The Individualized Educational Program (IEP) binder: We love to hate it 

Shannon Sankstone

If you’ve ever stared down a stack of papers after an Individualized Educational Program (IEP) meeting and thought, “I cannot do this,” well, welcome to the club.  

It seems unreal at times.

“I knew I had to get this organized,” Jen Fischer (not her real name), a mother in the Olympia School District, told me. “I felt like an idiot. All of the papers looked the same, and I had no idea what they meant or what they were for.” 

Fischer created a binder, and all her problems were, most definitely, not solved.

“It was bulky, and only got worse every semester. Emails, progress reports, data sheets. It was too much," she said.

The story of the IEP binder 

“At one point,” Fischer lamented, “I was lugging around a 3-inch binder crammed with every piece of paper imaginable to every school meeting. It fell on my foot. I thought I’d broken a bone.” 

While the story of the IEP binder sending a mom to the emergency room certainly resonates (and amuses), the actual story told by the IEP binder is your child’s education. All the experiences, evaluations, teacher notes, goals met and unmet, progress charts, and emails you wish you didn’t have to write. 

The why of the IEP binder 

I once worked with a parent who brought a color-coded binder to every meeting. Every time the team questioned a service or accommodation, she flipped to a document and offered them the evaluation recommending the very item the team was questioning. 

She didn’t argue. She didn’t beg. She used the binder to advocate for her child. 

The what and when of the IEP binder 

The first step in developing the “love” in the love-hate relationship, is to determine what you need in the binder, and when. 

 A good rule of thumb is to include only those documents you will need for the current IEP. That includes: 

• The current IEP 

• Progress reports and work samples 

• Most recent evaluations 

• Communications (emails, communication logs, contacts list) 

 All prior years’ documents go into your electronic storage system. Avoid hoarder thinking! If you need something from a previous year, make sure that you are able to access your folders in the cloud. 

The way of the IEP binder 

As I wrote previously, you don’t need a perfect system, just one that’s usable. Here’s what I recommend: 

• Sections by type: Evaluations, IEPs, Prior Written Notices (PWNs), progress reports, communication logs, outside reports, etc. 

• Chronological order within sections: Start with the oldest document and build forward. 

• A “working copy” of the IEP: Highlight, annotate, write your questions in the margins. 

• A document log: Track key documents with date, title, and why it matters. 

When you pull a document from your binder faster than the district can find it, the room shifts. 

Advocacy strategies 

I could write endlessly on how the IEP binder can be used to advocate, both in and out of IEP meetings.

For now, lets look at Fischer’s example of how her newly organized (and lighter) IEP binder improved her advocacy: 

Fischer’s child struggled with focus, as well as several other executive functioning skills. She collected data and included it in the IEP binder: 

1. At parent teacher conferences, Fischer and her husband asked each teacher about the child’s ability to focus. They took notes of the responses, and asked for examples. That night, they sent individual emails thanking the teacher for the conference, and summarizing the challenges and examples related to focusing.
2. The BASC-III assessment highlighted several areas of executive functioning deficits. There were no recommendations, so Fischer consulted with a community-based psychologist and obtained a letter. 
3. Finally, Fischer added work samples, and downloaded the online gradebook. The entries included several missing and incomplete assignments. The teachers also provided comments that supported Fischer’s position. 

You might think that sharing all of this at an IEP team meeting persuaded the school to add a focus goal? 

Nope. 

The school refused again. However, having gone through all of this, Fischer had enough evidence to write a special education community complaint. Their child’s IEP was not developed with ambitious goals, and thus didn’t allow their child to make meaningful progress. 

Homework 

This week, I want you to think about a specific request you may have for the IEP team, or a concern rolling around in your brain.  

Create a document log for this issue. Every piece of paper that supports or debunks this issue should be entered in the log.  

Read through the log, critically. Are there patterns? Is more than half of the paper trail leading to your request? What other kinds of evidence would be supportive? Review, revise, refine, and then take it to the IEP team. 

The school might still say no … and if they do, you have everything you need to continue advocating. 

Next week ...

Brenda’s in a bind! 

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.