3 hidden IEP benefits every parent should know

Most families know that IEPs can provide accommodations and services. But other powerful supports are sometimes hidden. In this episode, we break down three often-overlooked IEP benefits: extended school year services, built-in training for parents and teachers, and outside placements. Learn what to ask for, how to ask for it, and how decisions get made. 

• Watch: Does your child need an IEP? 

• Read: What is an IEP? 

• Listen: Advocating for your child at school

Julian Saavedra: If you're raising a child with learning or thinking differences, you've probably heard a lot about IEPs and maybe fought hard to get one for your child. Most families know that an individualized education program can provide accommodations, specialized instruction, or services like speech or occupational therapy. But there are some other powerful parts of IEPs that don't get much attention.

Stephanie DeLussey: This section of the IEP really makes sure that not only are we getting the appropriate training for the child, everybody on the team, but that we're actually given the time to do it. Because if it's written in the IEP, we legally have to make it happen, right?

Julian: That's Stephanie DeLussey. She's a special education teacher with experience across grade levels. She's also the author of "The Intentional IEP: A Team Approach to Better Outcomes for Students and Their Families", and she knows the ins and outs of IEPs.

Welcome to the "Opportunity Gap", a show where we talk about how to navigate the education system. I'm your host, Julian, an assistant principal with over 20 years of experience. On this episode, we're digging into three often overlooked benefits of IEPs that can help make a real difference for kids and families. If you've ever wondered, is there anything more that we can do to help my child, this episode right here is for you.

Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Stephanie: Thank you. I'm so excited.

Julian: Before we jump into some of the hidden benefits of an IEP, I want to take a step back and look at the bigger picture for a minute. Why are some of the benefits of IEPs so little known?

Stephanie: I think the biggest part of why some of these things we're going to talk about today aren't so well known is because a lot of times they're — I don't want to call them hidden — but they're kind of hidden in the IEP where some of them are just a checkbox.

And then sometimes they're labeled one thing in one state or on one IEP template and in another district or state, they're labeled something else and all the IEP templates are different, so you don't know where to look or what's supposed to go in there.

Even for teachers, we know the present levels, we know the goals, we know they need accommodations, related services, but these things we're going to talk about today aren't those things. And so they just often get overlooked.

Julian: Yeah, it's interesting because I've taught in three different states. I worked in Massachusetts, I've worked in Connecticut, and now I'm in Pennsylvania. To your point, the paperwork looks different for every state. And you're right. I don't feel like there is a readily available list of just common accommodations or modifications that can be made. And a lot of our families just don't know what to ask for.

One of the first often forgotten, sometimes overlooked benefits that I'm hoping you tell us a little bit about is something called ESY. Can you explain what that is and why it's so overlooked?

Stephanie: Yeah, so Extended School Year, or ESY, are services that are provided to our special education students — so students with those IEPs. It's very different than when a school district says we have summer school. Summer school provided by a district is for any child that attends that school. Extended school year services, however, are just like I said, for students with IEPs.

And so what they are is — I mean, how deep do you want me to go here? Because I know you probably have other questions, but I could just keep talking about ESY.

Julian: What if we specify in terms of funding? Is this something that parents have to pay for? What would a typical extended year school day look like? And is this something that families have to do or do they have a choice in the matter?

(05:35) The seven factors that determine a student's eligibility for extended school year services.

Stephanie: All right, I love these questions. These are all great starting questions. So ESY, extended school year, is no cost to the family, just as with anything that comes with an IEP under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the federal law that gives parents and students their rights to have free appropriate public education. ESY is free. It is provided at no cost to the parents. The school district takes care of everything.

When it comes to ESY, what does that typically look like? It is going to vary student to student. Generally, I'm going to tell you generally in my experience, how ESY is run, and then I'm going to tell you the hidden knowledge, I guess, behind ESY and what you should know about ESY.

So generally, ESY looks something like this. The school district determines, okay, we have an ESY program for this summer. And it is Monday through Thursday from 8:00 to 12:00, and this is the times when we can offer extended school year. 100% of the school districts that I have worked for have run ESY in this manner. It's not wrong, but it's not 100% correct. Okay, going to leave that there.

Also, a lot of school districts, when you start having these conversations about "Does your student require and/or are they eligible for ESY?", these conversations generally happen in the springtime because they're looking for regression and recoupment. So what does that mean?

They're looking to see if your child has made progress with the skills they've been working on or if they have regressed or shown no progress or lack of progress. However, when school districts say your child doesn't qualify under regression and recoupment, that's actually only one of the seven factors that school districts have to take into accountability when looking at eligibility determination for a student.

