Qualifying for an IEP

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• Prep for eligibility determination

  After the evaluation, you’ll meet with the school to find out if your child qualifies for special education. This is called an eligibility determination meeting. It can feel like a lot is riding on one meeting. But whatever the team decides, there’s a next step.

  If your child qualifies

  • The next step is creating an IEP.

  • Some schools have a joint meeting where they discuss eligibility and review the draft IEP in the same meeting. If you’d like some time to think before discussing the IEP, you can ask for separate meetings.

  If your child doesn’t qualify

  You still have options. You may want to ask about:

  • A 504 plan. Your child may not need special education but could still get accommodations, like extra time on tests.

  • Another evaluation. If the results don't seem right to you, you may want to request an independent educational evaluation (IEE). This is an evaluation by someone outside the school, at no cost to you. Learn more about what to do if you disagree with the evaluation results.

• Read the report before the meeting

  Reading about your child's challenges can bring up a lot of feelings. That's one reason to ask for the evaluation report before the eligibility determination meeting. It's your right to see it in advance.

  A lot of the details might not make sense when you’re reading them on your own. You may start to feel sad or surprised, maybe even relieved. But if you’re seeing the report for the first time during the meeting, it can be really hard to set aside that flood of emotion.

  Reading the report in advance gives you the best chance to ask important questions and advocate for your child during the meeting.

• Go through the 13 disability categories

  At the eligibility determination meeting, the team will go over the 13 disability categories in IDEA. Hearing them read aloud can feel strange. Some of the category names may sound vague or outdated, and they may not sound anything like the child you know. These are legal terms, not descriptions of who your child is.

  To get an IEP, your child must meet the criteria for at least one category.

  The four most common categories:

  • Specific learning disability (which covers things like dyslexia, dyscalculia, and written expression disorder)

  • Other health impairment (which covers ADHD)

  • Speech or language impairment

  • Autism

  The remaining categories:

  • Intellectual disability

  • Emotional disturbance

  • Orthopedic impairment

  • Visual impairment (which includes blindness)

  • Hearing impairment (which includes deafness)

  • Deaf-blindness

  • Traumatic brain injury

  • Multiple disabilities

  • Developmental delay

  Some states may use slightly different categories. For example, a state might split speech and language into two separate categories.

• Why schools use these categories

  IDEA has 13 disability categories, but that doesn’t mean it only covers 13 disabilities. The categories cover such a broad range that even the rarest condition could fit in somewhere.

  But having these categories helps weed out kids who are struggling for reasons other than a disability, like missing a lot of school.

  If your child has more than one disability, it’s a good idea to list each one in the IEP. Labels like “primary” and “secondary” can’t be used to limit the services your child gets.

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• Learn about “adverse impact”

  To qualify for an IEP, the school needs to determine that your child has a disability and that the disability negatively impacts how your child is doing in school.

  There’s a jargony phrase that schools use for this: the disability needs to “adversely affect” your child’s educational performance.

  Not all kids with disabilities will qualify for IEPs. Maybe your child doesn’t need specially designed instruction or services. Maybe all your child needs is some assistive technology or classroom accommodations. If so, the school may recommend a 504 plan.

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