever, in writing, of any academic concerns from family or school. We weren't settling; we were going to fight this. After discovery, when the family's attorney saw the documentation, they asked for a settlement. The district declined, and the case was settled in favor of the district. All because of a few sheets of paper. 

2) More recently, a teacher asked if I would be willing to screen a student for language concerns. Absolutely, and here's the referral form. When the teacher returned it, she had written some information that kind of raised some flags that she wasn't concerned about 'just language.' She had listed a lot of behavioral and social concerns, as well as gross and fine motor problems, that went beyond language. I asked about PT/OT screens, which the parents also consented to along with the speech screenings. The three of us had the same results: we saw concerns in our own areas of expertise, but felt the school psychologist needed to be brought on board because we had concerns that went outside of our scopes. I reached out the the family and requested a meeting to discuss all of our concerns, which was not well-received. 'My kid just needs speech!' I explained, multiple times, that I was happy to recommend a speech evaluation, and PT/OT wanted to evaluate in their areas as well, but since we all had concerns that none of us could evaluate, we needed the school psychologist to meet with all of us as well. We couldn't evaluate the academic, behavioral, or social concerns that the teacher was raising. The parent refused, and a week later, a state complaint is filed against us stating we refused a speech evaluation. My director calls me in, and I share the screening form, my results, and my emails to the teacher, PT/OT, parent, and school psych requesting a meeting to discuss a consent to evaluate including PT, OT, Speech, and get the psych's input. Complaint dismissed. 

3) Even more recently, a teacher asked me if I would screen a student in her class. Absolutely, but we are in the middle of IEP season, so it's a fairly busy time for me. I will schedule a screening as soon as you return this referral form to me. Just leave it in my mailbox or slide it under my door and the student will be screened as soon as I get a minute. Several weeks go by, and I get a phone call from my principal. "Why aren't you screening students?" Um, because my screening list is clear. Principal tells me there's a complaint from a teacher in the building that she had referred a student to me 'weeks ago' and I hadn't done anything, and she and the parent were upset. I remember this teacher had asked me for a referral form, which I had given her, and after checking through my screening folder, I didn't have any forms. Principal asks if I had screened the child; I hadn't, I didn't even know the child's name since I had no form. Principal calls the teacher, who states she had the form on her desk but hadn't filled it out because she was too busy. Principal reminds the teacher that I can't screen a student whose name I don't even know. I never did receive that referral form, now that I think back on it. 

The moral of this rambling is to please, please, always have written documentation to protect yourself. Yes, we work under time constraints a lot, but using a screening request form has helped me to not only keep track of screenings, but also to ensure that I'm not getting 'evaluation requests' in writing from teachers, that the correct people are brought in before we initiate an evaluation, and that teachers understand I need information and can't just "listen" to a student for 5 minutes to determine if they need a language evaluation! 

Organization: Data Logs and the Eisenhower Matrix

 Data Logs: 

"Keep good data." "Where's your data to support that?" "You need to organize your data." "Look at your data." 

I HATED the word 'data' in grad school. I'd think, leave me alone; the data is in the client's progress. Listen to them. Talk to them. Yet, in the real world, that doesn't fly. Don't use any of those statements in a due process hearing! The data needs to be documented in order to make changes to therapy, adjust goals, show progress, write new goals, or think about dismissal. 

In my career, I've taken over caseloads from 5 different therapists and received data on transferred students from dozens more. And every single one of them used a different data sheet or tracking method, which is both infuriating and invigorating. I say 'infuriating' because it's not the way *I* take data so it doesn't make sense to me. And 'invigorating' because it's not the way *I* take data and it makes me look at the goals or progress in a different way and evolve how I think. (I'm a Gemini, duality is my jam). I've mentored CFs and grad students who always ask, "How do I take data?" The answer always is, 'in a way that makes sense to you and helps you to see what a student needs and how they're progressing. 

Back to grad school, they made us complete these grids on extra long sheets of paper for goal and progress tracking. The clinical staff called them 'O Grids'. We called them 'O Gods.' The 'O' stood for 'objective', and they were a nightmare to set up for every single client. We'd write SOAP notes for every session and bring our O grids to each clinical supervision meeting. Did they match? Did they make sense? What did the data tell us? Our favorite part of O Grids was shredding them at the end of a semester once our semester report using the data was written. 