So there are seven. I'm going to read them off. Rate of progress is another one that they have to look at. The nature of the severity of the student's disability. Are they at a critical point of instruction? Regression and recoupment, so that's one, like we talked about. Are they working on emerging skills? So brand new skills. Interfering behaviors, maybe they have behaviors that are interfering with their learning throughout the school day. Or maybe special circumstances. Now, that could cover a wide range of things.

Now, when you list out these seven factors, the majority of students are going to qualify for extended school year. And the purpose of ESY is to help students maintain their mastery of the critical skills and their IEP goal progress that they are making or not making.

So the rate of progress, are they making progress? We don't want that progress to slow. So let's send them to ESY so they're continuing to work on that over this time period. The severity of the student's disability. Are they at a critical point in instruction? Are we at this kind of turning point or the tip of the mountain where they're just almost there and if we stop teaching them this, we're going to lose it and we're going to have to start all over, right?

Emerging skills. Are we learning a new skill that is foundational for them? Maybe they're learning counting, or maybe they're learning how to tell time on a clock. Something that they're going to need that's a foundational skill. Maybe it's an emerging skill for them. They still need to be working on it.

Again, interfering behaviors or special circumstances. What's so fun about ESY too is that a lot of schools will say we only have it during summer. But here's another golden nugget for you: ESY can be used at any point during the school year.

Julian: Thank you. I was hoping you were going to say that. That's something a lot of people don't know.

Stephanie: It is. And it blows my mind. And I didn't know it until I knew it. But once you know this golden nugget, you're like, oh my gosh, this changes everything. It can be used for spring break, winter break, it can be used on weekends, it can be used for after school hours. ESY is not just for summer school. It can be used at any point during the year. You just have to look at those seven factors and determine if the student needs the extended school year services to, again, maintain that mastery or work towards that mastery of those critical skills.

Julian: So those of you listening and also watching, Stephanie laid out a very compelling case for why ESY can be a really great benefit for you. Now that you've heard those three letters, ESY, when you go to an IEP meeting, ask. Ask about what the options are, ask how the school is determining if your student qualifies for it. Ask about transportation. That's a really big question mark that a lot of families have.

But also ask who is running the ESY program. Is it a teacher that you are familiar with that you might want to have your child be having more face time with outside of the regular school hours? And the number one thing: know that you don't have to do it if you don't want to. There's choice in the matter, but it must be offered. And that's the number one thing to know is that there has to be a conversation about it.

Typically those conversations happen at the IEP meeting where there might be a re-evaluation conversation or maybe it's just your annual IEP meeting. But I would highly recommend, ask about it. Have a conversation about it while you're at the IEP meeting.

(12:12) How parents can request specialized training for themselves and school staff.

Julian: Another benefit that doesn't get a lot of attention is the opportunity for training for teachers, for special education assistants, or for ding-ding-ding, families. Parents. Talk to us about it.

Stephanie: Yeah, so there is this section and, again, in every template, state, district, they call it something else, but it's generally called the School Supports for Personnel. And it's its own section where you can write in parent training, teacher training. Maybe if your child is working with a specific AAC device —

Julian: Hey, Stephanie, just for my sister-in-law that might have zero idea what an AAC device is, what is that?

Stephanie: So an AAC device is for students with limited verbal communication skills and it's going to essentially talk for them. It's an augmentative alternative communication device. Most of the time now with technology, it's on a tablet. And so they'll push what look like buttons with pictures and it'll — they'll make a sentence and it'll speak for them.

But if your child just got this device and you have no idea how to use it, your child has no idea how to use it, the teacher has no idea how to use it, you can request teacher, parent, student training on this device. You can put that training into this section of the IEP so that everyone has to get that training to understand this device to implement it with the child.

Another thing that you can target for teachers specifically with this school supports for personnel is if you have paraprofessionals in the classroom and they are taking data with and for you on the students that you're all working with, you can put para training into the IEP so that you as the teacher can provide them and are given actual time to work and train your paraprofessional on how to collect data in the method that you're using.

So you don't have skewed data, everybody's data is being taken the same way, and it really does make such a huge difference. It sounds like — I don't want to call it like a fru-fru section of the IEP, like an extra kind of thing — but it does really make such a difference because it makes sure that everyone has the same information, the same knowledge, the same skills to work with the child in and out of the classroom, in and out of the home, in and out of the community to help them succeed with what's in their IEP.

Julian: And I love that you highlighted paraprofessionals. I know in my building, they are a game changer when it comes to the educational experience for our students because they know the kid so well. And if they're taking notes and running records that are accurate, it's such a valuable add to the conversation at the IEP meeting.

