I get nervous and anxious sending out my caseload of IEPS. My students have 30 to 50 pages and when you have 10 of them, who’s going to read 500 pages at the beginning of the school year? (Other than the case manager, of course)!
Instead, I use back-to-school IEP Profile Sheets or IEP Overviews… Whatever you call them, they are an easy way to share important, pertinent student information at the beginning of the school year. They give a snapshot of the most valuable info from the students’ IEPs to the staff that will be working with them that school year.
How to complete an IEP Profile Sheet
Pull up each student’s IEP, FIE, and respective profile sheet. If you’re able, use a multi-monitor setup, it saves time dragging and dropping instead of cycling through tabs.
Go through each section of the FIE and IEP and place them into the matching parts of the profile sheet. If your district or state words things differently, you need to include extra info, feel free to tweak it to meet your needs! You can get this version for free at the end of this blog!
Cognitive Weaknesses
For the Cognitive weakness section, you want to search the FIE.
Your FIEs should have testing information relating to crystallized knowledge, or the G’s, which you want to include if you have it. Also list any other formal testing, parent info, or previous teacher info that could be useful.
What are the G’s?
The G’s are our general cognitive ability. Cognitive abilities are brain-based skills we need to carry out any task from the simplest to the most complex. 1 See all 7 areas here!
Also, read more about cognitive functioning in educational applications.
If you want more detailed information on each G, start on page 42 of this SLD webinar.
Support
In the support section, you can type, copy or snip a screenshot of your students’ schedules. Include anything that may be relevant such as specific minutes in specials or content areas.
Accomodations
This section can be as detailed or summarized as you need it to be. Include any specific supports the teachers may need. Such as the math teacher needs to know what math accommodations to use.
This is also a good place to list if they have a BIP (Behavior Intervention Plan), AT (assistive technology), and PCS (Personal Care Services). If they do receive any of the above, attach or note what those services, supports, materials, devices, strategies, and minutes may look like.
State Assessment
In Texas, we have a regular STAAR assessment that is administered online(or will be by next year) and a modified assessment called STAAR-ALT2. My students, because they have a functional, communication, and educational deficit qualify for the STAAR-ALT2. Therefore, I’ve listed that in my section. Feel free to add or change to match your situation.
PIN FOR LATER:Goals
Self-contained specifics
In my self-contained classroom, I need to know how a child communicates – verbally, visually, a device, some combo of all of them. I also need to know what their hygiene strengths and needs are and if they’re on a schedule. What medical, needs or sensitivities do I need to be aware of. And lastly, positive reinforcement works best for them, sometimes I’ll also include what triggers them in this section too (ie. telling them ‘no,’ or raising your voice, physical touch, etc.). In this section, under safety concerns, I would list any seizure concerns, fall risk, wheelchair/stroller preferences of the parents, elopement, food allergies, etc.
If you’re not able to find this information from the IEP, FIE, or previous teachers, ask the parents! If you have a class/campus tour, meet the teacher, phone call, or written communication, ask them these questions to get information. You can also send out a beginning of the year survey to get even more info!
It does not replace the IEP
The Back to School profile sheets are supplemental and will give a quick snapshot of the student. Therefore, you must still give them access to the full IEP, which for us digital is less waste, easier to distribute, and when you need to search in an IEP, it’s a lot easier to find!
Review In detail
At the beginning of the year, I schedule meetings with support staff and inclusion staff.
The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the students, review their profile sheets and talk about any questions, concerns, and scheduling issues we might have.
I also remind them, they will be receiving digital copies of the IEPs (if I haven’t already shared them) and they are still required to digitally sign for them and read them.
share gened teacher representative list
I also assign each inclusion teacher (mainly specials teacher) to each kid so one teacher isn’t attending all of their IEP meetings as a general education representative. I share this Google Doc with our ARD clerk and the respective teachers on this list. I like having a ‘live’ document so I can move students around (if needed), remove students or add in new ones. Then when it’s time for the student’s IEP meeting, I remind the GenEd. teacher of the meeting day and time a week or 2 before.
Save copies
Store any extra back to school profile sheets for schedule changes(to give to new teachers), or give to any new support staff that starts later in the year. Also, keep a blank copy for that new student that will pop up on your caseload later in the year.
As we conclude, I did want to mention, these take a little bit of time to complete and if you have larger caseloads… it can be very time-consuming. But, you are already having to read through the IEPs at the beginning of the year and this makes it more interactive and helps you actually read and remember student info. So, keep that in mind when budgeting your time for your back-to-school profile sheets. I usually have 8-12 kids and it can take at least 3 hours to complete.
- Traylor, Rodney, and April Wilson. “Using the FIE to Make Data Driven Decisions.” Grand Prairie ISD, 11 July 2017.
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