Sherry: Our district only allows academic goals, not ‘functional or ADL goals’, even if they are called for. What does the law say, and where?
Goals: FUNCTIONAL GOALS/CURRICULUM VS ACADEMIC
Special Education Law and Advocacy
My sons IEP goals haven’t changed in four years. He had mastery level 3 and 4 and has been an honor roll student up until this year. His mastery level dropped to a 2 and he has all E’s for grades. The school is refusing to acknowledge this, I feel ignored all the time. What can I do?
If you have not done so, you can write to the district special ed director, & request an IEP meeting to address your concerns. You can also use the state dispute resolution processes. Your state parent training and information project can provide you info on these processes. http://www.parentcenterhub.org/find-your-center
Sherry –
A similar question was asked on here recently. I’ve pasted part of my response to that, below.
I also want to add that your state special education regulations may provide you with additional support in this area. You can contact your local parent center for help finding this, as well as ideas on how to move forward and get the school to include functional info and goals in the IEP: http://www.parentcenterhub.org/find-your-center/.
The purpose of IDEA is to ensure that children with disabilities are prepared for future education, employment, and independent living (IDEA regs – 34 CFR § 300.1).
When the school evaluations, they must gather relevant functional, developmental, and academic information about your child (§ 300.304).
When the Team develops the IEP, they must consider this same academic, developmental, and functional information (§ 300.324).
And the IEP must include a statement of your child’s current academic and functional performance, and measurable annual academic and functional goals (§ 300.320).