Now, Stephanie, I'm an educator, you're an educator, but I'm also a parent. And I feel like it would be a little difficult for me if I'm sitting at an IEP meeting as a parent, how would I broach the conversation that I think my child's teacher needs training? That's a little touchy. How would I go about having that conversation? What would you recommend?

Stephanie: I absolutely, one, I think that it's a conversation that needs to be had. It is very touchy because you don't want to make the teacher angry, right? Or make them feel some type of way. But I would approach it from — let's say you have these three strategies that work really, really well with your child who has ADHD and we're targeting them in the IEP, but you just noticed that they're not really making progress on them in school.

And so maybe you approach it from, "Hey, I would love to have teacher-parent collaboration time." And maybe that's what it looks like written into this section, where either you're coming into the school or you're doing a Zoom meeting or it's a phone call where maybe it could be every other week, maybe it's once a month, maybe it's once a marking period, whatever the team decides what that looks like.

That's time that the teacher has to be given, that explicit time to collaborate with you where you can have those conversations about, oh, we're using this agenda and it really works when Stephanie is given an orange highlighter, not a green highlighter, because they can see orange better or whatever it may be. And we use a visual timer, not a sand timer, so make sure it has numbers.

And you have another strategy that you're using where you can work with the teacher and see maybe there's something that's working in the classroom that you're not using at home too, so you could have that collaboration time. The whole purpose of this section of the IEP is to legally have time to be carved out for this collaboration to happen, for this training to happen.

This section of the IEP really makes sure that not only are we getting the appropriate training for the child, everybody on the team, but that we're actually given the time to do it. Because if it's written in the IEP, we legally have to make it happen, right?

Julian: Now, just to remind our listeners and viewers, typically what part of the IEP would this fall under? Is this towards the beginning of the IEP conversation, the middle, towards the end? Because IEP meetings usually can go quickly and there's a lot of things to cover, so we want to make sure families are prepared.

Stephanie: I hate saying this, but this is how it is. It depends on the template of the IEP and what your IEP looks like. But generally, you're going to find this section after the accommodations, modifications, and related services type of section. You're already going to talk about present levels, you're already going to talk about IEP goals, you're already going to have talked about accommodations and modifications. So when you start getting into the nitty-gritty of services, this is probably where you're going to find this section.

(19:11) How alternative school placements work and emphasizes that they are not permanent.

Julian: All right, so Stephanie, you've already hit us with a ton of information. But the one that I really wanted to touch upon — and from the administrator end and from the school's end, it can feel really intimidating or even controversial — family, did you know that if a school truly can't meet a student's needs, like if the school's determined and the family's determined that the child cannot get their needs met at the school they currently are at, an IEP team can consider placements outside of the school? You want to talk to us a little bit about that process, what does it mean, how does it work, who pays for it?

Stephanie: Yeah, so generally this process is something that is not — it is not a discussion that is taken lightly. This discussion has to do with the student's placement or their LRE, which is the Least Restrictive Environment. And there's a continuum is what I'll call it for LRE.

And so where we want every child to be is in the general education classroom with their peers. That is the least restrictive environment. And then as you move the other side of this continuum, you have the most restrictive and that's generally where you're going to see our facilities or residential programs, our non-public school programs, homebound instruction.

So these conversations when it comes time for the district to even say it's time for an outside placement, you've already tried everything. We've tried all these different supports, we've had amendments to the IEP meeting, we have all of this data to show we've tried everything but we cannot provide the best, most appropriate supports and services for this child. We think this outside placement is what's going to be best for them. And the district has to pay for that.

Julian: It gets tricky for a lot of school districts because it is a funding issue. But in some cases, the public school that students are being educated at, it just doesn't have the supports in place to properly create the least restrictive environment. And so the team might come to a conclusion that they need to seek out an alternative placement.

But there has to be a bunch of information collected to substantiate this decision. And it could mean that the child is moved to a different place and that could have its own set of implications. It could mean that the child doesn't have friends in that place, they're having a new set of people that they have to work with, it might be a smaller setting, so it might not be a typical public school environment like they're used to.

Transportation again, that could be an issue where I've been in situations where students are being bussed 45 minutes or an hour away from where their home is because they have to meet the needs of that child. And so it's a really tough decision to make, but it is an option. And we don't want our families to not know that ultimately you have to make the decision that's best for your child and for your family.

Understanding that the process really begins by having a robust conversation at the IEP meeting and having information to support seeking out this decision. But what if I'm not an educator? What if I'm a family and I'm listening to Julian and Stephanie talk and they're throwing acronyms in, they're talking about data, I don't know what they're talking about? My child just is not doing well at this school and I think they need to go somewhere else, but I can't go into the meeting and talk the way they can talk. Do I need to bring a lawyer with me or what do I do to get this conversation going?