After graduating, I got a job in outpatient rehab, and documentation was just writing a brief note on a daily log sheet, then using those to write a 3-month, 6-month, or reevaluation for insurance documentation report. I never thought about data again for 3.5 years until I got my first school job with a caseload of 85. I cried during the 2 weeks I was writing progress reports. I had so many pieces of paper, so many goals, so many objectives, so many numbers...it drove me nuts. Following that year, I decided I was going to create my own way to track data, and played around with formats until I found one I liked. I started the school year with it, and it worked pretty well. I was impressed. 

And then I realized.... I had created an O grid. 

Mother of God, they got me. 

The dreaded O Grid

Fine, you win, grad school clinical staff. It works. It works even better now that I have a laptop file with a log for every kid on my roster, complete with a blank version on the first page. When I get a new student, I copy the grid and paste it in the Word document where the student should be alphabetically. When we do an IEP review, I copy/paste the new goals on the existing data log for the student, print it out, and get ready to go. 

A few reasons I like this format: 

• My due dates are included on the top. This way, I'm reminded every time I see that student of their IEP or triennial review dates. 
• I have space on the page for other notes as needed. Some things I'll write in include: parent name/number, teacher name, days I see the student, frequency, behavioral notes.
• I can keep track of their rewards in the rewards system I use by stapling their rewards sheet to this data log. Fewer papers to shuffle through = happier SLP.
• I can easily glance back at a previous session for progress monitoring and adjust our levels. This way, I can see that we've worked on /s/ in words for 3 weeks at 90% and maybe we should move to phrases. I can also draw an arrow after a number to remind myself to bump up a level next time. This comes in handy at progress report time, too. And it's amazing for keeping track with Medicaid billing! 
• I can keep track of attendance on one sheet for an entire IEP year or school year. I just mark 'absent' with the date at the top, draw a line through all of the objective spaces for that date, and move on. 
• I can bring this documentation to meetings and have one easy page to look at, rather than a pile of pages. 
• I can save these and pass them on to another SLP when the student moves to a different building, so they have a quick and easy (hopefully) record. 

As I mentioned above, I created a Word Document with this blank grid template as the first page, and copy/paste onto subsequent pages for every student on my roster. Then, I'll copy their objectives/goals into the spaces going down the left column. I leave a blank row, then copy/paste the objectives again, until I have filled the sheet's first column with objectives. I do that for every student, then print out the file (minus the first page). Yes, it's a lot of work to start, but once it's set up, it's easy to change goals or add/delete students as needed! 

When I track my data, the top row is for the date. I'll write the date in, and then, for each objective I target, I keep track of the data in the space for that objective under the date. I'll usually write the percentage or fraction, maybe a quick note about compliance or level of prompting, and that's it. I track my data separately, on an app or pen/paper, and then write it on here. It'll be interesting for this upcoming year, when we'll be required to use a program the district has purchased for logs....but I plan on still being an analog girl in a digital world. :) 

Just don't tell my grad school supervisors that these are actually helpful. I was not a fan of these in the early 2000s. :) 

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The Eisenhower Matrix 

So, we've talked data and grids, and it makes my brain think of an organizational strategy that a director introduced to me awhile back that has honestly helped with a lot of time management (home and work, thank you). This was something that President Eisenhower used to organize himself, and if it was good enough for the leader of the country in the 1950s, it's good enough for me. 

The matrix (not the Keanu one) helps you to decide how to prioritize your work. I got in the habit of making a matrix for myself during the school year when it was a particularly busy time of the year (first weeks, around progress report time, during IEP season). It honestly helped, and I've suggested that colleagues use it as well. I have one colleague who takes on a lot of 'extracurricular' planning tasks that really interfere with her ability to stay on top of her own work without stressing, but she is NOT a delegator. Someday, she will be, and I encourage her to delegate more to her para's, but everyone has their own needs, right? 

Dwight David Eisenhower had 4 D's in his organizational strategy: Do, Decide, Delegate, Delete. Some versions of the matrix include this, others use an Important-Urgent, Important-Not Urgent, Not Important-Urgent, Not Important-Not Urgent framework. I prefer the 4 D's, because how do you differentiate (another D!) between 'Important-Not Urgent' and 'Not Important-Urgent'? 

Here's a link to a great article that explains this better, and here's an example of a matrix I've used: 

Time Management Template - This Week

Do Now Write IEPs due this week Baselines for AB IEP Medicaid weekly billing	Decide When To Do Screenings Finish eval report for BN due end of month ESY data by end of May
Delegate Follow up on meeting time for IO; ask teacher to send Dojo message Schedule DS IEP; ask learning support to schedule as case manager	Delete Consults this week; reschedule for next week\ Prize box refill; not needed til next year

I'll be honest; I rarely use the 'delete' box, because when do we ever delete things? I'll usually put those in the 'decide' box, bur in this week, I was apparently just over some things for the week. :) 'Delegation' is my favorite box. If I can't get a response about a meeting, I put it on the teacher after the 3rd attempt. If we have a meeting that needs to be scheduled and I'm not the case manager, I delegate that to them. The best part about this form is crossing things off as you go, and, rather than just having my page-long to-do list that eventually overwhelms me, I've got a list of things to do THIS WEEK that feels way more manageable! 

