Making angels sing: The Individualized Education Program goals edition 

Shannon Sankstone

A Thurston county mom of a fifth grader and I recently reviewed a draft of her daughter’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). The mother, Stacie Billings (not her real name), understood that executive functioning (EF) skill delays impacted her daughter’s writing.  

Billings reported, “My daughter struggled to remember and follow instructions, doesn’t begin her assignments, and frequently lost her work.”

Typical expressions of EF skill delays or deficits in working memory, task initiation and organization, all of which were noted in the student’s most recent reevaluation for special education. 

And then there is the IEP goal. 

With these skill deficits in mind, we took a look-see of the first English Language Arts (ELA) goal: 

By June 2026, given a writing prompt and access to grade-level tools and resources, the student will produce a clear, coherent paragraph that is appropriate to task, purpose, and audience in four out of five opportunities, as measured by writing samples and teacher rubric. 

As a SMART goal, it is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. It keeps the academic rigor of the Washington State's sixth-grade ELA standard ELA.6.W.4, standard intact, while providing a framework for progress monitoring: writing samples and a teacher rubric. It also provides the environmental conditions of prompting and grade-level tools. 

But is it enough? 

In a word, no.  

The goal is generic, mediocre at best. (Perhaps written by the digital demigod?) It doesn’t include the student, her needs or her strengths.

“It was a goal. That’s all, nothing that was individualized to my child,” Billings told me.  

Catherine Pacilio, a former middle school special education teacher and founder of Pacilio EF Coaching, was a bit more direct. 

“We have to stop pretending a single goal captures the full scope of writing. Kids need feedback loops, models, scaffolds. They need support, not just standards,” she said.  

“IEP goals often sound polished on paper but fall apart in practice,” Pacilio added. “Without context,” she continued, “what type of writing, what supports, how feedback is built in, you’re left with a sentence that looks good in a spreadsheet but doesn’t do much for a struggling student in a noisy classroom.” 

We got to work. 

I am passionate about celebrating students strengths as the building blocks of IEP goals.

“My daughter is a visual learner,” Billings shared. “She understands the whole before she considers the pieces,” a type of learning known as Gestalt learning.  

And we couldn’t ignore the student’s executive functioning needs.

“Even before a student writes a word, three executive functioning skills are already at play: task initiation, planning and working memory,” Catherine explained. “If any one of those breaks down, the paragraph might never make it to the page.” 

A goal that focuses only on output misses all of that. 

With a good idea of strengths and needs, we wrote suggested improvements as parent input into the IEP. With Billings permission, I have copied and pasted the parent input: 

• Grade-level tools and resources: Please specify tools, such as graphic organizers, concepts maps, exemplars of excellent paragraphs. 

• Clear, coherent: Please include the criteria for “clear” and “coherent” in the teacher rubric.  

• Paragraph: Please provide the definition of a paragraph, such as sentences, sentence structure, vocabulary expectations. 

• Appropriate to task, purpose: Please list the types of writing, such as narrative, persuasive or prose. Also, clarify if this is impromptu writing or an assessment that includes a specific number of drafts and feedback sessions from peers and teachers. 

• Audience: Please provide details in the assignment that clarify audience. 

• Teacher rubric: Please provide a copy of the rubric and attach it to this IEP. Please maintain rubrics in the educational file of the student, and email an electronic copy when each paragraph is assessed. 

But wait! There’s more! 

It really, really … I mean really bugs me when accommodations are not tied directly to goals. For this goal, we requested specific accommodations that help Billings’ daughter use her strengths to develop executive functioning skills: 

1. Instructions provided verbally, in writing and electronically. 
2. Feedback conferences with the ELA teacher that focus on improvements identified using the assessment rubric. 
3. Check-ins with the teacher at the beginning of each paragraph assignment. Teacher to provide exemplar and discuss strengths per the assessment rubric. 

I’ll be real with you here: These were requests, not demands. In the IEP team meeting, compromises were made, as they should be. 

Homework 

It’s been a while since I’ve given you homework. This week, I encourage you to review your child’s IEP goals. Do they reflect your child, their strengths and needs? Is there a progress monitoring tool available to you to review? 

Next Week 

All the feels.

This column is written by Shannon Sankstone, she is an Olympia-based special education advocate and the owner of Advocacy Unlocked. She may be reached at ShannonSankstone@theJOLTnews.com.