Stephanie: First I want to say this. I think it's important to say this regardless of in a public school setting, out of a public school setting, wherever the student's placement is, whatever classroom they're in, it's not permanent. So if they move to an outside placement, they can always move back into the general education or the public school setting, right?

So it's not if they move into, let's say they go into a residential program within the most restrictive environment, that's not to say that a year later they're doing absolutely fantastic, they've learned all of these new skills and they're doing just a fantastic job, we want to move them back into the public school setting. That is an option.

And so I just want to preface this whole conversation of placement because placement is very, very scary to talk about for teachers and for parents. I think it's just important that we note that it's not permanent and it can change at any time.

But to answer your question about how do I start this conversation, do I bring an advocate, do I bring a lawyer? I am a huge proponent as a teacher for parents to bring advocates and lawyers if they feel like that is going to help them be the best them and help them represent themselves and their child the best that they can.

As a teacher, I know what I know from my experience, but parents are kind of just thrown into it. So if you want to bring an advocate, if you want to bring a lawyer, please do so because I am all for parents being a full active member of the IEP team. Now, how to start this conversation, I think it's going to vary.

I think the first thing that you want to ask for is the data. And there's probably going to be some things in here that you want to look for and it really depends on your student needs. If it's behavioral, we want to look at the behavior data, we want to look at what supports have we tried, what interventions have we tried, what related services have they been given, what has worked, what hasn't worked, what's not working right now, what are our other options?

You can just flat out ask that clarifying question. I love a good clarifying question because it shows that you're trying to understand everything to the best of your ability in your seat at the IEP table to be an engaged member of the team. So if you have clarifying questions and you're like, "I don't know what that means, I want to know what other options are out there as far as supports and services and all of the things," ask the question.

I don't know that there's a right or a wrong way to start the conversation, but I think it all comes down to the data and just asking what are our other options, what are some things that we haven't tried? And even maybe just flat out saying, "What are some outside public school settings that we might want to start thinking about for my child?"

Julian: And you know, again for our listeners and our viewers, I deeply understand this process because I've done it for a while. Stephanie deeply understands this process because that's what she does. But the vast majority of people don't know any of this. What they do know is their child. And what you do know is your child and you know what's working and what's not working.

So I would say that beyond asking for data, beyond going to get a lawyer and going to get a trusted advocate, make sure that you've built a relationship with somebody in the school that you trust that speaks this language. There's so many different acronyms, there's so many different bits of information involved in the education system that it's a whole different language.

So if you haven't built a relationship with somebody in the school that understands this process, whether it be a paraprofessional, whether it be a teacher, whether it is one of the principals, somebody that can just sit with you and have some real talk about how this is going to go and what are some things you can ask, that really helps.

And I know that you and I probably both serve that purpose for tons of families that we work with now. I think that really helps break things down a little bit so that by the time you do have the official meeting, there's already been some thought put into how we can approach it and it's not a shock.

Because the reality is that there's going to be a lot of big emotions that come with all three of these things, whether it is talking about ESY, whether it is talking about training, whether it is talking about an alternative placement. There's going to be things that come from that. And if we can have a pre-conversation or somebody that we trust to talk this through, it can really help you.

All right, Stephanie, I could talk to you all day long. I feel like your expertise is right in line with what our listeners need to hear and what our viewers need to learn all about.

Stephanie: Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited that we got to share these three golden nuggets with parents for parts of the IEP that maybe we don't talk about so frequently or that we just rush over in an IEP meeting. So I hope that just even if one of them was like, yes, I love this, I'm going to call my teacher tomorrow and we're going to talk about it, that is what we are here for and I'm really happy that we were able to do that for you.

Julian: Everyone at home, watching, listening, please check out Stephanie. Her expertise is vast and she is also author of "The Intentional IEP: A Team Approach to Better Outcomes for Students and Their Families", check out the book. I'm going to be ordering mine soon. And again, Stephanie, hopefully you can come back and break some more IEP information for us and I just appreciate it.

Stephanie: Thank you so much for having me.

Julian: Thanks for listening today. We love hearing from our listeners. So if you have any thoughts about today's episode, you can email us at opportunitygap@understood.org. And be sure to check out the show notes for links and resources to anything we mentioned in the episode.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give.

"Opportunity Gap" is produced by Julie Subrin and Gretchen Vierstra. Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Jessie DeMartino. Briana Berry is our production director. Jordan Davidson is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key and Scott Cocchiere.

Thanks again for listening. Until next time, OG family.