Organization - A Journey from Type P to Type A

 I was never an organized child. I wouldn't say I was always late, because my parents had us go everywhere 30 minutes early. I wouldn't say I was a slob, because my room was somewhat presentable, and I didn't have moldy orange juice cups scattered around my room like my brother did. I wouldn't say I was scatter-brained....well, ok, that one, I would, and still will say that about myself. 

I don't think I learned the importance of being organized until I bought a house at 29. I had lived on my own in college, but moved back home to start taking chunks out of my student loan debt (45 payments to go and counting!). And even then, I wasn't particularly organized. It really happened after my boyfriend and I started having more of our lives and finances combined that the need to organize finally struck its chord of importance with me. Yes, he could keep track of his own stuff, but we both started becoming aware of what the other needed to do, and it became a co-organization effort from both of us. Even now, looking around our house at the constant organization in progress, it drives me to keep making things more organized. I thought I liked chaos, but apparently, I don't. :) 

I felt like I had a decent approach to keeping myself organized at work, but it seemed like I'd fall apart every year, at least 2-3 times a year, about having "so much to do and no time to do it" and being "so far behind that I have to take work home." I hate both of those things, and I started working to do things to help myself with it. I've gotten close, because I don't know that I freaked about about being overwhelmed at all this past year (double-checking with my boyfriend, he confirms it was a calm year). I brought work home twice, both times because a special ed teacher "forgot" until 3:55 PM on a Friday that we had an IEP meeting scheduled on Monday at 9AM. Out of my control, but still had to get done. 

Reading through any /slp Reddit or Speech forum, there are tons and tons of posts, especially from newer SLPs, about feeling overwhelmed. Too much paperwork. No plan time. Progress notes take forever. Don't know if they're making progress. Can't keep track of evaluations. Missed a deadline. I'd also heard these over the past two years from a colleague I was charged with mentoring - a very talented young SLP with a passion to work with students and a drive to help them succeed. During our first year, I harped on the importance of staying organized, and had shared all of my materials that I use to stay organized. Not every material works for every person, but these are ideas that help me, a person with decades (ugh) of experience - so learn from my mistakes and start your career on a better foot than I did. During this person's second year, they unfortunately got very far behind on paperwork, to the point that our supervisor asked me to mentor them again for the second half of the year. It turned out that this person hadn't followed through on an organizational routine as I had stressed about and suggested/presented during our first year into the second year, and their world crashed in January when the supervisor found out they had never completed the first round of progress reports or done Medicaid billing all year to date. "Too busy" wasn't an excuse for legal compliance. We went through getting organized, and the rest of their year was a struggle between catching up and staying caught up, but they walked out of their building on the last day of school without a single thing past due. 

So, I thought, to give MYSELF some structure for the rest of the summer, and to hopefully help other struggling SLPs, I'd devote a post each Tuesday for the rest of the summer to organization for an entire school year. I'll include links to materials I've created, but, for the most part, it's information and ideas for keeping ahead of the paperwork tsunami. Being organized has definitely reduced my stress, and increased my productivity. Instead of taking work home, I'm doing extra work - like PD - during my paid work time. I logged 18 hours of PD in May/June through self-study, because I was able to use my plan times for PD and paperwork, rather than just paperwork. 

Here's what I'm thinking for the rest of the summer: 

July 16: Data Logs and the Eisenhower Matrix

July 23: Screenings and Evaluations

July 30: Keeping up with IEPs and Evaluations

August 6: Starting off the Year Strong

August 13: Making the Most of Plan Time

I just kind of depressed myself realizing there are only 5 more weeks of summer. Well...it'll be organized, at least. ;) 

Communication Station

 In the past several school years, I've always included a note with our final progress reports to contact me over the summer with any questions or concerns. And it's always a quiet summer - until this year. I got an email from the parent of a student I work with on fluency skills with a video attached. This student made a little video to show how she was practicing her fluency, and that even though she's been "way too bumpy" in the past few months, she's still working hard and misses me. It was the sweetest video and I've probably watched it 8 times already this morning/afternoon. What a wonderful surprise! I usually check my emails on Mondays during the summer, and Mondays only, so it was perfect timing, as they had sent the video on Saturday and I was able to respond fairly quickly. 

