How to Organize the IEP Background Section

Filling out the history section on an IEP can get cumbersome, especially as students get older. I have students in eighth grade who come to me with information about their gestation. If there is nothing of note in the gestation that is relevant to the current educational profile of the student, leave it out!

This advice is how I write an IEP, your school district may have other expectations and requirements so put their priorities first. I am not an expert, I’ve just been doing this for a while and have seen hundreds and hundreds of IEPs written by different people.

History:

Use this section to include all relevant information about the child’s background. They key here is relevant. You can talk all about the time that they fell and broke their arm in fourth grade, but it’s not usually relevant for a 10th grader who has an IEP for their Specific Learning Disability in Written Expression. The typical formula that I use is, age and grade level of the student; followed by a brief history of the schools they’ve attended.

Finally I include information of when they initially qualified for a disability, what the concern was, and what goals they were given. After I state that information, I include any information of how their services and goal areas have changed since then. This section can be longer or shorter depending on how long they’ve been on an IEP.

Strengths and Interests:

I use this section to explain all of the students strengths, what classes they do well in. If it is a new evaluation I will high light the areas that they did well. I also include information on what the child likes to do outside of school. This includes extracurricular activities that they do.

Areas for Further Development:

This is the section of the IEP where I summarize the areas in which the student needs support. This is similar to the information that I put on the goal pages as the current performance level. I identify where the student needs more help. And I also summarize how this presents in the classroom.

Summary of Evaluation Results:

This is the section of the IEP where you include all the relevant testing information. Unlike some others, I typically only include the most recent evaluations. I do not keep information in there from outdated testing, unless for a strange reason it is relevant. The only time I could think to keep outdated information would be if there is enough of a change that it is worth mentioning. Or if for some reason, the evaluator is saying that testing information is not valid, I would include a previous battery to show where the student was prior.

Disability Category:

This category is easy, this is where you put what category the student qualifies under. I always write it as a complete sentence, but I work with people who simply state the category.