Communicating with them reminded me of how important the school to home connection is in our jobs. When in a clinical, home-based, or private setting, parents often have the ability to watch a session so they know what to do at home. That doesn't happen in schools. It's something I've offered to parents at IEP meetings; if you want to set up an appointment to come in and either talk with me about what to do at home, or work with me and your child to see what we do, please let me know. I've never had a parent take me up on that, either, but it's something I may try to push for a little more this year. 

Our district switched to a trimester schedule during the pandemic (our virtual year), and has remained with it. I absolutely love it because it's one fewer time per year that I'm writing progress reports, but many families aren't so keen on it - particularly with my non-public buildings who are still on a quarterly schedule. One way I've worked with them on that is with monthly update sheets. They get a quick note home in any month when we haven't had a service plan meeting or a progress report, as well as a 'show off skill' sheet (aka, homework). The kids don't like the H-word, so we usually pick a few skills they've gotten good at for the month that they want to show off at home. The parents have expressed that they appreciate knowing what to do without being bombarded on a weekly basis, and appreciate the update. It takes me about 30 minutes to complete the sheets every month (for about 20 kids), so it isn't TOO much out of a week! 

Last year, during a departmental meeting, a colleague who worked primarily with walk-in students (usually preK kids) mentioned her frustration that the parents wanted to talk after sessions to understand what to do, and she didn't have the time in her schedule. I shared these sheets that I used, and my colleagues all asked if I'd mind sharing. The colleague with the walk-ins told me a few months later that it had significantly helped her keep on schedule when the families knew they'd get a monthly update, and they'd either call or email, rather than hound her at the end of a session. So I thought, maybe it would help others as well!

In the spirit of "try before you buy," there's a FREE version as well as the full-year paid version. 

Here's how I use them: 

• I figure out how many notes I need for the month and divide that into whether I need the articulation sheet or the open ended sheet to go with it. Then I'll make a copy of the parent note on one side and show-off sheet on the other (for less paper waste), and make enough copies for what I need. 
• About a week before the month ends, I'll start to fill in the sheet with just a quick description of what we've worked on (/ar/ in words, /s/ blends in sentences, answering who/what questions from 3 sentences of a story). I'll also give them an idea of where I'd like to be in the next month (next month, we'll work on: same; increasing to phrases; fewer cues or more response choices for independence). Notes from the SLP are usually brief, such as a reminder about an upcoming meeting, 'I hear a lot more carryover in conversation', etc. 

  

  Example of a parent communication sheet for October. 

  
  
• Then I'll fill out the back of the sheet with words the student has done particularly well on, or language skills (name 3 in each category, describe each word using 3 attributes), so they can 'show off' how well they've done and get some well-deserved praise. 

  

  Example of an open-ended 'show off' sheet. 

  
  

  

  Example of a show-off page used for articulation 
  
  

• During our last session of the month, it's 'show-off day'. Most of the students who receive these pages are at my non-public buildings or in self-contained classrooms, and don't participate in the rewards system that I use with my gen ed public school students, so this is also their 'prize box day'. We review what I've written on the note and practice what's on the back. After that, we'll usually do one additional activity before they get to pick from the prize box. 
• The sheets I complete are for the entire month; so at the end of September, the September Summary gets sent home. Our trimesters end in November, March, and June, so no notes go home that month, since they're receiving official progress reports. Non-publics are usually done for the year in May, so they don't get a note home in May, since they get their progress report and summer practice pack. So, at the very most, I'm completing these forms seven times per year. 

Is this a little extra, unnecessary paperwork? Sure. But this has really helped me to build a solid rapport with families. I have families who are comfortable telling me they really don't practice the sheets much, but they're grateful for the updates, and it reminds them to do some extra home practice (for a week or two before life happens and they fall off until the end of the month again). Hey, I get it, and I appreciate the honesty! 

Should I be doing this with my gen-ed public school students? For sure, but that's another 45 notes, and while I said the 20 I do take me 30 minutes, I just haven't been able to consistently keep up with doing 65 every month. That's definitely a goal for this school year, though. 

One surprising thing that happened last year was at a service plan meeting in March. The student was in kindergarten and was making a ton of progress. The family said that they were practicing his show off skills religiously, and the teacher asked what we meant. I explained, and the teacher asked if I'd mind giving HER a copy of the sheets so she could work with him during class, too. I have no poker face, so I'm sure my jaw dropped - a teacher asking for more work? But sure! 

We are specialists in communication disorders, but our communication with our families shouldn't be disordered!